Omer Bar-Lev

Omer Bar-Lev was born in Haifa and raised in the Neve Magen neighborhood of Ramat Hasharon.[4] He is the son of Tamar and Haim Bar-Lev, whom the Knesset's official biographical profile identifies as Israel's eighth chief of the general staff and a later government minister.[4] During his youth, Bar-Lev spent several years in the United States and France.[4]

He enlisted in the IDF in 1971 and joined Sayeret Matkal, the General Staff's elite reconnaissance unit.[4] He served as a young officer and commanded one of the assault teams during the 1975 operation at the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv.[10] He then served as a team commander during Operation Entebbe in 1976.[10] In a later interview, Bar-Lev recounted firsthand experience of the Yom Kippur War, describing how he pressed his fist into the chest wound of a seriously injured fellow soldier, Shmil Levy, to slow the bleeding until Levy could be evacuated.[1]

After his initial period of service, Bar-Lev studied agronomy and worked as an agronomist.[5][10] He later earned a master's degree in international relations and strategy from Tel Aviv University; his thesis examined possible security arrangements between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights.[11][5] Published profiles disagree on when the thesis appeared as a book: the ICT biography gives 1992, while the Knesset profile gives 1999.[11][4] A 2012 N12 profile instead gave 1996.[5]

Bar-Lev's military career unfolded across three periods of service separated by civilian interludes.[4] In 1984, he participated in the force that stormed the hijacked Bus 300 and replaced Shai Avital as commander of Sayeret Matkal several days later. A 2012 profile dates his command of the unit to 1984–1987.[5]

In December 1984, his unit conducted a classified operation inside Syrian territory. In a May 2022 interview, Bar-Lev disclosed publicly that Staff Sergeant Barak Sharabi had died "under my command, deep inside Syrian territory" when a vehicle overturned during the operation, killing Sharabi and injuring eight others.[12] Military censors had barred details of Sharabi's death for 37 years; the army had publicly described it only as an operational accident.[12] The wounded and Sharabi's body were evacuated to Israeli territory.[12]

Bar-Lev's three-year tenure as Sayeret Matkal commander, which was longer than the two years then customary, ended with the unit receiving a Chief of Staff citation.[4][5] He left the IDF for a second time after completing that command.[4]

His third period of service began in 1992, when Chief of Staff Ehud Barak asked him to return.[4] He served as commander of the HaBika Division and later joined IDF delegations for the diplomatic negotiations that defined the early 1990s peace process, participating in talks that led to the Gaza-Jericho Agreement and advising in the negotiations on the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace agreement.[11][4] He left the army for a third and final time in 1995.[4] A 2012 profile identified him at that time as a reserve colonel.[5]

After leaving the IDF in 1995, Bar-Lev turned to high-tech entrepreneurship. He co-founded Ituran, a vehicle tracking and stolen-car recovery company.[5] In 2000, he founded Paieon Medical, also rendered Pion Medical in some sources, a company specializing in medical imaging equipment.[4][5] He also worked as an entrepreneur and CEO of several Israeli high-tech companies, mainly in medical and defense fields.[6]

In 1996, Bar-Lev joined the Labor Party and the Dor Shalom movement.[4] The following year, after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he founded the youth organization Aharai! — a name meaning "Follow Me," drawn from the Israeli military tradition of officers leading from the front.[11][4] Its stated mission was to connect young people from Israel's geographic and socioeconomic peripheries with Israeli, Zionist, and democratic life, while its programs included preparation for military service and the bagrut matriculation examinations.[4][5] Bar-Lev headed Aharai! for fifteen years, during which it grew into one of Israel's largest youth organizations.[11] In recognition of that work, he was selected to light a torch at Israel's 2011 Independence Day ceremony.[4][13]

Bar-Lev decided to run for the Knesset toward the end of 2012 and won seventh place on the Labor Party list.[4] He entered the Knesset in February 2013 as a representative in the 19th Knesset.[6][4] He was reelected in 2015, appearing sixth on the Labor-Hatnuah joint list, which received 786,313 valid votes — 18.67 percent of the total — and won 24 seats.[14] For the March 2020 election to the 23rd Knesset, he appeared ninth on a Labor-Gesher-Meretz joint list that won seven seats.[15] He was also reelected in October 2019 and March 2021.[6] In the March 2021 election, he won second place on Labor's list, behind party leader Merav Michaeli.[13]

During his Knesset service, Bar-Lev sat on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and chaired its Subcommittee for Military Readiness and Routine Security.[11] He also served on intelligence and cyber subcommittees and as an alternate member of the Finance Committee.[11] He co-chaired parliamentary caucuses concerned with agriculture, housing, pensions, services for Israeli Bedouin, and secular issues.[11]

