Ahron Bregman

Bregman was born in Israel and later immigrated to England.[1] He served in the Israeli Army, becoming an officer, graduated from Hebrew University, and earned a doctorate at King’s College London.[1] His doctoral field was war studies.[4]

Bregman has taught history at Webster University in London and in the War Studies Department at King’s College London.[1][3] His journalism has included work as a staff writer for the London Daily Telegraph and contributions to newspapers and periodicals in England and the United States, including Newsday and Armed Forces & Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal.[1] He has also been identified as Aharon Bregman and by the name Roni; he is distinct from, and unrelated to, journalist Ronen Bergman.[5]

His early publications included Civil-Military Relations in Israel: Military Influence on War Policy (1994) and Living and Working in Israel: How to Prepare for a Successful Longterm Stay (1996).[1] These were followed by works on Israeli military history, Arab-Israeli relations, and the political and diplomatic development of Israel.[1]

With Jihan el-Tahri, Bregman coauthored The Fifty Years’ War: Israel and the Arabs, a companion to a six-part BBC television series.[6] A 1998 edition is cataloged, while his publication record also lists the companion book in 1999 and identifies Bregman and el-Tahri as producers of the 1999 series.[1][6] He also worked as an associate producer and academic consultant on the BBC series in 2004.[4]

The book examines Israeli-Arab relations and peacemaking, including developments before the 1993 Oslo accords.[1] It includes interview extracts from figures such as Jordan’s King Hussein, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, and Egyptian war minister Shams Badrain, alongside reports from the CIA, PLO, and Mossad.[1] Particular attention is given to contacts between Israel and neighboring Arab states, including contacts involving Egyptian nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.[1] Its account draws on interviews with key participants, some of whom had not previously spoken publicly.[6] A contemporary review described the project as drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews with politicians, soldiers, and journalists from sixteen countries.[1]

Bregman’s Israel’s Wars, 1947–93, published in 2000, surveys conflicts with Palestinians and Arab states from the 1947–48 War of Independence through the 1987–93 Intifada.[1][7] In its preface, Bregman explained that his work as a consultant and companion-book writer for the BBC documentary had delayed completion of the military history but had also provided access to material he might otherwise not have obtained.[7] A second edition appeared in 2002 as Israel’s Wars: A History since 1947, published by Routledge.[1][8] A 2013 edition, published in London by Taylor and Francis, has been cited in discussion of the Roadmap for Peace and parallel confidence-building measures preceding final-status negotiations.[9]

A History of Israel, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2002, covers developments from the 1897 Zionist Congress and Israel’s establishment in 1948 to the country’s political situation and relations with Arab and Palestinian neighbors in the early twenty-first century.[1][8] Its subjects include wars, political and diplomatic developments, peace initiatives, and prominent historical figures.[1] Bregman also wrote Elusive Peace: How the Holy Land Defeated America, published by Penguin in London in 2005.[9]

His editorial work includes a 2009 Ashgate collection listed as Warefare in the Middle East Since 1945.[10] He contributed the final chapter of Israel’s Clandestine Diplomacies, a thirteen-chapter volume edited by Clive Jones and Tore T. Petersen and published in 2013; his chapter addresses Israeli-Syrian negotiations between 1991 and 2000.[11] Another 2013 contribution, “Ashraf Marwan and Israel’s Intelligence Failure,” appeared in The October 1973 War: Politics, Diplomacy, Legacy, edited by Asaf Siniver and published by Hurst & Company.[12]

Bregman began trying to identify the Yom Kippur War-era intelligence source known as “Angel” in 1999 and spent three years connecting clues.[4] His 2002 writing referred to a relative of Gamal Abdel Nasser as “the son-in-law,” rather than naming Marwan directly.[4] Bregman later recounted that he sought confirmation by meeting Rami Tal, the editor of former Military Intelligence chief Eli Zeira’s book, and watching Tal’s reaction when he named Marwan.[3] He recalled rehearsing in front of a mirror and, nine minutes into the conversation, saying, “Ashraf Marwan is the spy,” while studying Tal’s face and ears.[3] Bregman interpreted the reaction as confirmation of his identification.[3]

After Marwan publicly dismissed his research as a detective story, Bregman explicitly identified him in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram.[5] Bregman said that he had initially avoided naming Marwan but responded to defend his reputation as a historian.[5] The disclosure took place in 2002, five years before Marwan’s death.[13]

Bregman and Marwan subsequently maintained contact, including regular telephone conversations.[3] Bregman recalled that the pursuit had begun as a journalistic scoop, but that speaking with Marwan changed his attitude: he described Marwan as ill and recovering from three heart operations and said he came to feel a desire to protect him.[3] Their contact continued for years.[3]

On June 26, 2007, Marwan left Bregman three telephone messages asking him to return his call; he died the following day after falling from his London apartment building.[3] Earlier that month, former Supreme Court justice Theodore Or’s arbitration ruling in the dispute between former Mossad chief Zvi Zamir and former Military Intelligence chief Eli Zeira had been published on June 14 and named Marwan.[3] The reporting presented the circumstances of his death as unresolved.[3]

In 2017, a documentary adaptation based on Bregman’s book The Spy Who Fell to Earth was announced.[14]

Bregman’s research on Ashraf Marwan is represented in an archival accession covering papers dated 2002–2011.[2] His chapter in The October 1973 War: Politics, Diplomacy, Legacy places that research within a broader reassessment of the war’s intelligence, political, and diplomatic dimensions.[12]

His published work has also entered bibliographies and subsequent discussions of Israeli history and diplomacy: A History of Israel and Israel’s Wars: A History since 1947 appear in an Israel and Middle East bibliography, while Israel’s Wars and Elusive Peace have been cited in strategic analysis.[8][9] His collaboration with el-Tahri produced both a television series and a companion book drawing on interviews with participants in Arab-Israeli conflict and peacemaking.[1][6]

Marwan’s loyalties became a significant dispute among Israeli intelligence figures: he was described as a Mossad source who twice warned of war before the 1973 Yom Kippur War, while Eli Zeira maintained that he was an untrustworthy double agent.[13] Bregman also argued that Marwan had planted false information.[5] Other former intelligence officials rejected the double-agent interpretation, and internal Mossad and Military Intelligence reviews concluded that he had not been a double agent.[5]

Bregman later expressed deep regret over the disclosure.[3] The circumstances of Marwan’s death remained unresolved, and the reporting did not establish that either Bregman’s disclosure or the arbitration ruling caused it.[3] The Jewish Review of Books describes a public dispute with Uri Bar-Joseph, whose The Angel criticized Bregman’s role, and characterizes Bregman’s response as an attempt at self-exculpation.[15]

The Fifty Years’ War also received contrasting critical assessments: a Publishers Weekly reviewer praised its behind-the-scenes treatment of peacemaking while alleging subtle pro-Israel prejudice, whereas Efraim Karsh criticized its scholarly contribution and reliance on interviews without further corroboration from written records and international archives.[1]