Yadin, Yigael

(formerly Sukenik)

(1917-84)

   Israeli soldier, scholar, and statesman. He was the son of the noted archaeologist Eliezer Lipa Sukenik. Born in Jerusalem, he joined the Hagana at age 15. He left the Hagana in 1945 to pursue his education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem but returned to active duty at the time of preparations for Israel's independence. He became chief of the general staff branch of Hagana headquarters in 1947 and chief of operations of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general staff in 1948, a post he held during the War of Independence (1948—49). In 1949, he became chief of staff of the IDF at age 32 and began to develop the foundations for the reorganization of the IDF into a regular army. He served as head of one of Israel's negotiating teams in the armistice negotiations at Rhodes.

   Yadin resigned his military post in December 1952 in protest over cuts in the military budget and to resume his research as an archaeologist. He received his Ph.D. in archaeology from the Hebrew University and later became professor of archaeology at that institution. From 1955 to 1958, he directed the excavations at Hazor, and in 1960-61, he led explorations of the Judean Desert caves where the Bar Kochba documents were discovered. From 1963 to 1965, he directed the Masada expedition. He was awarded the Israel Prize in Jewish studies in 1956 and the Rothschild Science Prize in 1964. He was the author of numerous publications in the field of archaeology.

   After the Yom Kippur War (1973), he served as one of the members of the Agranat Commission appointed to look into Israel's state of readiness at the time of the outbreak of the war. In 1976, he decided to reenter public life and seek the position of prime minister, arguing that Israel urgently needed political and economic reforms. He seemed to appeal to the Israeli public as a trusted and untainted but fresh political face. That year, he helped to form a new political party—Democratic Movement for Change. The party won an impressive 15 seats in the 1977 election to the nineth Knesset and joined the coalition government led by Likud and Menachem Begin, with Yadin serving as deputy prime minister until 1981.