Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Gets Roasted for Enormous Intelligence Failure
Jose Nino
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Since Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, questions have emerged about how Israel, a country renowned for its security services, could have dropped the ball in this instance
Naturally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced tough criticism for the Hamas attack, in which about 1,400 Israelis were killed.
Netanyahu has vowed to conduct an investigation into how Hamas was able to deploy thousands of fighters across Gaza’s heavily guarded border fence into Israel to launch assaults on military bases and settlements. However, Netanyahu stressed that this problem can only occur once the war is concluded.
During its assault on Israel, Hamas was able to take hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians as hostages and detain them in Gaza.
Many Israelis continue to believe Netanyahu may have intentionally allowed Hamas to attack Israel, due to their state of disbelief with Israeli security forces’ — a respected institution — incompetence in this respect.
Per a recently published report in The New York Times, the intelligence failure came about due to several factors which includes the political turmoil brought about by Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, which large portions of the Israeli population opposed.
The judicial reforms provoked massive street protests and caused widespread resignations among military reservists.
Some of the Air Force’s active duty pilots threatened to refuse going on duty if the judicial reform legislation was passed.
“From the investigations we are doing we can say today that the political instability and the growing division are a shot of encouragement to the countries of the axis of evil, the terrorist organizations and the individual threats,” Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet Israel’s domestic security service, declared in a speech alluding to axis of resistance members, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The Times added that General Herzi Halevi, the military’s chief of staff, attempted to inform Netanyahu in the summer of 2023 that the political instability was emboldening Israel’s enemies..
However, Netanyahu refused to meet with General Halevi and only two members of the Knesset were present at a briefing other generals organized to issue the warning. The judicial reform legislation ended up easily being passed in the Knesset.
In the New York Times report, it was also noted that Hezbollah’s military activities on Israel’s northern border over the past year also contributed to the intelligence failure that took place on October 7. Israeli intelligence officials were too concentrated on the threat from Hezbollah, and did not focus sufficiently on the threat from Hamas.
“We must be more prepared than ever for a multi-arena and extensive military conflict,” General Halevi declared at a military ceremony on September 11, a few weeks before the attack.
Things aren’t going so well in Israel. Netanyahu’s political days are likely numbered. Netanyahu has positioned himself as the guarantor of the Jewish people’s safety. And with the security failure of October 7, the very credibility of Israel — which markets itself as the only place Jews can be safe from anti-Semitic attacks — has been called into question.
There’s bad things ahead for Israel and the US should do everything possible to extricate itself from this mess.
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