Avigdor Ben-Gal

Ben-Gal was born in Łódź, Poland, in 1936 with the birth name Janusz Ludwig.[3] After the outbreak of the Second World War, his family fled to the Soviet Union. He and his sister reached Mandatory Palestine in 1943 with the Tehran Children after their parents disappeared during the journey.[1][3] A later retrospective account gives a different family history, saying that the family reached Uzbekistan and that his mother died there of typhus in front of her children.[4]

Ben-Gal enlisted in the IDF in 1955 and joined the Armored Corps. After fighting in the 1956 Sinai Campaign, he completed an armored-officer course.[1][2]

Ben-Gal fought with the 7th Brigade at Abu Agheila during the Sinai Campaign. He qualified as an officer after the war and commanded a tank platoon in the brigade’s 52nd Battalion in 1958–1959, followed by other brigade command posts through 1963. He later led the Armored Corps tank-commanders course and served as operations officer of the 7th Brigade.[1] During an operational patrol, his vehicle struck a mine, leaving him with a limp.[3]

In the 1967 Six-Day War, Ben-Gal served as operations officer of the 200th, or Iron Fist, Brigade on the Egyptian front.[1][2] He attended the IDF Command and Staff College in 1967–1968, then commanded the 79th Battalion from 1968 to 1970. The battalion fought in the War of Attrition in the Suez Canal sector. Ben-Gal subsequently served as deputy commander of reserve armored brigade 205 and commanded a tank-company commanders’ course.[1]

From 1972 to 1974, Ben-Gal commanded the regular 7th Armored Brigade, also known as the Sa’ar me-Golan formation. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it fought as part of Division 36 on the Syrian front, defending central and northern Golan positions and advancing into Syrian territory.[1][2] The brigade was moved to the Golan to reinforce the 188th Brigade despite having little prior training in the area and limited familiarity with its terrain.[2]

Ben-Gal received a war alert at 10 a.m. on Yom Kippur and called his battalion and company commanders to a meeting in the northern Golan. He told them, “Gentlemen, war will break out today,” warned that Egypt and Syria would attack in coordination, and ordered preparations and an end to the fast. Before the war, he had insisted on intensive gunnery practice and exercises lasting a week or longer in which the brigade operated at night. At noon, he drove to the front and observed the Syrian lines through binoculars.[6]

Syria committed about 1,400 tanks to the offensive, while the 188th and 7th Brigades began the war with about 177 tanks combined. Only about 30 Israeli tanks remained operational on the Golan after the first day. Despite this disparity, the 7th Brigade under Ben-Gal made a decisive contribution to blocking the Syrian offensive in the northern Golan.[2][3]

A later profile recounts that Ben-Gal sent Lieutenant Colonel Meshulam Rets, commander of the 71st Battalion, to close a gap near Mount Hermonit. Rets was killed on October 9 and posthumously received the Medal of Courage.[4] Former battalion commander Avigdor Kahalani later said Ben-Gal withheld news that Kahalani’s brother had been killed in Sinai so that he could continue commanding in the absence of a replacement. Ben-Gal told him after the ceasefire.[7]

Syrian forces were driven from the Golan by October 10, except for the Hermon outpost, which remained in Syrian hands until the final day of fighting.[2]

After commanding the 7th Brigade, Ben-Gal led Division 36 in Northern Command in 1974–1975 and then became an assistant in the General Staff’s Operations Branch. Following academic studies in 1976–1977, he was promoted to major general and appointed head of Northern Command.[1] He also helped plan Operation Thunderbolt, the 1976 Entebbe hostage-rescue operation.[2]

Ben-Gal led Northern Command from 1977 to 1981. During that period, the IDF conducted operations against Palestinian terrorist organizations in southern Lebanon, including Operation Litani in March 1978, which followed the Coastal Road terrorist attack.[1][2] In the 1982 Lebanon War, he commanded Corps 446, whose forces fought the Syrian army in the Beqaa Valley.[1]

An essayist who accompanied Ben-Gal, Yossi Ben-Hanan, and Meir Dagan on a 1982 trip from Byblos/Jbeil toward the Syrian line later called the outing a “raid,” a description that angered Ben-Hanan.[8]

Ben-Gal left regular IDF service in 1983 after not being appointed chief of staff.[1][2] Associates quoted in a later profile said the appointment had been expected and that colleagues turned Defense Minister Moshe Arens against him. Arens said he had selected among three candidates, had indicated that Ben-Gal might be appointed in a later round, and did not regret choosing Moshe Levy.[4]

After his military career, Ben-Gal became director-general of Tahal, the water-planning company, and later chaired Israel Aerospace Industries. As IAI chairman, he sought to advance privatization. In May 1997, a confrontation with workers escalated when a crowd waited at the factory gates, his car window was smashed, and police escorted him away.[4]

Ben-Gal publicly criticized what he regarded as political involvement in the IDF. In a lecture, he pointed to regional-command chiefs Gadi Eisenkot, Gadi Shamni, and Yoav Gallant having served as military secretaries to prime ministers and cited this as evidence of political involvement. A BESA Center study also reports that Ben-Gal disclosed a private remark he attributed to then-chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi: “I have no one to work with in the army. They’re all politicians.”[5]

Ben-Gal is especially associated with the 7th Armored Brigade’s defense of the northern Golan during the Yom Kippur War and with his subsequent command of Northern Command.[2][3] An Institute for National Security Studies study uses him as the starting point for its count of Northern Command leaders, stating that 15 major generals have led the command since his tenure.[9] Ben-Gal died on February 13, 2016.[1]

A 2017 retrospective profile reports that, during a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee visit, Ben-Gal argued that Jewish settlement in the Golan Heights should be limited to preserve IDF training areas. It also attributes to him a statement comparing Arabs to cancer and says Defense Minister Ezer Weizman dismissed him for lack of tact before reversing the decision that evening.[4]

Accounts of the 1983 chief-of-staff selection also differ. Ben-Gal’s associates said he had been expected to receive the appointment and was undermined, while Moshe Arens described the decision as a choice among three candidates and denied promising him the post.[4] Ben-Gal was arrested in June 1998 on suspicion of bribery and breach of trust in an affair involving Ariel Sharon. The case was closed in April 1999 after investigators found insufficient evidence.[4][2]