Iftach Spector (born 20 October 1940) is a retired Israeli brigadier general, a former fighter pilot and commander of the airbases at Tel Nof and Ramat David.
His father, Zvi Spector, was the commander of Operation Boatswain, a failed 1941 Palmach mission in Lebanon that resulted in the deaths of all participants, and his mother, Shoshana Spector, was among the founding members of the Palmach and served as its adjutant officer.
As commander he maintained that he believed the ship was an enemy vessel and acted based on the intelligence available at the time.
Both Israeli and U.S. investigations officially concluded it was a tragic mistake, but many survivors and researchers have challenged this conclusion, suggesting potential deliberate targeting.
In 1992 he was awarded the Yitzhak Sadeh Prize for his book A Dream In Blue And Black, a novelized account of a fighter squadron during the Yom Kippur War.