Ehud Barak (Hebrew:אֵהוּד בָּרָק[eˈhudbaˈʁak]ⓘ; bornEhud Brog; 12 February 1942) is an Israeli former general and politician who served as theprime minister andMinister of Defense from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of theLabor Party between 1997 and 2001 and between 2007 and 2011. He was also Minister of Defense from 2007 to 2013.[1]
In politics, his career began with his appointment asinterior minister in 1995 under Prime MinisterYitzhak Rabin. Following Rabin's assassination, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs inShimon Peres' government. Barak was elected to the Knesset on the Labor Party list in 1996 and subsequently was elected Labor Party leaderin 1997. Barak served as Israel's most recent left-wing Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. His tenure was marked by significant events, including the decision to form a coalition with the Orthodox partyShas, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon in 2000, and participation in the2000 Camp David Summit aimed at resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Barak's government faced challenges, notably theprotests in October 2000.
After defeat in the2001 Israeli prime ministerial election, he left politics and engaged in international business and advisory roles. He made a political comeback in 2005, attempting to regain leadership in the Labor Party, and later served asdefense minister − where he ledOperation Cast Lead in 2008–09 − anddeputy prime minister underEhud Olmert and then inBenjamin Netanyahu's secondgovernment between 2007 and 2013. His decision to form the Independence party in 2011 marked a shift in his politics, influencing the dynamics within the Netanyahu government. Despite retiring from politics in 2012, he attempted another comeback, running in theSeptember 2019 Israeli legislative election as the leader ofIsrael Democratic Party − a new party he formed. His party merged with others to form an alliance calledthe Democratic Union, but it did not win enough seats for him to become a member of theKnesset.[2] Outside of his political and military career, Barak has accumulated wealth through business endeavors and investments; his net worth is estimated to be $10–15 million.
Early life and family
Barak (behind, second from left) with his family in 1964
Ehud Barak was born onkibbutzMishmar HaSharon in what was thenMandatory Palestine.[3] 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).[citation needed]
His paternal grandparents, Frieda and Reuven Brog, were murdered inPušalotas (Pushelat) in northernLithuania (then ruled by theRussian Empire) in 1912, leaving his father orphaned at the age of two. Barak's maternal grandparents, Elka and Shmuel Godin, died at theTreblinka extermination camp duringthe Holocaust.[4]
Ehudhebraized 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 inTiberias). 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 asJohann Wolfgang von Goethe,[6] and he is a classical pianist, with many years of study behind him. His second cousin,Ronald Barak, is an American Olympic gymnast.[7]
Ehud Barak as Chief of Staff of theIsrael Defense ForcesCitations and war ribbons of Ehud Barak
Barak joined theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) in 1959. He served in the IDF for 35 years, rising to the position ofChief of the General Staff and the rank ofRav Aluf (Lieutenant-General), the highest in the Israeli military.During his service as a commando in the eliteSayeret Matkal, Barak led several highly acclaimed operations, such as: "Operation Isotope", the mission to free the hostages on board the hijackedSabena Flight 571 at Lod Airport in 1972; the covert1973 Israeli raid in Lebanon in Beirut, in which he was disguised as a woman to kill members of thePalestine Liberation Organization; Barak was also a key architect of the June 1976Entebbe raid, another rescue mission to free the hostages of theAir France aircraft hijacked by terrorists and forced to land at theEntebbe Airport in Uganda. These highly acclaimed operations, along withOperation Bayonet, led to the dismantling of Palestinian terrorist cellBlack September. It has been alluded that Barak also masterminded theTunis Raid on 16 April 1988, in which PLO leaderAbu Jihad was killed.[8]
In the1999 Prime Ministerial election, Barak beatBenjamin Netanyahu by a wide margin. However, he sparked controversy by deciding to form a coalition with the ultra-Orthodox partyShas, who had won an unprecedented 17 seats in the 120-seatKnesset. Shas grudgingly agreed to Barak's terms that they eject their leaderAryeh Deri, a convicted felon, and enact reform to "clean up" in-party corruption. Consequentially, the left wingMeretz 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.[citation needed]
In 1999 Barak gave a campaign promise to end Israel's 22-year-long occupation ofSouthern Lebanon within a year. On 24 May 2000 Israelwithdrew from Southern Lebanon. On 7 October, three Israeli soldiers were killed in a border raid byHezbollah 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.[citation needed]
The Barak government resumed peace negotiations with thePLO, 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 abinational state, and if they don't vote it is anapartheid state."[14] As part of these negotiations, Barak took part in theCamp David 2000 Summit which was meant finally to resolve theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict but failed. Barak also allowed Foreign MinisterShlomo Ben-Ami to attend theTaba Summit with the leadership of thePalestinian Authority, after his government had fallen.[citation needed]
Domestic issues
On 22 August 1999, Barak appointed theTal committee which dealt with the controversial issue of ultra-Orthodox Jews' exemption from military service.[15] Following the failure of the Camp David summit with Arafat and Bill Clinton in the summer of 2000, when the original seven-year mandate of the PNA expired, and just after Israel pulled its last troops out of southern Lebanon in May 2000, theOctober 2000 riots led to the killing of twelve Israeli Arabs and one Palestinian byIsrael Police and one Jewish civilian by Israeli Arabs.[citation needed]
