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Yadin was born in 1917 to noted archaeologist Eleazar Sukenik and educationalist
and women's rights activist Hasya Sukenik-Feinsod.[3] He joined the Haganah at age
15, and served there in a variety of different capacities. In 1946, however, he
left the Haganah following an argument with its commander Yitzhak Sadeh over the
inclusion of a machine gun as part of standard squad equipment.

He was a university student when, in 1948, shortly before the State of Israel
declared its independence, he was called back to active service by David Ben-
Gurion. He was Israel's Head of Operations during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, and
was responsible for many of the key decisions made during the course of that war.
In June 1948 he threatened to resign during the Generals' Revolt during which he
accused Ben-Gurion of attempting "to transform the army as a whole into an army of
one political party (Mapai)".[4]

Yadin was appointed Chief of Staff of the IDF on 9 November 1949, following the
resignation of Yaakov Dori, and served in that capacity for three years. He
resigned on 7 December 1952, over disagreements with then prime minister and
defense minister David Ben-Gurion about cuts to the military budget, which he
argued should be at least one third of the national budget.[5] By age thirty-five,
he had completed his military career.

Archaeology
Upon leaving the military, he devoted himself to research and began his life's work
in archeology. In 1956 he received the Israel Prize in Jewish studies,[6] for his
doctoral thesis on the translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. As an archeologist, he
excavated some of the most important sites in the region, including the Qumran
Caves, Masada, Hazor, Tel Megiddo and caves in Judean Desert where artifacts from
Bar Kokhba revolt were found. In 1960 he initiated scholarly archeological
exploration of caves south of Ein Gedi, an enterprise approved by Ben-Gurion in
which Israel Defense Forces rendered considerable support. He wrote about the
expedition and its findings in his 1971 book Bar-Kokhba: The Rediscovery of the
Legendary Hero of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome. Yadin considered the
Solomonic Gate at Tel Gezer to be the highpoint of his career. He was sometimes
forced to deal with the theft of important artifacts, occasionally by prominent
political and military figures. In one instance, where the thefts were commonly
attributed to the famous one-eyed general Moshe Dayan, he remarked: "I know who did
it, and I am not going to say who it is, but if I catch him, I'll poke out his
other eye, too."

Even as an archeologist, Yadin never completely abandoned public life. On the eve
of the Six-Day War, he served as a military adviser to prime minister Levi Eshkol,
and following the Yom Kippur War, he was a member of the Agranat Commission that
investigated the actions that led to the war.

Political career
Yigael Yadin
Knessets 9
Faction represented in Knesset
1977–1978 Democratic Movement for Change
1978–1981 Democratic Movement
1981 Independent
Ministerial roles
1977–1981 Deputy Prime Minister
In 1976 Yadin formed the Democratic Movement for Change, commonly known by its
Hebrew acronym Dash, together with Professor Amnon Rubinstein, Shmuel Tamir, Meir
Amit, Meir Zorea, and many other prominent public figures. The new party seemed to
be an ideal solution for many Israelis who were fed up with alleged corruption in
the Labor Alignment (the dominant party in Israel from its founding and up to that
time), which included the Yadlin affair, the suicide of Housing Minister Avraham
Ofer, and Leah Rabin's illegal dollar-denominated account in the United States.
Furthermore, Dash was a response to the increasing sense of frustration and despair
in the aftermath of the 1973 war, and the social and political developments that
followed in its wake. Many people regarded Yadin, a warrior and a scholar, as the
quintessential prototype of the ideal Israeli, untainted by corruption, who could
lead the country on a new path.

In the 1977 elections, which transformed the Israeli political landscape, the new
party did remarkably well for its first attempt to enter the Knesset, winning 15 of
the 120 seats. As a result of the election, Likud party leader Menachem Begin was
initially able to form a coalition without Dash (or parties to its left),
significantly lowering the bargaining power of Dash. Dash joined the coalition
after a few months. As the new Deputy Prime Minister, Yadin played a pivotal role
in many events that took place, particularly the contacts with Egypt, which
eventually led to the signing of the Camp David Accords and the peace treaty
between Israel and its neighbor. Nevertheless, Dash itself proved to be a failure,
and the party broke up into numerous splinter factions; Yadin joined the Democratic
Movement, but it too split up and he sat as an independent MK for the remainder of
his term. During a cabinet meeting, May 1981, while still Deputy Prime Minister, he
accused Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan of "lying to the government" and told Prime
Minister Begin "You have lost control of the defence establishment."[7] He retired
from politics in 1981.