Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announcing his retirement from politics at a news conference at the Defense Ministry office in Tel Aviv, Nov. 26, 2012. (Roni Schutzer\/Flash90\/JTA)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI have exhausted the practice of politics,\u201d Barak, Israel’s defense minister, said at a news conference. \u201cThere is space to allow new people to enter senior positions in Israeli politics. Replacing those in positions of power is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Barak\u2019s political career may have been over even if he had not decided to retire. His small, centrist Independence Party faction was polling poorly ahead of Israel\u2019s Jan. 22 election, and it is possible that Barak would not have made it into the next Knesset had he decided to run again.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe understood that he has a political horizon,\u201d said Gideon Rahat, a political science professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. \u201cHe has no more chance to keep his job or to advance. He\u2019s already stayed too long, much after he lost political strength. He doesn\u2019t really have a party.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barak, who said he will stay on as defense minister until a new government is formed, will leave behind a complicated political legacy.<\/p>\n
As prime minister from 1999 to 2001, Barak withdrew Israeli forces from southern Lebanon and offered unprecedented Israeli concessions, including in Jerusalem, to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians at the unsuccessful Camp David peace summit. In the 2001 elections following the outbreak of the second intifada, Barak was soundly defeated by Ariel Sharon and then resigned as head of the Labor Party.<\/p>\n
In 2007, Barak mounted a political comeback, recapturing the leadership of the weakened Labor Party. He returned to government as defense minister, a post from which he has emphasized the threat from Iran\u2019s nuclear program and ordered two military operations in Gaza — 2008\u2019s Cast Lead and the recent Pillar of Defense.<\/p>\n
Barak brought\u00a0credibility\u00a0to the position of defense minister, conferred on him by his\u00a0distinguished military career. He served as the Israeli Defense Forces\u2019 chief of staff in the 1990s and became the most decorated soldier in Israeli history.<\/p>\n
He was proud of his decades of service in the elite commando unit Sayyeret Matkal, and would tell stories about his secret missions targeting terrorists — including a famous one in which he entered Beirut dressed as a woman.<\/p>\n
In the end, though, politics may have done him in. A close relationship with right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — dating back to the days when Barak was Netanyahu\u2019s commander in Sayeret Matkal — pulled Barak progressively further from many in his center-left Labor Party. In 2011, he split off with four other Labor Knesset members to form the Independence faction.<\/p>\n
The move was widely seen as a self-serving political ploy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t know how to work with people,\u201d Rahat said. \u201cHe used to be prime minister, and he ended with a five-person party. He always cared about himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before Barak announced his retirement from politics, Independence was polling at anywhere between zero to 4 seats in the next Knesset, though Barak\u2019s performance in the Pillar of Defense campaign boosted his popularity.<\/p>\n
But his decision not to run for reelection may not necessarily mean the end of his career in government. Some political observers speculate that if Netanyahu is reelected, he could reappoint Barak as defense minister even though he won’t hold a Knesset seat.<\/p>\n
Hebrew University political science professor Shlomo Avineri told The New York Times that Barak\u2019s move \u201cmaximizes his chances of being the next defense minister,\u201d adding, \u201cIf he got 2 percent, it would be difficult to appoint him. Now he\u2019s not running, it\u2019s easier. He is considered by the Israeli public to be a responsible adult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others argue, however, that the Likud\u2019s shift rightward in this week’s primary election for the party\u2019s candidates’ list makes such an outcome less likely.<\/p>\n
If Netanyahu \u201chas a comfortable coalition, he\u2019ll call him back,\u201d said Bar-Ilan University political studies professor Shmuel Sandler. \u201cChances of that don\u2019t seem good because the Likud candidates\u2019 list is very right wing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Likud leaders are said to prefer current Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon, a Likud member and former army chief of staff who is to Barak\u2019s right.<\/p>\n
Barak had been a key player on the issue of Iran. He was generally seen as a close ally of Netanyahu in advocating an aggressive stance toward the Islamic Republic\u2019s nuclear program, but also was considered a potential restraining force on the prime minister\u2019s impulses.<\/p>\n
Sandler said the government\u2019s policy toward Iran won\u2019t necessarily change with Barak\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n
\u201cYaalon was against an attack,\u201d Sandler said. \u201cNetanyahu is for an attack. It will depend on how much sanctions work and on the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding the failure at Camp David, Sandler said that Barak kept his focus on the issues that were at the center of his past peace efforts. He remained opposed to West Bank settlements as defense minister, refusing to grant official university status to a so-called “university center” in the settlement of Ariel and stressing the urgency of negotiations or unilateral Israeli action to end the conflict.<\/p>\n
Barak also placed a high value on maintaining strong U.S.-Israel relations, even breaking with Netanyahu earlier this year when the prime minister publicly criticized the Obama administration\u2019s handling of the Iranian nuclear issue. Rahat suggested that Barak\u2019s departure could cause a bit of a setback in relations between the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur relations are based on a lot more than people, but Barak was more accepted in the While House than Netanyahu\u201d or Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Rahat said. \u201cIt\u2019ll make it a little harder, but it\u2019s not the end of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
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