More than a year after one of the most egregious intelligence failures in Israel’s history, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stubbornly hews to the far-fetched claim that he should not be held accountable for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel perpetrated by Hamas terrorists.
Netanyahu contends that the time for accountability should come only after Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have wound down.
To be charitable, this is a self-serving argument.
As U.S. President Harry Truman once memorably said, the buck stops with him. This is another way of saying that the leader of a democratic nation is duty-bound to accept responsibility for whatever happens under his watch.
Yet Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving premier, refuses to abide by that sensible maxim, much to the detriment of all Israelis. It appears he is bent on indefinitely postponing the reckoning that already should have occurred.
While a succession of top-level government officials and army generals have admitted they failed on that disastrous autumn day last year Netanyahu lamely claims he should not be held to account while Israel is still bogged down in a military campaign in Gaza.
What this means is that Netanyahu opposes the establishment of a state commission to study the catastrophic failures of October 7.
Netanyahu’s logic flies in the face of reason.
He owes Israelis an honest and detailed explanation of the shortcomings that led Israel to assume that Hamas, an Iranian proxy, did not pose to Israel prior to October 7.
He knows that no less a body than the Israeli armed forces already have launched a formal investigation into this deadly event, which claimed the lives of roughly 1,200 people and resulted in the abduction of 251 Israelis and foreigners.
Its chief of staff, General Herzi Halevi, has said he intends to resign once the investigation has been completed. As he put it on November 29, “At the end of the investigations, we will also make personal decisions and commanders will exercise responsibility, from me down. I have no intention of passing over personal decisions when the picture becomes clearer to us.”
Surely Netanyahu can do the same, but he chooses to procrastinate, determined to hold his coalition together at all costs and remain in power for as long as possible. Netanyahu’s selfish quest for political survival, one of his fundamental traits, serves his own best interests and not necessarily the intrinsic interests of Israel.
Fed up with his obstinate stance, the survivors of Hamas’ rampage, along with the relatives of Israelis who were murdered and kidnapped on October 7, formed a committee this past July to investigate the conduct of the Israeli government.
The Civil Commission of Inquiry of the October 7 Disaster, as it is formally known, lacks the legal powers of a state commission. But its conclusions, which were released in a report a few days ago, are damning and can only be dismissed at Israel’s peril.
In short, the commission was critical of Netanyahu’s policy of appeasing Hamas with massive quantities of Qatari funds and of the army’s decision to reduce the number of troops stationed along Israel’s border with Gaza. The commission urged the government to create its own investigative body, which is long overdue.
Several days before the release of its report, Channel 12, an Israeli television station, broadcast a segment accusing Netanyahu of hewing to a doctrine of hesitation and inaction in the years leading to October 7.
Netanyahu reportedly ignored warnings from the then defence minister, Avigdor Liberman, that Hamas was planning a major attack. Netanyahu insisted that bribing Hamas in exchange for quiet was a feasible policy.
Furthermore, Netanyahu rejected proposals from Liberman and the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, to assassinate senior Hamas leaders such as Mohammed Deif and Yahya Sinwar. And he refused to heed the advice of the army that the chances of another cross-border war were high.
Netanyahu and his national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, were convinced that Hamas was deterred, and that Israel’s vaunted high-tech border fence could repel an invasion by Hamas.
As time would tell, Netanyahu’s cocksure approach to Hamas was tragically at odds with reality. At the very least, then, he should create a commission to ascertain what went wrong before, during and after October 7. He should do this now.
A new election is also necessary. Let the people of Israel decide who should be in charge of the country’s destiny during these perilous times.