Primary Job Title CEO Primary Organization 
PAIEON
Location Israel, Asia Regions Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), Middle East, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Gender Male
Website omerbarlev.co.il/ Facebook View on Facebook X (Twitter) View on X
MK Omer Barlev, 60, is a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee for Personnel in the IDF. He is the son of Tamar and Haim Bar-Lev, Israel’s eighth chief of the general staff. Barlev was born in Haifa, and was raised in the Neve Magen neighborhood in Ramat Hasharon. He spent several years as a
youth in the United States and France.
In 1971, Barlev enlisted in the IDF and served as a soldier and commander of the Sayeret Matkal special forces unit. He was one of four commanders of the forces that broke into the Savoy Hotel in 1975, and during the Entebbe Operation, he commanded over one of the unit's teams.
In 1980, Barlev earned a BA from the faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot, relocated to Eilat and began working as an agronomist at the experimental agricultural station near Kibbutz Yotvata. At the end of 1984, he returned to military service as commander of Sayeret Matkal. He was part of the force that stormed Bus 300, and several days later he replaced Shai Avital as the unit's commander. Under his command, the unit received a citation from the chief of staff for its actions. After three years in the position, Barlev was replaced by former Defense Minister Moshe (Boogie) Yaalon and was discharged from the IDF for a second time. Barlev earned an MA in International Relations and wrote his master’s thesis on “Security Arrangements in the Golan Heights Considering the Future Battlefield”, which was published as a book in 1999, approximately 10 years later.
In 1992, Barlev returned to military service for a third time, at the request of Chief of Staff Ehud Barak, serving as commander of HaBika Division. He later served as member of the negotiating team with the Palestinians in the Gaza-Jericho Agreement, and later in the peace accords with Jordan. Following his release from the army for a third time, in 1995, Barlev began working as an entrepreneur in the high-tech sector. In 1996, he registered for the first time with the Labor Party and joined the Dor Shalom Movement that was founded following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. As part of Dor Shalom, Barlev founded the Aharai! organization, which works to connect youth from the geographic and socioeconomic periphery to the Israeli, Zionist and democratic experience. Barlev headed the NGO for 15 years, until his election to the Knesset. At the same time, in 2000, he founded the company Paieon Medical, which specializes in medical imaging equipment.
