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Jerusalem - Former IDF Chief Moshe Yaalon has a lot in his mind: Israel's leaders are corrupt, the political discourse is defeatist, media spins are the rule and too many people have inappropriate pull over power. But it's not personal, he says, it's a matter of principle

IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon was relieved of his command on February 14, 2005. Then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz spun the story to look like all that happened was that Yaalon's tenure was simply not extended for a fourth year – a near-automatic extension given to all other chiefs of staff – but as far as he is concerned he was dismissed.

One year after being let go, Yaalon began putting pen to paper. "I felt I had to commit my thoughts and more importantly, my observations to paper," he says in the introduction to his newly published

These observations, he told Yedioth Ahronoth, were weighing on him so much that he felt compelled to share them "with anyone who cares about the Zionist enterprise." His book, he says, is the answer to a discourse "saturated by political interests and rating considerations, and victimized by media spins."

The infamous dismissal was allotted only a short chapter in the book. The night, he writes, "Began with a ceremony honoring the wounded soldiers of the Engineering Corps, and ended with a small consultation which included myself, Mofaz and several other senior officers. Afterwards, Mofaz asked to see me in private. He told me that he and the prime minister have decided that the chief of staff's tenure would be limited to three years, instead of the traditional four.

"We were sitting in the event director's office, with half-empty plates of food around us. There was something very appropriate about this inappropriate act taking place in such an inappropriate place and time. Mofaz was obviously uncomfortable, but he was given an assignment and he carried it out. I knew perfectly well who was pulling the stings."

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