Israel’s Military Historian Had Invented His Own War Record

Israel Beer had built his authority on a history that included fighting in Spain and resisting Austria’s authoritarian government. In April 1961, his own lawyer acknowledged that both episodes were inventions. Israel’s military historian was under arrest for espionage, and the story of his personal military experience was coming apart.

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s report of April 25, Beer admitted he had never fought in the Spanish Civil War or belonged to Austria’s Socialist Self Defense Corps. People familiar with those movements had already doubted his claims. His lawyer described the accounts as exaggerations and said Beer had created the impression of experience while discussing military history. Beer continued to maintain that his Vienna doctorate was genuine.

The case also reached the cabinet. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion rejected reports identifying Beer as his military adviser or close associate. In JTA’s account of the April 18 cabinet discussion, Ben-Gurion said Beer had neither participated in military or political deliberations nor belonged to a body handling security matters. Any security information he acquired, the prime minister argued, must have come privately from senior officers through his work as an army historian.

The Israeli Film Archive’s description of contemporary Geva newsreel footage records Beer being brought to a Tel Aviv court for a detention extension. Its historical catalog attributes the exposure of his meetings with a Soviet handler to the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet. The detention hearing placed the historian before cameras while the prosecution itself would proceed behind closed doors.

JTA reported on November 28, 1962 that the Supreme Court had rejected Beer’s appeal and increased his sentence from ten years to fifteen. The district court had convicted him of contacts with foreign agents and transmitting secret military information. Prosecutors had sought a longer term while Beer challenged his conviction and sentence. The film archive records his death in prison in 1966.