BEER, ISRAEL

born 1912, Vienna, Austria died May 1, 1966, Shatta prison, Israel Israeli military analyst who was convicted (1962) for treason as a Soviet agent. Arriving in Palestine (1938), Beer joined the Haganah, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Israeli army. After retiring from military service (1949), he held the chair of military history at the University of Tel Aviv and was commissioned by David Ben-Gurion to prepare the official history of the 1948-49 Israeli War of Independence. Arrested in 1961 for spying, Beer was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison, where he died.