Gadi Eizenkot
Born 1960
Place of birth	Eilat
Allegiance	Israel
Service/branch	Operations Directorate, Northern Command
Years of service	1978—
Rank	Aluf
Commands held	Northern Command
Battles/wars	First Lebanon War, Second Lebanon War

Aluf Gadi Eizenkot (born 1960) is a general in the Israel Defense Forces and the current head of Israeli Northern Command. After joining the IDF Eizenkot was assigned to the Golani Brigade, which he himself would eventually command from 1997-8. During that time he received a B.A. in History from Tel Aviv University and attended the US Army and Security Studies course. In 1999 Eizenkot was selected to be the Military Secretary for the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense under then Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Since then he has commanded the 366th Division and the West Bank Division. He was promoted to head of Israeli Operations Directorate in June 2005. After Maj. Gen. Udi Adam resigned in October 2006 amid criticism over his conduct in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, Eizenkot replaced him as head of the Northern Command.^[1]

[edit] Strategic vision

Eisenkot is credited with being the most prominent exponent of the Dahiya doctrine, a proposed and approved defense strategy of Israel under which "Israel finally realizes that Arabs should be accountable for their leaders' acts"^[2] It is named after a Hizbullah stronghold in Beirut that Israel flattened from the air in the 34-day Second Lebanon War. He expressed the doctrine's premise as follows: "What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on. [...] We will apply disproportionate force on it and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases. [...] This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.^[3] There would be no mercy shown "when it comes to hitting the national infrastructure of a state that, in practice, is controlled by Hizbullah... In practical terms, the Palestinians in Gaza are all Khaled Mashaal, the Lebanese are all Nasrallah, and the Iranians are all Ahmadinejad."^[4] Dahiya has multiple spellings eg Dahieh or Dahiyeh.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Bio from IDF

v • d • e Heads of Northern Command Carmel (1948–49) · Avidar (1949–52) · Dayan (1952) · Simhoni (1952–54) · Tzadok (1954–56) · Rabin (1956–59) · Zorea (1959–62) · Yoffe (1962–64) · Elazar (1964–69) · Gur (1969-72) · Hofi (1972–74) · Gur (1974) · Eitan (1974–77) · Ben-Gal (1977–81) · Drori (1981–83) · Or (1983–86) · Peled (1986–91) · Mordechai (1991–94) · Levin (1994–98) · Ashkenazi (1998–2002) · Gantz (2002–05) · Adam (2005–06) · Eizenkot (2006–)