In February 2019, Bar-Lev and fellow Knesset member Ofer Shelah issued a report on the ground forces that addressed the role of maneuver warfare in military campaigns and the force-buildup requirements that should follow.[16] The report had both classified and public versions; an updated, unclassified version was republished in 2021.[16]

In July 2017, Bar-Lev ran for Labor Party leadership and placed fifth among seven candidates.[13]

Bar-Lev was appointed Minister of Public Security — also referred to in some documents as Minister of Internal Security — in the 36th government, which was formed on June 13, 2021, under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid.[2][17] The ministry's remit included oversight of the Israel Police and the Israel Prison Service, though the minister's authority over their operational commanders was constrained by those officials' legal independence.[13] When the coalition collapsed and Lapid became caretaker prime minister in June 2022, Bar-Lev remained in his ministerial role until the new government was installed.[18] On January 1, 2023, Itamar Ben-Gvir took over the ministry from Bar-Lev.[3]

Addressing Violence in Arab Society

One of Bar-Lev's central priorities was tackling violent crime in Arab communities. In early October 2021, the government established a ministerial team to address the problem and appointed Bar-Lev as its acting head.[7] The government formally adopted the relevant decision on October 14, 2021, and the associated work plan was allocated a budget of NIS 1.4 billion through 2022.[7] The plan involved the police, the Israel Security Agency, the State Attorney's Office, and the Israel Tax Authority, with a principal focus on economic crime and illegal weapons.[7]

In a 2023 retrospective interview, Bar-Lev described the riots in mixed cities and southern Israel that followed Operation Guardian of the Walls in May 2021 as a strategic surprise for law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, the government, and the public.[6] He said he had overseen preparations to enable a faster response if similar unrest recurred.[6] Bar-Lev reported that murders in Arab society fell from 126 in 2021 to 106 in 2022 during his tenure, while confiscations of handguns rose by 50 percent, confiscations of long-barrel guns rose by 80 percent, and indictments rose by dozens of percentage points.[6] These figures were presented as his account of results achieved during his tenure.

Bar-Lev argued that the Border Police should function as Israel's national guard, describing a tiered riot-response model in which regular police would respond first and Border Police units would reinforce them.[6] He reported that in 2022 the force added 300 active-duty positions in the budget and a further 200 during the year — a total increase of 17 percent in active-duty personnel — and that a plan was budgeted to equip eight under-equipped companies and add 26 companies over three years.[6]

Bar-Lev also described improved cooperation between his ministry and the Israel Security Agency at both tactical and strategic levels following the May 2021 unrest.[6] He gave one example in which he involved the agency after learning that an organized-crime family had allegedly discouraged potential rivals from running in a local election, arguing that such conduct threatened democratic institutions as well as constituting a criminal matter.[6] He said cooperation with the IDF was similarly productive, including the deployment of troops to assist police under police command.[6]

Border Police and Law-Enforcement Reform

Beyond the Arab-society crime plan, Bar-Lev took a series of institutional law-enforcement positions. In March 2022, responding to the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants regarding the shackling of detained irregular migrants, he stated that women detainees would not be shackled under any circumstances and that men would be shackled outside their ward only if they posed a flight risk.[19] The organization reported no additional instances of shackling during the remainder of the year.[19]

On July 5, 2022, Bar-Lev approved the dismissal of Israel Prison Service intelligence officer Rani Basha after an investigation into allegations that Basha had coerced women guards into sexual situations with Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Atallah between 2015 and 2017 in exchange for intelligence.[19] The original prosecution had been closed for lack of evidence in 2018, but the state attorney reopened it in 2021 after new evidence emerged; the investigation remained pending at the end of 2022.[19]

At the January 2023 ministerial handover, Bar-Lev called on police, prison, fire, and rescue personnel to serve the state and the law rather than be guided by politics.[3]

Bar-Lev's tenure generated several notable controversies spanning security policy, civil liberties, and coalition politics.

