As a member of the Palmach, Rabin was involved in bold raids in Syria and Lebanon against enemies of the emerging state of Israel, including the Vichy government of France and the Germans. In 1944, at the age of twenty-two,he was promoted to deputy battalion commander. He subsequently engineered several insurrections--primarily aimed at curtailing enemy communications and disrupting supply lines--in support of the underground Jewish force that would one day become the Israeli army.
During the 1950s, Rabin rose through the ranks of the Israeli Defense Forces, cementing his reputation as a tough military leader while he worked to train, build, and equip the army. In 1964, he was named army chief of staff. In this position, Rabin focused on building a strong defense around the fledgling nation and actively sought United States support for the task. His brash, combative rhetoric directed at the Arab states (especially Syria) served Israeli morale well, and when the Six-Day War erupted in 1967, the strategies Rabin had devised--including the massive destruction of enemy aircraft on the ground--tilted the odds in Israel's favor. The Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria were stunned by the swift pre--emptive strike, which tripled the amount of territory under Israel's control and made heroes out of a few brilliant military leaders, Dayan and Rabin among them.
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