appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Commander of the Operations Directorate. In 1998, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff. His term of Chief of Staff was noted for financial and structural reforms of the IDF. His tenure also saw continued operations in the South Lebanon security zone and the withdrawal from the security zone in 2000. But the most significant event in his tenure was the eruption of the Second Intifada in September 2000. The tough tactics undertaken by Mofaz drew widespread concern from the international community but were broadly supported by the Israeli public. Controversy erupted over Israeli actions during the Battle of Jenin, intermittent raids in the Gaza Strip, and the continued isolation of Yasser Arafat. Mofaz had foreseen the wave of violence coming as early as 1999 and prepared the IDF for intense guerrilla warfare in the territories. He fortified posts in the Gaza Strip and kept Israeli military casualties low. While he was known for claiming, "Israel has the most moral army in the world," he drew criticism from both Israeli and international human rights monitoring groups because of the methods he had undertaken, including using armored bulldozers to demolish 2,500 Palestinian civilian homes, displacing thousands, in order to create a security "buffer zone" along the Rafah border. Political career Following a government crisis in 2002, Shaul Mofaz was appointed Defense Minister by Ariel Sharon. Although he supported an agreement with the Palestinians, he was willing to make no compromise in the war against militant groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Tanzim, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. The fact that he had only recently left his position as IDF Chief of Staff prevented him from participating in the 2003 election (by which time Mofaz had joined Sharon's Likud). Nevertheless, Sharon reappointed him as Defense Minister in the new government. On 21 November 2005, Mofaz rejected Sharon's invitation to join his new party, Kadima, and instead announced his candidacy for the leadership of Likud. But, on 11 December 2005, one day after he promised he would never leave the Likud, he withdrew from both the leadership race and the Likud to join Kadima. Following the elections in late March 2006, Mofaz was moved from the position of Defense Minister and received the Transport ministry in the new Cabinet installed on 4 May 2006. In 2008, with Israel's then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, being pressured