Amos Yadlin

Amos Yadlin is a retired Israeli Air Force (IAF) deputy commander, previously director of the Shin Bet and current director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

Yadlin served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for forty years, ten of which he was a member of the IDF general staff. From 2006-2010 he was the IDF’s Chief of Defense Intelligence. From 2004-2006, he served as the IDF attaché to the United States, and in February 2002 he earned the rank of major general and was named commander of the IDF Military Colleges and the National Defense College.

Yadlin earned his B.A. in economics and business administration from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 1985, and holds a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, which he received in 1994.

Yadlin is a former deputy commander of the IAF and has commanded two fighter squadrons and two airbases. He served as Head of IAF Planning Department from 1990-1993, and accumulated approximately 5,000 flight hours and flew over 250 combat missions behind enemy lines. He participated in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982, and Operation Opera, Israel’s successful destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981.

Before being appointed as Director of INSS in November 2011, Yadlin joined the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as the Kay Fellow on Israeli national security. Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yadlin has written about national security, force development, intelligence, civil-military relations, and the military ethics of fighting terror.

Sources: Tel Aviv University