---
updated: 2026-10-12
category: "Military"
tags:
  - Person
  - Nuclear
  - Israel
summary: "Colonel Aviem Sella was an Israeli Air Force officer and a nuclear targeting expert who was implicated in the Jonathan Pollard espionage case, where he worked with Pollard to obtain intelligence from the U.S."
born: 1946-01-07
location: "Haifa, British Mandate Palestine"
relations:
  - type: prosecuted
    with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1987-03
    role: "Indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington"
    fn: 4
  - type: reported_to
    with: "[[Jonathan Pollard]]"
    reverse: true
    start: 1984-06
    end: 1984-11
    role: "Initial handler of Pollard"
    fn: 3
---
Colonel [[Aviem Sella]] was an [[Israel|Israeli]] Air Force officer and a nuclear targeting expert who was implicated in the [[Jonathan Pollard]] espionage case, where he worked with Pollard to obtain intelligence from the [[United States|U.S.]] Navy.[^1]

### Nuclear Targeting Expertise

Sella was one of the Israeli Air Force's leading nuclear bombing and targeting experts. He was specifically assigned to serve as Jonathan Pollard's handler. Pollard insisted that his spying did not begin until July 1984, after a social meeting with Sella. Sella's mission was to help Pollard gather and evaluate essential intelligence, including advanced American intelligence on weather patterns, communication protocols, and data on emergency and alert procedures, as well as knowledge of the electromagnetic fields between Israel and its main targets in the [[Soviet Union]].[^2]

### Operational Shortcomings

Sella's superb skill and knowledge of nuclear targeting blinded [[Rafael Eitan]] and the Israeli intelligence community to the fact that Sella was a pilot who knew nothing about running a covert operation. When Pollard got into trouble in late 1985, Sella's main concern was fleeing the United States as quickly as possible before he, too, was arrested.[^2]

The 1987 damage assessment records a different first contact from the one Pollard gave in his interrogations. It says Pollard volunteered in late June 1984, after meeting Sella through a pro-Israeli activist, and that he passed classified material to Sella at at least three meetings between June and August 1984.[^3] The July 1984 start that Hersh attributes to Pollard stands beside this record.[^2]

### Legal Consequences and Aftermath

Sella was indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington in March 1987 for his role in the affair.[^4] In January 1987 federal prosecutors had named him as an unindicted co-conspirator, a fourth Israeli beside three who were granted immunity.[^5]

The Knesset intelligence subcommittee chaired by [[Abba Eban]] criticized his judgment and said that he "excessively involved himself on his own initiative." It indicated that he may have lied in his testimony to the panel about the extent of his role, and it criticized the military superiors who allowed him leave to take part in what they surmised was a sensitive espionage mission.[^4]

Sella's appointment to command one of Israel's largest air bases set off a storm of controversy in the United States, and he eventually resigned from the new post, citing his concern for U.S.-Israeli relations.[^4] The [[Christian Science Monitor]] reported that the committees criticized the government for appointing him commander of Tel Nof Air Force Base after his involvement in the affair became known.[^6]

Sella, who retired from the air force in disillusionment and disappointment, remained in Israel, as of mid-1991 a fugitive from American justice. He has given friends and colleagues an account of his involvement that is more credible, but still far short of the whole story. He claimed he was recruited to try to control Pollard, who was drowning the Israeli intelligence bureaucracy in documents. By 1984, when Sella was approached, he had almost completed his requirement for a Ph.D. in computer science at [[New York University]], and the obvious thought was that his technical training would be an asset in evaluating and perhaps winnowing down Pollard's materials. Sella knew that Pollard had been recruited long before 1984, but he was eager for the assignment, believing that running a spy as important as Pollard would make his own climb to the top inevitable. Before taking the assignment, he checked with his superior, Major General [[Amos Lapidot]], the air force commander, who assured him that Pollard was not a rogue and that clearance for his new assignment had been obtained from [[Yitzhak Rabin]], the minister of defense. Once involved, Sella complained to a friend that Pollard "was running crazy" and "was giving him things he didn't want and didn't need."[^2]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. _Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network_. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015). 
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. _The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy_. Random House, 1991. Chapter 21.
[^3]: Foreign Denial and Deception Analysis Committee, *The Jonathan Jay Pollard Espionage Case: A Damage Assessment*, October 30, 1987, paragraph 5. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/7332518/National-Security-Archive-Doc-13b-Foreign-Denial.pdf
[^4]: Glenn Frankel, "Israeli Spy Probes Fault Leadership," *Washington Post*, May 27, 1987. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000302080002-0
[^5]: Howard Kurtz, "Spy Papers Kept by Israel, Court Told," *Washington Post*, January 7, 1987. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000403620007-3
[^6]: "Israel hopes that book is now closed on Pollard spy case," *Christian Science Monitor*, May 28, 1987. https://www.csmonitor.com/1987/0528/omary.html