Topic: Yossi Beilin

Dr. Yosef "Yossi" Beilin (Hebrew: יוסי ביילין‎, born in Petah Tikva on 12 June 1948) is a left-wing Israeli politician and a former Knesset member, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister and Justice Minister, representing both the Labor Party and Meretz-Yachad, of which he served as chairman between 2003 and 2006. He is best known for his involvement with the Oslo accords, the Geneva Initiative and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in general. His signed expositions on Israeli political and social current events are frequently carried in the left-of-centre daily newspaper Haaretz.

The majority of Beilin's political career, from 1977 until 2003 is associated with the Labour party. He served as its spokesman from 1977 until 1984, at which point his career in the public service began. He was a Cabinet Secretary until 1986 and a Director General of the Foreign Ministry until 1986-1988. In 1988 he was elected to the Knesset in which he was to serve until 1999. During this period he was Deputy Finance Minister (1988-1990) and Deputy Foreign Minister (1992-1995) under Shimon Peres. His long time involvement with Shimon Peres earned him the derogatory nickname "Peres' poodle" in the early 1990s, a term coined by Peres' political rival, Yitzhak Rabin.

Following that he served in two minor ministerial positions, Minister of Economy and Planning (1995) and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister (1996). After Labour's loss of the election in 1996 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the party leadership in a contest won by Ehud Barak. When Barak formed a government in 1999 Beilin served as the Minister of Justice until the party lost power in 2001.