Ehud Barak (born 1942) is Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense in the current government of Israel.[1] A former Israel Defense Forces senior officer, Barak served as Prime Minister of Israel between May 1999 and March 2001. He was a member of the Israeli Labor Party until January 2011 when he and four other members of the Knesset left the party to form a new faction called Atzmaut.[2]