Ehud Barak

Ehud Barak
Barak in 2016
10th Prime Minister of Israel
In office 6 July 1999 – 7 March 2001
President	Ezer Weizman Moshe Katsav
Deputy	Yitzhak Mordechai David Levy Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
Preceded by	Benjamin Netanyahu
Succeeded by	Ariel Sharon
Minister of Defense
In office 18 June 2007 – 18 March 2013
Prime Minister	Ehud Olmert Benjamin Netanyahu
Deputy	Matan Vilnai
Preceded by	Amir Peretz
Succeeded by	Moshe Ya'alon
In office 6 July 1999 – 7 March 2001
Prime Minister	Himself
Deputy	Efraim Sneh
Preceded by	Moshe Arens
Succeeded by	Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 22 November 1995 – 18 June 1996
Prime Minister	Shimon Peres
Deputy	Eli Dayan
Preceded by	Shimon Peres
Succeeded by	David Levy
Chief of General Staff
In office 1 April 1991 – 1 January 1995
President	Chaim Herzog Ezer Weizman
Prime Minister	Yitzhak Shamir Yitzhak Rabin
Deputy	Amnon Lipkin-Shahak Matan Vilnai
Minister	Moshe Arens Yitzhak Rabin
Preceded by	Dan Shomron
Succeeded by	Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
Personal details
Born	Ehud Brog (1942-02-12) 12 February 1942 (age 79) Mishmar HaSharon, Mandatory Palestine
Political party	Israel Democratic Party
Other political affiliations	Labor Party (until 2011) Independence (2011–2012) Independent (2012–2019)
Spouse(s)	Nava Cohen (1968–2003; divorced) Nili Priel (since 2007)
Children	3
Alma mater	Hebrew University of Jerusalem Stanford University
Profession	Military officer
Awards	Medal of Distinguished Service Tzalash (4) Legion of Merit DoD Medal for Distinguished Public Service
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	Israel
Branch/service	Israeli Defense Forces
Years of service	1959–1995
Rank	Rav Aluf (Lieutenant general; highest rank)
Unit	Sayeret Matkal
Commands	Chief of General Staff Deputy Chief of General Staff Central Command Military Intelligence Directorate Aman Sayeret Matkal
Battles/wars	Six-Day War Yom Kippur War Operation Entebbe

Ehud Barak (Hebrew: אֵהוּד בָּרָק‎ (help·info), born Ehud Brog; 12 February 1942) is an Israeli general and politician who served as the tenth prime minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until January 2011.^[1] He previously held the posts of defense minister and deputy prime minister under Ehud Olmert and then in Benjamin Netanyahu's second government from 2007 to 2013, as he retired from politics at the end of the tenure,^[2] though he returned in June 2019 with the formation of a new party.^[3]

A lieutenant general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Barak shares with two others the honor of being the most highly decorated soldier in Israel's history, having taken part in many battles and combat missions. He was appointed Chief of General Staff in 1991, serving until 1995. He is a graduate in physics, mathematics, and economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Stanford University.

Biography

Ehud Barak was born on kibbutz Mishmar HaSharon in what was then Mandatory Palestine.^[4] He is the eldest of four sons of Esther (née Godin; 25 June 1914 – 12 August 2013) and Yisrael Mendel Brog (24 August 1910 – 8 February 2002).

His paternal grandparents, Frieda and Reuven Brog, were murdered in Pušalotas (Pushelat) in the northern Lithuania (then ruled by Russian Empire) in 1912, leaving his father orphaned at the age of two. Barak's maternal grandparents, Elka and Shmuel Godin, died at the Treblinka extermination camp during the Holocaust.

Ehud hebraized his family name from "Brog" to "Barak" in 1972. It was during his military service that he met his future wife, Nava (née Cohen, born 8 April 1947 in Tiberias). They had three daughters together: Michal (born 9 August 1970), Yael (born 23 October 1974) and Anat (born 16 October 1981). He has grandchildren.^[5] Barak divorced Nava in August 2003. On 30 July 2007, Barak married Nili Priel (born 25 April 1944) in a small ceremony in his private residence. In his spare time, Barak enjoys reading works by writers such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,^[6] and he is a classical pianist, with many years of study behind him.

