Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak (Hebrew: אהוד ברק) (born February 12th, 1942) was the 10th Prime Minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001.
Barak joined the Israel Defense Forces in 1959 and served for 35 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant General, the highest in the Israeli military. Barak was awarded the "Distinguished Service Medal" and four other citations for courage and operational excellence. Meanwhile, Barak earned degrees from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, United States.
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 17th, 1999 and completed his term on March 7th, 2001 after his loss to Ariel Sharon in a February special election for prime minister.
Barak's term as prime minister had several notable events, most of them controversial:
- Forming a coalition with the ultra-orthodox party Shas, after Barak promised an end to "corruption" sponsored by religious parties.
- Meretz quits the coalition after they failed to agree on the powers to be given to a Shas deputy-minister in the Ministry of Education.
- The withdrawal from south Lebanon.
- The kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers by Hizbullah, aided by local UN peacekeeping force.
- Peace negotiations with Syria.
- The passing of the Tal Law which gives a legal statute for Ultra-Orthodox Jews' exemption from military service.
- The Camp David 2000 Summit which meant to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but utterly failed. Barak and US president Bill Clinton put the blame on Yasser Arafat. Barak claimed he exposed "Arafat's true intentions". Later, Barak was blamed by Israeli left wing politicians that he killed the Israeli peace movement by presenting Arafat as a "peace refuser".
- The eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada.
- The killing of 13 Israeli-Arabs by police and one Jewish Israeli civilian by an Arab mob, in October 2000 Riots.