Settler Violence

In December 2021, Bar-Lev publicly stated that he had discussed settler violence with visiting U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. He defended addressing attacks by extremist settlers alongside Palestinian terrorism and compared such attacks to terrorism.[8][9] The remarks drew immediate criticism from coalition and right-wing figures. Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked responded that "the settlers are the salt of the earth," while Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana criticized what he called a "false and distorted narrative."[8] Bereaved families' organizations and Samaria regional council head Yossi Dagan called on Bar-Lev to apologize or resign; he declined to retract his statements.[9] Prime Minister Naftali Bennett cautioned against generalizing about an entire public while emphasizing that settlers themselves experienced violence and terrorism.[8][9]

Israeli government officials, including Bar-Lev, publicly condemned settler attacks and labeled them terrorism.[20] UN monitors documented 496 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in 2021, comprising 370 involving property damage and 126 involving casualties, including three fatal attacks.[20] At the January 2023 handover, Bar-Lev stated that extremist Jewish violence against Palestinians in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — had increased by 40 percent in 2022.[3] Bar-Lev's political framing of the issue was contested by other Israeli ministers and public figures.[8][9]

Temple Mount Status Quo

In October 2021, after a Jerusalem Magistrate Court ruled that silent Jewish prayer did not violate existing police rules at the Temple Mount — known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif — Bar-Lev supported the government's appeal to the Jerusalem District Court, which subsequently overturned the magistrate's decision.[21][22] Bar-Lev explained his position by saying that "a change in the status quo will endanger public security and could cause a flare-up."[21] The government maintained that it supported non-Muslim visits to the site while prohibiting non-Islamic worship and respected Jordan's special custodial role as reflected in the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty.[21]

Lehava Designation

In June 2021, Bar-Lev and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chair Ram Ben Barak requested that the attorney general and defense minister designate Lehava as a terrorist group and outlaw both it and the NGO that funded it.[21] Bar-Lev returned to the matter in May 2022, stating publicly that he intended to ask the attorney general to outlaw both Lehava and La Familia, describing them as "hurting the security of the country."[23] Neither organization had been formally designated or outlawed by the end of 2022.[21][23]

Pegasus Spyware Investigation

In February 2022, Bar-Lev announced a government inquiry into allegations that police had used NSO Group's Pegasus spyware to surveil civilians without judicial warrants.[24] He sought powers for the inquiry to summon witnesses and seize documents.[24] Reporting at the time noted that he had initially said there was no police practice of breaching phones without judicial approval but became more cautious as additional allegations emerged.[25] An examination team led by Deputy Attorney General Amit Marari subsequently found no indication that police had installed the Pegasus system on the phones of the people named in media reports without a judicial warrant.[26] The team nevertheless found that police systems had collected some data they were not legally permitted to collect, although it said the data had not been used; it recommended removing the capabilities that had enabled such collection.[26]

Palestinian Flags and Demonstrations

Bar-Lev explicitly instructed the police commissioner and senior officers that Palestinian flags should be confiscated at demonstrations only under exceptional circumstances.[19] The Human Rights Defenders Fund nonetheless reported that Jerusalem police regularly confiscated such flags and physically assaulted or arrested peaceful protesters who waved them.[19][27]

The 1984 Syria Operation

Bar-Lev's May 2022 public disclosure about the 1984 classified operation inside Syria — in which Staff Sergeant Barak Sharabi died under his command — prompted conflicting assessments of his responsibility. One former Sayeret Matkal officer accused him of proceeding with the operation despite advance warnings about the risk of a vehicle crash. Operation commander Shahar Argaman rejected that accusation, described the operation as complicated, and praised Bar-Lev's conduct after the accident; Argaman separately criticized Bar-Lev's disclosure itself, arguing that some operational details should have remained secret.[12]

Assessment of a Third Intifada

In a February 2023 interview, Bar-Lev said it was possible that Israel was already at the beginning of a third intifada, while noting that each intifada had different characteristics and that recognition of a new one typically took time.[6] He presented this as his security assessment rather than a definitive characterization of events.

Bar-Lev's ministerial tenure focused on violent crime in Arab society, the expansion of Border Police capacity, and coordination between public-security and intelligence bodies.[6][7] It was also marked by political disputes over his characterization of extremist settler violence and the appropriate limits of police authority.[3][8]

His broader public career connected his military service with later civic work. The Aharai! organization he founded in 1997 — whose name invokes the IDF tradition of commanders who lead from the front — grew during his fifteen years of leadership into one of Israel's largest youth organizations, serving young people from the country's social and geographic peripheries.[11][4] His selection to light a torch at the 2011 Independence Day ceremony recognized that contribution.[4][13]

By April 2023, Bar-Lev was no longer a serving Knesset member, and Angel Bakeries announced his appointment as chairman of its board.[28] The Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research also hosted him in December 2022 for a one-on-one interview about law and order in Israel's peripheral regions.[29]

A 2012 profile reported that Bar-Lev lived in Kokhav Yair and was married with three children.[5] He turned 70 in October 2023.[1]