Barak earned his bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968, and his master's degree in engineering-economic systems in 1978 from Stanford University, California.

Military career

Barak joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1959. He served in the IDF for 35 years, rising to the position of Chief of the General Staff and the rank of Rav Aluf (Lieutenant-General), the highest in the Israeli military. During his service as a commando in the elite Sayeret Matkal, Barak led several highly acclaimed operations, such as: "Operation Isotope", the mission to free the hostages on board the hijacked Sabena Flight 571 at Lod Airport in 1972; the covert 1973 Israeli raid on Lebanon in Beirut, in which he was disguised as a woman to kill members of the Palestine Liberation Organization; Barak was also a key architect of the June 1976 Operation Entebbe, another rescue mission to free the hostages of the Air France aircraft hijacked by terrorists and forced to land at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda. These highly acclaimed operations, along with Operation Bayonet, led to the dismantling of Palestinian terrorist cell Black September. It has been alluded that Barak also masterminded the Tunis Raid on 16 April 1988, in which PLO leader Abu Jihad was killed.^[7]

During the Yom Kippur War, Barak commanded an improvised regiment of tanks which, among other things, helped rescue paratrooper battalion 890, commanded by Yitzhak Mordechai, which was suffering heavy losses in the Battle of the Chinese Farm. He went on the command the 401st armored brigade and the 611st "Pillar of Fire" and 252nd "Sinai" divisions, before his appointment to head the IDF's Planning Directorate. Barack also participated in the Siege of Beirut, overseeing it from Beirut International Airport. Barak later served as head of Aman, the Military Intelligence Directorate (1983–85), head of Central Command (1986–87) and Deputy Chief of the General Staff (1987–91). He served as Chief of the General Staff between 1 April 1991 and 1 January 1995. During this period he implemented the first Oslo Accords and participated in the negotiations towards the Israel–Jordan peace treaty.

Barak was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service and four Chief of Staff citations (Tzalash HaRamatkal) for courage and operational excellence.^[8] These five decorations make him the most decorated soldier in Israeli history (jointly with close friend Nechemya Cohen).^[9] In 1992 he was awarded the Legion of Merit (Commander) by the United States.^[10] In 2012, he was again awarded by the United States with the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.^[11]

Political career

On 7 July 1995, Barak was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs by Yitzhak Rabin. When Shimon Peres formed a new government following Rabin's assassination in November 1995, Barak was made Minister of Foreign Affairs (1995–96).^[12] He was elected to the Knesset on the Labor Party list in 1996, and served as a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Following internal elections after Peres' defeat in the election for Prime Minister in 1996, Barak became the leader of the Labor Party.

Prime Minister of Israel

In the 1999 Prime Ministerial election, Barak beat Benjamin Netanyahu by a wide margin. However, he sparked controversy by deciding to form a coalition with the ultra-Orthodox party Shas, who had won an unprecedented 17 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Shas grudgingly agreed to Barak's terms that they eject their leader Aryeh Deri, a convicted felon, and enact reform to "clean up" in-party corruption. Consequentially, the left wing Meretz party quit the coalition after they failed to agree on the powers to be given to a Shas deputy minister in the Ministry of Education.

In 1999 Barak gave a campaign promise to end Israel's 22-year-long occupation of Southern Lebanon within a year. On 24 May 2000 Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon. On 7 October, three Israeli soldiers were killed in a border raid by Hezbollah and their bodies were subsequently captured. The bodies of these soldiers, along with the living Elhanan Tenenbaum, were eventually exchanged for Lebanese captives in 2004.

