Ehud Barak

Former Prime Minister of Israel

• Born: February 12, 1942
• Place of Birth: Israel

Early Life and Military Career

Labor Party politician Ehud Barak was the defense minister of Israel from 2009 to 2013. Before that, he was leader of the Israeli Labor Party until 2011 and served as prime minister from 1999 to 2001. As prime minister, Barak made efforts toward establishing a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people. However, negotiations between Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat collapsed, leading to renewed violence between the two factions. Prior to becoming prime minister, Barak served as foreign minister under Shimon Peres and interior minister under Yitzhak Rabin. He was chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and served in the military for thirty-five years, becoming the most decorated soldier in the nation's history.

Barak was born Ehud Borg on the kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, on February 12, 1942. His parents were eastern European immigrants with secular and socialist beliefs. As a child, Barak played piano, and he nearly pursued a career as a concert pianist. He was also noted for his mechanical skills. He enjoyed taking apart watches and putting them back together, and he won a lock-picking contest in his youth.

Barak joined the IDF in 1959 to perform his mandatory military service. After six months, he joined the Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit. He fought in both the Six-Day War (1967) and the Yom Kippur War (1973).

Although much of Barak's experience in the Sayeret Matkal remains secretive, several episodes have become public knowledge. In 1972, Barak successfully led the takeover of a plane that had been hijacked by Palestinian militants. Later that year, he was involved in the kidnapping of five Syrian intelligence officers who were touring Lebanon. The prisoners were later exchanged for Israeli prisoners of war. In 1973, Barak led agents of Sayeret Matkal and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in implementing the assassination of three Palestinian Fatah agents who were believed to have taken part in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. For his military service, Barak was awarded Israel's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal.

During his military service, Barak also pursued his education. He earned a bachelor's degree from Israel's Hebrew University in physics and math and a master's degree from Stanford University in economic engineering systems. While at Stanford, Barak was still required to perform military service and was forced to return to Israel several times during his stay in the United States.

In 1981, Barak became the youngest soldier in Israeli history to be promoted to general. From 1981 to 1991, he held a series of important military posts. Under Barak, the IDF's Directorate of Military Intelligence successfully killed one of the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) most important leaders, Abu Jihad. In 1991, he was promoted to chief of staff of the IDF, the highest military post in Israel. He served in this position until his retirement in 1995, and during his tenure he sought to streamline the IDF, cutting the number of days Israeli citizens must serve in the reserves during a given year and keeping the military budget under control.

Cabinet Minister

In 1995, Barak joined the Israeli Labor Party, headed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Barak's close friend and commanding officer in the IDF. Rabin appointed Barak to the important post of interior minister. In this position, Barak was responsible for national policy regarding citizenship, immigration, physical planning, local government, and elections. In addition, the interior minister is responsible for settlement in the West Bank and Golan Heights and for issues concerning Arab-controlled areas of Israel.

However, Barak did not hold this post for long. On November 4, 1995, Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated in Tel Aviv. Shimon Peres, Rabin's foreign minister, became prime minister, and Barak took over Peres's former duties.

On January 20, 1996, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) held its first election, in which Yasser Arafat was elected president. Soon after the election, terrorists began a bombing campaign against Israel. Peres, one of the architects of the 1993 Oslo Accords, in which the Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to peace, called for elections that spring. On May 31, Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud party and Barak's former IDF subordinate, won the election. Following Peres's defeat, the Labor Party elected Barak its leader.

Over the next three years, Barak was Netanyahu's most vocal critic. Netanyahu signed two important peace agreements with the PNA: the Hebron Protocols and the Wye River Accords. The Hebron Protocols divided the contentious city of Hebron between the Israelis and Palestinians. The Wye River agreement was supposed to provide the Palestinians a port in Gaza, a road between Gaza and the West Bank, and the release of 750 Palestinian political prisoners. In exchange, the Palestinians agreed to stop attacks in the West Bank. Unable to please both liberal and conservative Israelis, Netanyahu saw his support wane both at home and abroad.

In early 1999, Netanyahu called for early elections in hopes of regaining public support for his party and policies. The Labor Party opposition put forth Barak as its candidate for prime minister. To bolster his campaign, Barak hired a group of American political advisers, including Robert Shrum and James Carville, former members of US President Bill Clinton's political team.

On the advice of these consultants, Barak ran a campaign built on domestic issues, such as economic development and education reform. This was contrary to most Israeli campaigns, including Netanyahu's, which focused on security concerns. Barak, however, did not need to focus on security. His reputation as Israel's most decorated soldier helped him withstand Netanyahu's attacks. On May 17, 1999, Barak won a decisive victory over Netanyahu, with 56 percent of the vote.

Prime Minister of Israel

Barak entered office in 1999 with lofty goals. Domestically, he set out to improve education, spur economic growth, and reconcile religious and secular Jews. However, his agenda was almost entirely dominated by foreign policy and security issues.