Barak left Israel to work as a senior advisor with United States–basedElectronic Data Systems. He also partnered with a private equity company focused on "security-related" work.[citation needed]
In 2005, Barak announced his return to Israeli politics, and ran for leadership of the Labor Party inNovember. However, in light of his weak poll showings, Barak dropped out of the race early and declared his support for veteran statesmanShimon Peres. Following his failed attempt to maintain leadership of the Labor party, Barak became a partner of the Pennsylvania-based investment companySCP Private Equity Partners. He also established a company "Ehud Barak Limited" which is thought to have made overNIS 30 million.[17]
After Peres lost the race toAmir 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'sKnesset list for theMarch 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 the2006 Lebanon War, which was seen as something less than a success in Israel.[18]
InJanuary 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.[19] In early March 2007, a poll of Labor Party primary voters put Barak ahead of all other opponents, including Peretz.[20] 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.[21]
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.[22]
Barak has been critical of what he sees as racist sentimentsthat have recently been expressed by some Israelirabbis andrebbetzins; he views such statements as a threat to Israeli unity and that they may lead Israeli society into a "dark and dangerous place".[23]
After winning back the leadership of the Labor party, Barak was sworn in asMinister of Defense on 18 June 2007, as part of Prime MinisterOlmert'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 theWinograd Commission would publish its final report on the performance of theIsrael 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 the2006 conflict againstHezbollah.[24]
Labor won only 13 out of the 120 Knesset seats in the2009 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 byBenjamin Netanyahu. Barak retained his position as Defense Minister.
Leaving Ha'Avoda and Minister of Defense (2011-2013)
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 theKnesset), 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."[26]
Barak's Independence party was due to run in alegislative election, but decided not to in 2012, and retired from politics. Barak planned to quit sinceOperation Pillar of Defense but postponed it until later that year.[27]
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.[28]
Retirement activities
In 2015, Barak invested in Reporty, a tech startup that developed video streaming and geolocation software and later changed its name toCarbyne. A large portion of the funds invested by Barak was supplied byJeffrey Epstein.[29] For Epstein's 60th birthday in 2016 a number of letters written for the occasion by high profile individuals were compiled as a birthday gift, among these were a letter from Barak and his wife.[30] In 2023, it was revealed that Barak had visited Epstein around 30 times from 2013 to 2017 and had also flown on his jet, having first met Epstein in 2003. Barak denied any wrongdoing.[31][32][33] Barak stated that on the two occasions he flew with Epstein on private planes, Barak's wife and security guards were with him.[31] Leaked emails (released by the hacker group Handala, which "likely operates out of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence", according to Reuters[34]) show that in one occasion when Barak visited Epstein's private island Little Saint James (in January 2014), Barak was "arranging that the security guys will not come with us to the island," but his wife Nili Priel did accompany him.[35]
Other emails released by Handala show that Epstein leveraged his relationship with Barak to approach powerful figures likePeter Thiel, a former director of Israeli signals intelligence, and two people inVladimir Putin's circle (former Russian Deputy Minister of Economic Development Sergey Belyakov andViktor Vekselberg).[36] Epstein arranged for Barak to meet Thiel (they had met once, in Davos), presumably to discuss geopolitics, in New York on 9 June 2014. In 2016, Epstein pitched Reporty to Thiel-foundedValar Ventures (in 2015 and 2016, Epstein invested US$40 million into funds managed by Valar[37]), but the proposal got rejected on account of being premature. Valar's McCormack said they would try to reengage when the startup was more developed though. In 2018, theFounders Fund, another firm co-founded by Thiel, joined the $15 million Series B.[36]
While scheduling the meeting with Thiel, Barak also tried to arrange to meet Putin's allyViktor Vekselberg early in June 2014.[36] An email sent in April 2015 shows that Barak asked Epstein for his opinion on Vekselberg-backed Fifth Dimension, a startup which later shut down after being sanctioned in 2018 by the US for alleged election meddling.[36] This startup's leadership also includedBenny Gantz (formerIsrael Defense Forces' chief-of-staff) andRam Ben-Barak (former deputy Mossad director).[38]
Epstein victimVirginia Giuffre said that she had been sexually assaulted by Barak after being trafficked to him by Epstein. This came to light in a 2020 court filing byAlan Dershowitz. Dershowitz and Barak denied the validity of Giuffre's statement.[39]
2019 failed return to political life
On 26 June 2019, Barak announced his return to politics and his intention to form a new party named theIsrael Democratic Party, intending to challenge Netanyahu in theSeptember 2019 Israeli legislative election. The party ran with Meretz and other parties in theDemocratic Union alliance, which received five seats. Barak himself did not enter the Knesset.[2]
Financial assets
In an interview withHaaretz 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 forhedge funds. Barak also said he made millions of dollars more from his investments in Israeli real estate properties.[40]
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 despotNazarbayev and the president ofGhana. 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."[40]