The Barak government resumed peace negotiations with the PLO, stating that "Every attempt [by the State of Israel] to keep hold of this area [the West Bank and Gaza] as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a nondemocratic or a non-Jewish state. Because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don't vote it is an apartheid state."^[13] As part of these negotiations, Barak took part in the Camp David 2000 Summit which was meant finally to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict but failed. Barak also allowed Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami to attend the Taba Summit with the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, after his government had fallen.

Domestic issues

On 22 August 1999, Barak appointed the Tal committee which dealt with the controversial issue of ultra-Orthodox Jews' exemption from military service.^[14] Following the failure of the Camp David summit with Arafat and Bill Clinton in the summer of 2000, when the original 7 years mandate of the PNA expired, and just after Israel pulled out its last troops out of southern Lebanon in May 2000, the weeks-long Riots in October 2000 led to the killing of twelve Israeli Arabs and one Palestinian by Israel Police and one Jewish civilian by Israeli Arabs.

Resignation

In 2001, Barak called a special election for Prime Minister. In the contest, he was defeated by Likud leader Ariel Sharon, and subsequently resigned as Labor leader and from the Knesset. He left Israel to work as a senior advisor with United States-based Electronic Data Systems. He also partnered with a private equity company focused on "security-related" work.

Return to politics

In 2005, Barak announced his return to Israeli politics, and ran for leadership of the Labor Party in November. However, in light of his weak poll showings, Barak dropped out of the race early and declared his support for veteran statesman Shimon Peres. Following his failed attempt to maintain leadership of the Labor party, Barak became a partner of the investment company SCP Private Equity Partners, Pennsylvania. He also established a company "Ehud Barak Limited" which is thought to have made over NIS 30 million.^[15]

After Peres lost the race to Amir Peretz and left the Labor party, Barak announced he would stay at the party, despite his shaky relationship with its newly elected leader. He declared, however, that he would not run for a spot on the Labor party's Knesset list for the March 2006 elections. Barak's attempt to return to a prominent role in Israel politics seemed to have failed. However, Peretz's hold on the Labor leadership proved unexpectedly shaky as he was badly damaged by negative views of his performance as Defense Minister during the 2006 Lebanon War, which was seen as something less than a success in Israel.^[16]

In January 2007 Barak launched a bid to recapture the leadership of the Labor party in a letter acknowledging "mistakes" and "inexperience" during his tenure as Prime Minister.^[17] In early March 2007, a poll of Labor Party primary voters put Barak ahead of all other opponents, including Peretz.^[18] In the first round of voting, on 28 May 2007, he gained 39% of the votes, more than his two closest rivals, but not enough to win the election.^[19]

As a result, Barak faced a runoff against the second-place finisher, Ami Ayalon, on 12 June 2007, which he won by a narrow margin.^[20]

Barak has been critical of what he sees as racist sentiments that have recently been expressed by some Israeli rabbis and rebbetzins; he views such statements as a threat to Israeli unity and that they may lead Israeli society into a "dark and dangerous place".^[21]

Defense Minister

As head of the Labor Party

After winning back the leadership of the Labor party, Barak was sworn in as Minister of Defense on 18 June 2007, as part of Prime Minister Olmert's cabinet reshuffle. However, on 1 July 2007, Barak led a successful effort in the Labor central committee to stipulate that Labor would leave the government coalition if Olmert did not resign by September or October 2007. At that time the Winograd Commission would publish its final report on the performance of the Israel Defense Forces and its civilian leadership. The preliminary Winograd report released earlier this year laid most of the blame on Olmert for poorly planning, executing, and reviewing war strategies in the 2006 conflict against Hezbollah.^[22]

From December 2008 to January 2009, Barak led Operation Cast Lead.^[23]

Labor won only 13 out of the 120 Knesset seats in the 2009 elections, making them the fourth largest party. Barak and other Labor officials initially stated they would not take part in the next government. However, over the objections of some in the Labor party, in March 2009, Barak reached an agreement under which Labor joined the governing coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Barak retained his position as Defense Minister.