Barak set a goal for Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon within one year. That goal required the negotiation of a peace deal with Syria, which essentially controlled Lebanon and wanted Israel to leave the Golan Heights. In addition, Barak wanted to reinvigorate negotiations with the Palestinians that had slowed under Netanyahu; Barak argued that only a complete break between the two peoples would lead to peace.

Immediately after taking office, Barak worked to form a coalition of leftist and moderate political parties. He asked the orthodox Shas party to join the coalition, a move that upset many of his secular allies. Barak was also criticized by supporters and Palestinians for increasing the number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank while failing to fully implement the Wye River Accords.

In January 2000, Barak met with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad in West Virginia. Negotiations were initially successful; Syria agreed to pull troops from the Israeli border, and Barak agreed to leave the Golan Heights. However, the two leaders could not agree on the location of the border. Despite the lack of a peace agreement, Barak honored his campaign pledge to remove Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, and the last Israeli troops were extracted on May 24, 2004. Soon after, all negotiations with Syria were stopped when President al-Assad died and was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad.

In the summer of 2000, Barak focused on achieving a peace agreement with the Palestinians. At Camp David, the United States presidential retreat, Barak met with Palestinian president Yasser Arafat. With Clinton mediating, the two leaders unsuccessfully negotiated for more than two weeks. Barak made historic concessions, including recognizing the Palestinians' right to sections of East Jerusalem, but the leaders could not agree on the "right of return" for exiled Palestinians, the borders of East Jerusalem, or the issue of West Bank settlements.

Barak returned home to heavy public criticism for conceding too much to the Palestinians without reaching an agreement. His troubles worsened when Israeli Palestinians began a violent uprising in late September 2000. That October, Israeli soldiers killed thirteen Palestinian protesters. The Second Intifada, as it was called, grew increasingly violent, and Barak was criticized by opposition parties, the Israeli public, and even his own coalition.

In an attempt to regain public support, Barak called for early elections in November 2000. He ran against Ariel Sharon, leader of the right-wing Likud Party. During the election, Barak unsuccessfully tried to restart peace talks with Arafat. On February 6, 2001, Sharon defeated Barak at the polls, and the large margin of victory forced Barak to resign as leader of the Labor Party. After a failed bid for reelection in 2005, Barak supported Shimon Peres in his own unsuccessful bid to lead the Labor Party. Peres left the party following his defeat, and in 2007, Barak once again entered the running for party leader. He won in a close runoff election in June 2007.

Less than a week after recapturing the leadership of the Labor Party, Barak was named defense minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. His appointment followed the 2006 conflict between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah.

Barak left the Labor Party in January 2011 to form the breakaway Independence Party. He remained in government for two more years, announcing at the end of 2012 his intention to resign as defense minister and retire from politics following the elections in January 2013.

After leaving politics in 2013, Barak invested in Israeli biometrics, cybersecurity, and rescue technology firms. In 2018, Barak joined InterCure, a biomedical holding company, as its chair to help expand its medical cannabis subsidiary, Canndoc. That same year, he published a memoir, My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace. In June 2019, he re-entered politics to run in the September 2019 legislative elections as a challenge to Benjamin Netanyahu, who was facing three major corruption scandals. Barak began his campaign by starting a new left-wing party called Democratic Israel, but it fared poorly in early polls. He subsequently ran as part of the Democratic Camp list, but the party only won five out of its ten seats and as the tenth seat, he did not return to the Knesset.

Barak was among the many voices in Israel who criticized the government, which was led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for bombing Gaza in retaliation for Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Barak was critical of the failures that did not prevent the attack and the crisis, which continued into 2024. Barak also spoke scathingly of the prime minister and other officials.

Bibliography

"Ehud Barak Describes 'Absolute Victory' as Empty Slogan: 'We Are Closer to Total Failure.'" Middle East Monitor, 15 June 2024, www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240615-ehud-barak-describes-absolute-victory-as-empty-slogan-we-are-closer-to-total-failure/. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.

"Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak." Ynetnews. Yedioth Internet, 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.

"Israeli Defense Minister Barak Says He's Quitting Politics." CNN.com. Cable News Network, 26 Nov. 2012. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.

Kershner, Isabel. "Ehud Barak, Ex-Leader of Israel, Will Run in New Election." The New York Times, 26 June 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/world/middleeast/ehud-barak-israel-netanyahu.html. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.

Tarnopolsky, Noga. "Mired in Post-Election Deadlock, Israelis Face the Possibility of Yet a Third Vote." Los Angeles Times, 21 Sept. 2019, www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-20/israels-election-puzzle. Accessed 6 Apr. 2020.

Tepperman, Jonathan. "Barak's Last Battle: An Israeli Lion in Winter." Foreign Affairs 92.1 (2013): 91–104. Print.