Seventeen months after the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still stubbornly refuses to create an independent commission to review the events that culminated in the deadliest single day in Israel’s history.
On that morning, some 3,000 Hamas terrorists attacked a string of kibbutzim, towns, army bases and a music festival in the western Negev in two separate waves, breaking through the high-tech border barrier, killing roughly 1,200 people, sexually assaulting scores of women, and kidnapping 251 Israelis and foreign nationals.
This unprecedented assault was consequential.
It triggered Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip and the long war that followed. It sparked a cross-border war between Israel and Hezbollah, Iran’s chief surrogate in the Middle East. And it led to the first direct Israel-Iran armed clashes.
Despite public demands for an impartial investigation, Netanyahu has held fast to his self-serving belief that the establishment of a commission would only be appropriate after the end of the war in Gaza. He has also argued that an inquiry would be politically unfair to him, claiming it would degenerate into a “political manhunt.”
Nonetheless, he claims he theoretically supports “a balanced commission of inquiry that will reach the truth.”
The unpopular position that Netanyahu has adopted has not been emulated by the top brass in the army.
The commander of military intelligence, General Aharon Haliva, resigned in 2024.
The chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces, General Herzi Halevi, has accepted full personal responsibility for his “terrible failure” to prevent these atrocities. Last week, he stepped down, handing the baton to his replacement, Eyal Zamir.
Ronen Bar, the director of the Shin Bet, the internal intelligence agency, has admitted that October 7 could have been prevented. Several weeks ago, he said he would resign after all the hostages, alive and dead, have been released.
Netanyahu’s refusal to accept responsibility and establish an independent commission has caused an uproar in Israel. After all, the proverbial buck stops at his desk. Yet, in attempt to defuse the indignation and anger, he permitted the army and the Shin Bet to launch separate investigations and release reports.
The army released its findings late last month, conceding it was fooled by Hamas in the months leading up to October 7.
Hamas deceived Israel into thinking that it was focused on improving economic conditions in Gaza and maintaining a calm along the border. In the meantime, Israel concentrated resources on its strongest enemies, Hezbollah and Iran.
Israel received plausible information that Hamas intended to mount a massive attack and was training in plain sight to carry it out. Israeli analysts misinterpreted these signs, contending that Hamas’ plan was unrealistic or unfeasible. They believed that, in the worst-case scenario, Hamas terrorists would try to breach four to eight rather than dozens of border points. And they disregarded ominous signals that numerous Hamas operatives had fitted their cell phones with Israeli SIM cards.
It took Israel about five hours to size up the catastrophic scale of Hamas’ invasion, leaving a small contingent of soldiers and armed civilians to blunt the opening blows.
The Shin Bet report, released last week, disclosed that Hamas’ attack plan reached Israel in 2018 and again in 2022, but that it was not taken seriously.
The report blamed the government for its flawed approach to Hamas. Netanyahu’s assumption that Hamas could be bought off with funds from Qatar was based on pragmatic considerations, but was ultimately ill-conceived. Israel also erred in allowing Hamas to amass a vast arsenal of weapons.
The government’s intention in 2023 to overhaul the judiciary caused deep rifts in Israeli society, giving Israel’s enemies the false impression that it was weak. Certainly, the heated debate over this issue emboldened Hamas as well as Hezbollah.
That this report touched a raw nerve in Netanyahu’s government was obvious. In short order, his office accused the Shin Bet and Bar of “enormous failure” to assess and counter the Hamas threat, both before and during the attack.
Judging by accounts in the Israeli media, Netanyahu has exerted pressure on Bar to resign, but he has stood his ground.
A survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute states that three-quarters of Israelis think that Netanyahu should accept responsibility and announce his resignation. Forty eight percent of respondents said that he should resign immediately, while 24 percent thought he should step down after the Gaza war.
Only 10 percent said he should remain in his position.
Given his defiant comments since October 7, Netanyahu is determined to ride out the storm and stay on as prime minister for as long as possible. To say that he is addicted to power and its privileges would be an understatement.
Yet Netanyahu’s days as Israel’s leader could well be numbered. If an election was held today, and if former premier Naftali Bennett ran against him, Netanyahu’s coalition government would take a big hit, falling short of a parliamentary majority, according to a recent Channel 12 poll.
Conclusion: The political scene in Israel, having been buffeted by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, whiplashed by Israel’s armed confrontations with Iran and roiled by the specter of hostages still in Hamas’ captivity, is very much in flux and a work in progress.
What stands today could fall tomorrow.