Leaving the Labor Party

In January 2011, Labor Party leader Barak formed a breakaway party, Independence, which enabled him to maintain his loyal Labor's MK faction within Netanyahu's government, and prevented the departure of Labor party as a whole from Netanyahu's coalition-government. Labor previously threatened to force Barak to do so. After Barak's move, Netanyahu was able to maintain a majority of 66 MK (out of 120 in the Knesset), previously having 74 MKs within his majority coalition.

In February 2011, Barak attended a ceremony at the UN for the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Barak told the UN General Assembly that "an independent, strong, thriving and peaceful State of Israel is the vengeance of the dead."^[24]

In 2012, Barak's Independence party was due to run for election but decided not to, choosing to quit politics. Barak planned to quit since Operation Pillar of Defense but postponed it till later that year.^[25]

Barak stated during an American television interview that he would "probably" strive for nuclear weapons if he were in Iran's position, adding "I don't delude myself that they are doing it just because of Israel". This comment has been criticized and compared to Barak's comment in 1998 during a television interview when he said that if he were a Palestinian he would probably have joined one of the terror organizations.^[26]

Return to political life

On 26 June 2019, Barak announced his return to politics and his intention to form a new party named Israel Democratic Party, intending to challenge Netanyahu in the September 2019 Israeli legislative election. The party ran with Meretz and other parties in the Democratic Union, alliance receiving 5 seats. Barak did not enter the knesset. ^[3]

Financial assets

In an interview with Haaretz reported in January 2015, Barak was asked to explain the source of his "big" capital, with which he "bought 5 apartments and connected them," and by which he "lives in a giant rental apartment in a luxury high rise." Barak said he currently earns more than a $1 million a year, and that from 2001 to 2007, he also earned more than a $1 million every year, from giving lectures and from consulting for hedge funds. Barak also said he made millions of dollars more from his investments in Israeli real estate properties.^[27]

In the interview, Barak was asked whether he is a lobbyist who earns a living from "opening doors". The interviewer stated "You have arrived recently at the Kazakhstan despot Nazarbayev and the president of Ghana. You are received immediately." Barak confirmed that he has been received by these heads of state but denied earning money from opening doors for international business deals for Israeli and foreign corporations, and said he does not see any ethical or moral problems in his business activities. He further said there is no logic to demand of him, after "the natural process in democracy has ended" to not utilize the tools he accumulated in his career to secure his financial future. When asked if his financial worth is $10–15 million, Barak said "I'm not far from there."^[27]

Awards and decorations

Chief of Staff Citation

Chief of Staff Citation

Chief of Staff Citation

Chief of Staff Citation

Six-Day War Ribbon

War of Attrition Ribbon

Yom Kippur War Ribbon

First Lebanon War Ribbon

Medal of Distinguished Service

Commander of the Legion of Merit

See also

• List of Israel's Chiefs of the General Staff
• List of wartime cross-dressers

References

Bibliography

• Bregman, Ahron Elusive Peace: How the Holy Land Defeated America.
• Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
• Dromi, Uri (5 November 2005). "Still craving peace 10 years after Rabin". New Straits Times, p. 20.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ehud Barak

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ehud Barak.

• Ehud Barak on the Knesset website
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Ehud Barak on Charlie Rose
• Ehud Barak at IMDb
• Ehud Barak collected news and commentary at Al Jazeera English
• Ehud Barak collected news and commentary at The Electronic Intifada
• Ehud Barak collected news and commentary at The Jerusalem Post
• "Ehud Barak collected news and commentary". The New York Times.
• Works by or about Ehud Barak in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Defense Minister Ehud Barak at Ynetnews, profile

Political offices
Preceded by Benjamin Netanyahu	Prime Minister of Israel 1999–2001	Succeeded by Ariel Sharon
Party political offices
Preceded by Shimon Peres	Leader of the Israeli Labor Party 1997–2001	Succeeded by Benjamin Ben-Eliezer
Preceded by Amir Peretz	Leader of the Israeli Labor Party 2007–2011	Succeeded by Shelly Yachimovich