the future, and as was done for other positions such as that of the President of the State, Defense Minister Amir Peretz appointed Major General Gabi Ashkenazi in 2007 for a period of four years, thus removing the uncertainty regarding the addition of the fourth year. Ashkenazi raised the issue of extending his term to a fifth year. At the end of his term, the Chief of the General Staff (like other senior members of the Israeli defense establishment) has a cooling-off period of three years before he can be elected a Member of the Knesset, be appointed a Minister in the Government or be elected Prime Minister. Legal position The position of ramatkal is defined in the Basic Law: The Military (1976), clause three: The supreme command rank in the military is that of the Chief of the General Staff The Chief of the General Staff is to be placed under the authority of the government and subordinate to the Defense Minister The Chief of the General Staff is to be appointed by the government, according to the recommendation of the Defense Minister The Chief of the General Staff is formally appointed once every three years, with the government often extending the term to four years, and in one occasion, even five. Significance Given the importance of the IDF in Israeli society, the Chief of the General Staff is an important public figure in Israel. On appointment of a new Chief of the General Staff, mass-circulation papers such as Yediot Aharonot and Israel Hayom customarily provide their readers with large-scale portrait photos of the new Chief. Former Chiefs of the General Staff often parlay the prominence of their position into political life, and sometimes the business world. Two Chiefs of the General Staff (Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak) have become Prime Minister of Israel and eleven others (Yigael Yadin, Moshe Dayan, Tzvi Tzur, Haim Bar-Lev, Mordechai Gur, Rafael Eitan, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Shaul Mofaz, Moshe Ya'alon, Gabi Ashkenazi, and Benny Gantz) have served in the Knesset. Of these, only Tzur did not get appointed to the Cabinet. Six former Chiefs of the General Staff (Dayan, Rabin, Barak, Mofaz, Ya'alon, and Gantz) held the position of Defense Minister, widely considered to be one of the most powerful ministerial posts in the country and the immediate civilian superior of the Chief of the General Staff. The current holder of the post (as