Lt. Gen. Mordechai Maklef (1952-1953)

Born in 1920 near Jerusalem, Lt. Gen. Mordechai Maklef was the son of founders of the first modern village outside of Jerusalem – the village of Motza, along the road to Jaffa. During the 1929 Palestine Riots, inhabitants of the neighboring Arab village of Qalunya attacked the Maklef home and killed his entire family. Lt. Gen. Maklef managed to escape the massacre by jumping from a second story window. With his immediate family deceased, Lt. Gen. Maklef was raised by relatives in Jerusalem and Haifa.

 Lt. Gen. Mordechai Maklef

As a teen, Lt. Gen. Maklef was an active member of the Haganah organization and, in World War II, he enlisted in the Palestine Regiment of the British Army. Upon his release from the British Army, Lt. Gen. Maklef remained in Europe, engaged in illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine and acquiring arms for the emerging Jewish state. He later returned to Palestine and rejoined the Haganah.

During Israel’s War of Independence, Lt. Gen. Maklef fought in the Carmeli Brigade as its senior operation officer and later as brigade commander. He also took part in Operation Hiram in which Jewish forces captured Israel’s entire Galilee region. In November 1949, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff to Lt. Gen. Yigal Yadin and senior operations officer of the IDF. Following Lt. Gen. Yadin’s resignation in 1952, Lt. Gen. Maklef, then just 32 years old, was appointed to replace him as the IDF’s third Chief of the General Staff. He agreed to accept the position for a period of one year.

During his year as Chief of Staff, Israel was faced with increasing attacks from Palestinian raiders who attacked Israeli border settlements near the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria. In response, Lt. Gen. Maklef appointed Ariel Sharon to form a commando unit to defend Israeli civilians from raider attacks across the border. Sharon, in turn, created Unit 101, which was later merged into the Paratroopers Brigade.

His time as the IDF’s Chief of Staff was also marked by internal battles with the Ministry of Defense. In 1953, exactly one year following his entry into the position, Lt. Gen. Makleff resigned following repeated demands that relations between the army and the Ministry of Defense be reformed.

He passed away in 1978.