The question of who is to blame for the October 7 failure is one of the most significant issues that Israel will have to deal with in the coming years.
While there is no doubt that by virtue of his position, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the main responsible for the failure, if not directly to blame, the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate (AMAN) has a central responsibility and also bears blame when it comes to formulating the policy according to which Hamas is deterred.
Despite the knowledge of its military build-up and operational plans to invade Israel, AMAN believed that Hamas was deterred from a war with Israel and was pursuing a path of settlement.
Israeli intelligence even underestimated Hamas’ capabilities to carry out a combined attack of thousands of fighters inside Israel.
Based on AMAN’s conception, and with a desire to concentrate on more significant security challenges such as the Iranian nuclear bomb and Hezbollah’s precision missile project, both considered security and even existential threats, Israel preferred to avoid action to defeat Hamas, as confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, during whose era the conception was born.
Over the years, senior AMAN officials have publicly echoed the conception that Hamas is deterred. In addition to AMAN director Aharon Haliva, stepping down this coming week, who stated in September 2022 that he expected complete silence for five years, his predecessor Tamir Hayman also claimed in June 2019 that “Hamas is very deterred by war, has no interest in taking part in it, and that the organization is deeply in the desire to remain on the path of settlement.”
Hayman even added that Hamas has “a growing sovereign commitment that creates tensions in its identities, between a resistance organization and a sovereign that needs to take care of the sewerage for citizens in Gaza.”
In another interview, Hayman, paraphrasing, compared Hamas to a bachelor who kicks out his old landlady (the Palestinian Authority) who doesn’t let him have a good time, when suddenly he has to take on responsibility for the house.
According to Hayman, Hamas is going through an evolutionary process on the way to institutionalization, similar to any other terror organization.
AMAN’s conception of Hamas was illustrated more than anything by the retired AMAN’s research division chief Amit Sa’ar who, by virtue of his position, had more influence than any other official on the assessment of the IDF’s intelligence.
A miscalculation of Hamas's power
In an interview from July 2020, Sa’ar stated that Hamas was deterred and that the economic situation in Gaza was its leadership’s top priority.
Sa’ar even claimed that when Hamas believed that the economic situation in Gaza is suffocated and on the verge of collapse, it signaled to Israel through limited violence.
According to Sa’ar, this was evidence that Hamas’s decision-making is motivated by a desire to reach a settlement with Israel. Like Hayman, Sa’ar also believed that Israel and Hamas have a common interest in improving life in the Gaza Strip.
Both also thought that by creating constraints on Hamas to keep the truce when the economy plays a major role, Israel should make Hamas have something to lose.
However, the amazing thing about Sa’ar’s statements is the fact that he claimed that Hamas had a very clear pyramid, at the base of which was the ideology of the organization, above it the issue of building its military power, and only above that, the project of the Palestinian state in Gaza.
Thus, it can be understood that Sa’ar also knew that for Hamas the destruction of Israel comes before the well-being of the residents of Gaza.
In conclusion, the statements of senior AMAN officials clearly illustrate the conceptual blindness in which Israeli intelligence prevailed, just as it did 50 years ago, before the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
In this context, I do not accept the claim that the conception regarding Hamas was formulated by Netanyahu and the political echelon back in 2014 following Operation Protective Edge, for political reasons, and that the military echelon later adopted it.
AMAN, one of the most respected intelligence organizations in the world, operates independently and professionally, while basing itself on extensive intelligence information, and is not an organization that works to please the political echelon.
AMAN simply made a fatal mistake, which unfortunately cost the State of Israel dearly.
The writer is a lecturer and research fellow at the University of South Wales, UK, and a research fellow at The Israel Center for Grand Strategy – ICGS. His recent book is Israel: National Security and Securitization (Springer, 2023).