Former IDF Chief of Intelligence Amos Yadlin on Monday evening officially announced his alignment with the Zionist Camp (Labor/The Movement). Party leader Yitzchak Herzog proudly announced Yadlin’s decision to run on the party ticket in the upcoming elections.

Yadlin, who is also a former Deputy Air Force commander, fighter pilot and IDF attaché to Washington DC, is uninterested in occupying a Knesset seat. The deal is that if Labor is tapped for the presidential mandate and does successfully establish a coalition, then Yadlin will serve as Minister of Defense. If however this does not occur, he will not be a Member of Knesset. In 2011 he was appointed director of the Tel Aviv University Institute for National Security Studies.

This is a win/win for Labor for if the party runs the coalition they benefit from Yadlin and they can have another person in Knesset since Yadlin does not wish to be a MK. A cabinet minister does not have to be a MK.

It has also been learned that Shaul Mofaz was offered an unrealistic slot on the party lineup and Herzog was unwilling to promise he would serve as Minister of Defense, prompting Mofaz’s decision to turn down the offer to join Labor.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)