Omer Bar-Lev ( he, עֹמֶר בַּר־לֵב‎; born 2 October 1953) is an Israeli politician who formerly served as Minister of Public Security. He was previously a member of the

Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...

for the

Israeli Labor Party The Israeli Labor Party ( he, מִפְלֶגֶת הָעֲבוֹדָה הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִית, ), commonly known as HaAvoda ( he, הָעֲבוֹדָה, , The Labor), is a social democratic and Zionist political party in Israel. The p ...

. He was placed seventh on the party's list for the

2013 Israeli legislative election Early elections for the nineteenth Knesset were held in Israel on 22 January 2013. Public debate over the Tal Law had nearly led to early elections in 2012, but they were aborted at the last moment after Kadima briefly joined the government. T ...

, and serves as the Party's point person on issues of peace and defense. Bar-Lev is an

IDF IDF or idf may refer to: Defence forces * Irish Defence Forces * Israel Defense Forces *Iceland Defense Force, of the US Armed Forces, 1951-2006 * Indian Defence Force, a part-time force, 1917 Organizations * Israeli Diving Federation * Interac ...

reserve officer with the rank of colonel (Aluf mishne), who was commander of the

Sayeret Matkal General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (formerly Unit 269 or Unit 262), more commonly known as Sayeret Matkal ( he, סיירת מטכ״ל) is the special reconnaissance unit (''sayeret'') of Israel's General Staff (''matkal''). It is the prime special ...

elite commando unit between 1984 and 1987.

Biography

Omer Bar-Lev was born in

Haifa, Israel Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

to an Ashkenazi Jewish family with origins from

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. His father is former

Chief of Staff and government minister

Haim Bar-Lev Haim "Kidoni" Bar-Lev ( he, חיים בר-לב, 16 November 1924 – 7 May 1994) was a military officer during Israel's pre-state and early statehood eras and later a government minister. Biography Born Haim Brotzlewsky in Vienna and raised in ...

. Bar-Lev is married again to Tami, a video editor, and father of three children.

Military career

He was drafted in 1971, and went on to command Israel's most elite special forces unit

and later the Jordan Valley Brigade. During his service in Sayeret Matkal, Bar-Lev took part in famous operations including

the Savoy Hotel The Savoy Hotel is a luxury hotel located in the Strand in the City of Westminster in central London, England. Built by the impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte with profits from his Gilbert and Sullivan opera productions, it opened on 6 August ...

and

Entebbe Entebbe is a city in Central Uganda. Located on a Lake Victoria peninsula, approximately southwest of the Ugandan capital city, Kampala. Entebbe was once the seat of government for the Protectorate of Uganda prior to independence, in 1962. T ...

. In the early 1990s, Bar-Lev served as a member of the IDF's negotiations with the Palestinians that led to the

Gaza–Jericho Agreement The Gaza–Jericho Agreement, officially called Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area, was a follow-up treaty to the Oslo I Accord in which details of Palestinian autonomy were concluded. The agreement is commonly known as the 1994 Cairo ...

, and later to the negotiations that led to the

Israel–Jordan peace treaty The Israel–Jordan peace treaty (formally the "Treaty of Peace Between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan"), he, הסכם השלום בין ישראל לירדן; transliterated: ''Heskem Ha-Shalom beyn Yisra'el Le-Yarden'' ...

. Over the span of his military career, which lasted from 1971 to 1994, Bar-Lev left the IDF twice. In the late 1970s, Bar-Lev studied agronomy and agriculture at the Hebrew University's Faculty of Agriculture at Rehovot, and received his B.Sc. in 1980. After commanding Sayeret Matkal, Bar-Lev left the army again in 1987 in order to study for his master's degree in international relations at

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

. As part of his M.A. studies, Bar-Lev wrote a thesis on potential security arrangements with Syria, which later became the book entitled ''Security Arrangements in the Golan for the Age of Modern Warfare''. He also joined a group of reserve soldiers who, in 1978, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Menachem Begin urging him to sign a peace deal with Egypt.

Business career

After retiring from the IDF in 1994 with the rank of

colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge o ...

, Bar-Lev became a technology entrepreneur and social activist. Among other positions, he was, from 2001 to 2013, the Founder and CEO of Paieon, Inc., a medical imaging company.

Political career

After the

assassination of Yitzhak Rabin The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, took place on 4 November 1995 (12 Marcheshvan 5756 on the Hebrew calendar) at 21:30, at the end of a rally in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square i ...

, Bar-Lev joined the organization "Generation of Peace", and within this framework, he founded the movement ''"Acharai"'', a slogan used in the IDF to mean "Follow me", and is used to galvanize a group towards a common goal. Acharai works to empower marginalized Israeli youth, and educate them in

democracy Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which people, the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choo ...

and

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

. Over the past 15 years, Acharai worked with some 20,000 youth, and today enrolls about 4,000 participants in its programs annually. In 2012, Bar-Lev decided to run for

with the

, and was chosen as the number seven on its candidates list. With the 2013 national elections, in which Labor won 15 seats, Bar-Lev became a Member of the

19th Knesset The members of the 19th Knesset were elected on 22 January 2013, and sworn in on 5 February.PA to address security and resource concerns. However, the plan argues that in the event that negotiations fail, Israel must take proactive steps to maintain its identity. To this end, Bar-Lev proposed a series of partial Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank aimed at minimizing the number of Palestinians living under IDF military rule and transferring responsibility for those areas to the PA. Bar-Lev ran for the leadership of the Labor Party in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

, and won 6.9% of the vote in the first round.

Controversy

After the

2022 Beersheba attack On March 22, 2022, four people were killed and two more were injured during a stabbing and vehicle-ramming attack by an Islamic State supporter in Beersheba, Israel. Background In early 2022, a string of clashes between Israeli security for ...

, Bar-Lev was criticized for a statement he made at the funeral of one of the victims, promising to jail the terrorist who committed the attack. The terrorist died during the attack. He was also criticized for omitting that the victim was killed due to her Jewish faith.

References

External links

*
Symposium on Rabin's legacy - Fathom Journal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bar-Lev, Omer 1953 births Living people Israeli Ashkenazi Jews Israeli Labor Party politicians Zionist Union politicians Israeli soldiers People from Haifa Tel Aviv University alumni Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment alumni People from Ramat HaSharon Members of the 19th Knesset (2013–2015) Members of the 20th Knesset (2015–2019) Members of the 22nd Knesset (2019–2020) Members of the 23rd Knesset (2020–2021) Members of the 24th Knesset (2021–2022) Ministers of Public Security of Israel