He was appointed Deputy Commander of Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit, in 1975 and took part in Operation Entebbe the following year.

He was appointed Commander of the Paratroopers Brigade in 1986, and led its forces in counterinsurgency operations in the South Lebanon security zone.

His rapid rise continued; in 1997, Mofaz was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Commander of the Operations Directorate.

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.

While he was known for claiming, "Israel has the most moral army in the world,"[6] 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, to create a security "buffer zone" along the Rafah border.

[9] 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).

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.

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.

[11] In 2008, with Israel's then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, being pressured to resign due to corruption charges, Mofaz announced that he would run for the leadership of the Kadima party.

[12][13] Mofaz accepted the Kadima primary's result, despite his lawyer, Yehuda Weinstein's appeal advice, and telephoned Livni congratulating her.

Placed second on the Kadima list, Mofaz retained his seat in the 2009 elections, but lost his cabinet position after Likud formed the government.

[14] Mofaz became Vice Prime Minister as part of a deal reached for a government of national unity with Binyamin Netanyahu.

[16] Mofaz had Kadima withdraw from the government coalition over Netanyahu's indecision over a draft reform law and warned that the prime minister was trying to patch together a majority for a vote to plunge the region into war.

[17] In 2013 Kadima, only four years after having been the ruling party, received a mere 2% of the votes, barely passing meeting the electoral threshold of the Knesset.