Party: Labor-Meimad

Knesset Profile: N/A

A former prime minister of Israel and current Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak took leadership of Labor after defeating Ami Ayalon in a June 2007 runoff election.

As Prime Minister in 1999-2000, Barak took part in the failed Camp David negotiationsnegotiations during which Israeli negotiators demanded sovereignty or long-term control over 20% of the West Bank, and all of Jerusalem except a few distant Palestinian suburbs. Under the Israeli proposals, the Palestinian areas would have been fragmented into four units, separated from each other by Israeli settlements and their connecting roads, jeopardizing the viability of the prospective Palestinian state. Also during his time as Prime Minister, Israel began the construction of 6,045 housing units in the occupied West Bank. After the failure of Camp David, Israel's harsh response to Palestinian demonstrations against the collapse of the negotiations led to a spiral of violence and the launching of the Second Palestinian Intifada.

Earlier this year, Barak's public pledge to ease movement restrictions for Palestinians in the West Bank was found to have gone largely unfulfilled, according to the United Nations. He has also avoided Israel's commitment under the Roadmap to evacuate so-called 'illegal outposts' constructed in the West Bank after 2001.

Before Israel's June agreement to a cease-fire with Hamas, Barak was frequently quoted in the press calling for a re-invasion of the Gaza Strip, which was eventually launched in December of 2008 - leading to deaths of over 1,300 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians. In addition, he has kept in place the closure of crossings into Gaza and reductions in fuel supplies, and has severely limited imports of humanitarian aid into the territory - a policy which Israeli and international human rights organizations have deemed collective punishment of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian residents.

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