Ehud Barak shakes hands with then President Suleyman Demirel at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on July 14, 1999. Demirel had led 7 governments as prime minister and was in the final year of his 10-year tenure of Turkey`s presidency. Demirel died on June 17, 2015 at the age of 90, by which time the once friendly relations between Israel and Turkey had reached their nadir. Barak served as Israel`s Prime Minister from 1999 until 2001. But before he was elected, he, as leader of the left-of-center Labor Party following Shimon Peres`s loss to Bibi Netanyahu in 1996. Barak was known for his valor as a soldier and daring anti-terrorist operations, and he rose to become IDF Israel Defense Force Chief of Staff. Barak served as a Member of the Knesset, Foreign Minister and Defense Minister during his political career. As Chairman of the left-of-center Labor Party he ruffled feathers with Labor colleagues when he agreed to become Defense Minister in the right-wing government of Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu in 2009. Like Netanyahu, Barak has a degree from an elite American university, Stanford, to go with another diploma from Israel`s Hebrew University. He was elected prime minister in 1999, and in 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration Barak, Clinton, and Yasser Arafat appeared to be close to reaching an accord at Camp David until the talks abruptly collapsed.
|
