Avigdor Kahalani

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Avigdor Kahalani
born 16. june 1944
Place of birth	Ness Ziona
Allegiance	IDF
Years of service	1962 to 1992
Rank	Brigadier General
Commands	7th Brigade 36th Division
Battles/wars	Six-Day War Yom Kippur War
Awards	Distinguished Service Medal Medal of Valor

Brigadier-General (Tat Aluf), Avigdor Kahalani was born in Israel in 1944. He was a career officer in the IDF, achieving the rank of Brigadier-General. In the Yom Kippur War (1973), he served as commander of an armored battalion on the Golan Heights. Kahalani received the Distinguished Service Medal for service during the Six Day War, and the Medal of Valor for service during the Yom Kippur War. During this war he commanded a hastily assembled group of tanks and crews from different armour units (The Israeli forces were in a disjointed state due to the surprise combined Arab attack which commenced the war). The group repelled a vastly superiour Syrian force which overrun the Israeli positions in the first days of the war, in the Golan Heights region of northern Israel. The battle proved to be one of the turning points of the war. After the war, the valley where it took place was littered with dozens of burned Syrian tanks and was renamed "Emek Ha-Bacha" ("valley of sorrow").

He holds a B.A. degree in History from Tel-Aviv University and an M.A. in Political Science from Haifa University. He also attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and graduated form the National Defense College.

Elected to the Knesset for the Labor Party in 1992, he served on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense and the Education and Culture Committees. He has been active in the Committee for the Rescue of Jews from Yemen and Chairman of the Golan Lobby in the Knesset. He is also chairman of the Friends of LIBI Foundation and president of the Israeli Association for Drug Rehabilitation.

He was one of the founders of The Third Way, a party he led in the 1996 Knesset elections.

Avigdor Kahalani served as Minister of Public Security from June 1996-July 1999. The Third Way party obtained less than the required minimum for election to the 15th Knesset in May 1999.

He is the author of several books: "The Heights of Courage: A Tank Leader's War"; "On the Golan" (1975) and "A Warrior's Way" (1989).