Ehud Barak

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Ehud Barak
אֵהוּד בָּרָק
Ehud Barak
10th Prime Minister of Israel
In office
May, 1999 – March, 2001
Preceded by Benjamin Netanyahu
Succeeded by Ariel Sharon
Born February 12, 1942
Mishmar HaSharon Kibbutz,
British Mandate of Palestine
Political party Labor

Ehud Barak (Hebrew: אֵהוּד בָּרָק) (born Ehud Brog on February 12, 1942, in Mishmar HaSharon kibbutz,[1] then British Mandate of Palestine) is an Israeli politician and was the 10th Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001.

Contents

[edit] Military service

Ehud Brog joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1959. It was then that he decided to change his name to "Barak", which means "thunder" in Hebrew.[1] He served in the IDF for 35 years, rising to the position of Chief of the General Staff and the rank of Rav Aluf, the highest in the Israeli military. During his service as a commando in the elite Sayeret Matkal, Barak took part in the 1973 covert mission Operation Spring of Youth in Beirut, in which he was disguised as a woman in order to assassinate members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Barak was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service and four other citations for courage and operational excellence; these five decorations make him, with Major Nechemya Cohen, the most decorated soldier in Israeli history.

Barak is also an expert in krav maga, the official martial art of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Barak at the Pentagon in 1999
Barak at the Pentagon in 1999

[edit] Education

Barak earned his bachelor's degree in physics and mathematics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1976, and his master's degree in engineering-economic systems in 1978 from Stanford University in Stanford, California.

[edit] Political career

In politics, he served as Minister of the Interior (1995) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (1995-1996). He was elected to the Knesset in 1996, where he served as a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. In 1996 Barak became the leader of the Labor Party.

Ehud Barak was elected Prime Minister of Israel on May 17, 1999 and completed his term on March 7, 2001 after his loss to Ariel Sharon in a February special election for prime minister.

[edit] Term as Prime Minister

Barak's term as prime minister had several notable events, most of them controversial:

After losing the 2001 elections to Ariel Sharon's Likud party by a landslide, Barak left Israel to work as a senior advisor with U.S.-based Electronic Data Systems. He also partnered with a private equity company focused on "security-related" work.

[edit] Post-Prime ministerial career

[edit] 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.

After Peres lost the race to Amir Peretz and left the Labor party, Barak announced he would stay in the party, despite his shaky relationship with its newly elected leader. However, he declared he would not run for a spot on the Labor party's Knesset list for the March 2006 elections.

Following his failed attempt to maintain leadership of the Labor party, Barak became a partner of the investment company SCP Private Equity Partners, Pennsylvania.

In January 2007, Barak launched an bid to recaputure the leadership of the Labor party in a letter acknowledging "mistakes" and "inexperience" during his tenure as Prime Minister.[2]

In early March of 2007, a poll of Labor Party primary voters showed Barak ahead of all other opponents, including current leader Amir Peretz. [3]

[edit] References in popular culture

The film Munich includes a scene where Ehud Barak is a commando dressed as a woman, about to covertly attack a Palestinian armed cell in Beirut. This scene is actually derived from a real life experience he had when he served as a member of Sayeret Matkal in the Israeli defence forces.[citation needed] Barak also appears as a military advisor to a fictitious Israeli Prime Minister in the Frederick Forsyth novel The Devil's Alternative.

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b BARAK, Ehoud, European Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation. Retrieved January 7, 2006.
  2. ^ New York Times. Former Israeli PM Barak in New Leadership Bid (January 7, 2007). nytimes.com.
  3. ^ Ha'aretz. [["Poll: Barak, Ayalon lead Peretz in the Labor leadership primaries"]http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/833154.html] (March 3, 2007)

    [edit] Public speaking

    Barak went on a public speaking tour of American colleges, expressing his view on the Middle East. On this tour in 2006, he said that “[Iraq] gradually deteriorates to civil war [and] the US presence is more and more a part of the problem and not the solution."<ref>[http://campusj.com/2006/10/31/ehud-barak-speaks-on-the-war-on-terror-at-indiana-university/ Ehud Barak’s Speech at IU] from [[CampusJ]]</li></ol></ref>

    [edit] Quotations

    • "Two Egyptian divisions were already deployed deep into the Sinai desert very close to the Israeli border. Israel had a very small regular standing army, and it had to deploy immediately along the border to avoid a surprise attack."
    • "On the battlefield itself, no one will move if you are not moving. It's a swift decision."
    • "I imagine that if I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would, at some stage, have joined one of the terror organizations."

    [edit] See also

    Political offices
    Preceded by
    Yossi Sarid    		 Education Minister of Israel
    2000-2001    		 Succeeded by
    Limor Livnat
    Preceded by
    Shimon Peres    		 Foreign Minister of Israel
    1996    		 Succeeded by
    David Levy
    Preceded by
    Benjamin Netanyahu    		 Prime Minister of Israel
    1999-2001    		 Succeeded by
    Ariel Sharon
    Preceded by
    Moshe Arens    		 Defense Minister of Israel
    1999-2001    		 Succeeded by
    Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
    Preceded by
    Shimon Peres    		 Leader of the Labor Party
    1999–2001    		 Succeeded by
    Benjamin Ben-Eliezer
    Military Offices
    Preceded by
    Dan Shomron    		 Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces
    1991-1995    		 Succeeded by
    Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
    Preceded by
    Yehoshua Saguy    		 Director of Aman
    1983–1985    		 Succeeded by
    Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
    Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
     v • d • e 
    Prime Ministers of Israel    		 Israeli Flag
    David Ben-Gurion • Moshe Sharett • David Ben-Gurion • Levi Eshkol • Golda Meir • Yitzhak Rabin • Menachem Begin • Yitzhak Shamir • Shimon Peres • Yitzhak Shamir • Yitzhak Rabin • Shimon Peres • Benjamin Netanyahu • Ehud Barak • Ariel Sharon • Ehud Olmert
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