Aviem Sella

Aviem Sella was born in 1946 in Haifa

Aviem Sella was born in Haifa in 1946, during the Mandatory Palestine era. He studied at the Hebrew Reali School. He is married to Yehudit, a lawyer, and has 3 children.

He was drafted in 1963 and became a fighter pilot. He fought in the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War, and shot down 5 enemy aircraft. He later led Air Force operations and commanded the 1981 strike on the Iraqi nuclear reactor.

While studying in the United States, he recruited Jonathan Pollard to spy for Israel. In 1987 a US federal grand jury indicted him on 3 counts of espionage, and Israel did not extradite him. US pressure led to the end of his command of Tel Nof Airbase, and he later left the IDF.

He studied economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earned a master's degree at New York University and a PhD at Tel Aviv University. In 1990 he founded Sibm, an information systems consulting firm, and sold it to Matrix in 2003. He also became a partner in the Alexander Beer brewery.

US President Donald Trump granted him a full pardon on January 20, 2021. In September 2021 he was promoted to brigadier general.