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The Ace of Spies and Other Significant Espionage Figures

Khalid Elhassan December 20, 2019 33 min

Detective - Mystery — Throughout history, spies have aroused mixed feelings of fear, loathing, and admiration. Mixed Matches

15. The Spy Who Burrowed Deep Into the Israeli Government

Israel Beer, right, seated next to Moshe Dayan. Kadan Auction House

Austrian-born Israeli officer Israel Beer, or Yisrael Bar, (1912 – 1966), rose to prominence as an expert on Israeli military history. That expertise secured him a high-ranking position in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which commissioned him to write a book on the Israeli War of Independence. It also won him a place in the inner circle of Israeli prime minister David Ben Gurion, whose trusted confidant and advisor he became.

Beer arrived in Palestine in the late 1930s with an impressive martial resume. He had graduated from the Austrian military academy, and served as a commissioned officer in the Austrian army. He then fought in the Spanish Civil War with the International Brigades, where he was known by the nom de guerre “Colonel Jose Gregorio”. In between his martial exploits, Beer found the time to get a doctorate in literature from the University of Vienna. It was all bunk, and the real Israel Beer had died many years earlier.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.