Parallel to the war Israel is currently engaged in on multiple fronts, there is another ongoing battle Israelis are fighting over the investigation of the defense and security establishments’ failures as well as that of the political echelons. Who was responsible for what?
At stake in this internal battle is when the investigative body will be appointed, who will be doing the investigating, what the parameters of the investigation will be, and, of course, who will be investigated.
That Israel suffered a horrendous debacle is only a part of the picture. As Haaretz’s Amos Harel has noted, “There was indeed a multisystem collapse, in which most of Israel’s defensive layers ceased to operate at a critical moment.” That situation was not solely the result of the IDF’s current senior command.
Underestimating Hamas
It developed due to the decisions of a half-dozen chiefs of staff who, over the years, progressively reduced the armored corps and selected technology over hands-on operations.
In addition, it would appear they adapted themselves to what they perceived as the political atmosphere developing since the Oslo Accords of 1993: peace in our time.
Gili Cohen reported for KAN news on October 1, 2023, that both senior army and GSS officials pressed the government to continue with economic measures and easing restrictions to ensure quiet. She reported the same policy when working for Haaretz on November 25, 2015, regarding Judea and Samaria.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all of his predecessors since the 2005 Gaza Disengagement at the least, as well as those who were defense ministers, chairmen of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and others, of course, will need to have their records and decisions reviewed.
An example of this need to understand how politicians arrived at their conclusions is Naftali Bennett’s June 21, 2022, statement in which he declared, “After a year [of being prime minister], I return a South that is quiet and blooming… Hamas is deterred. We’ve altered the reality completely.” Deterred? How did he arrive at that conclusion?
One group of influential people, however, that will most probably need to justify or explain their actions and pronouncements is the “peace camp.” This group consisted of the activists on the ground, the pundits, the military correspondents, and defense affairs’ panelists who trumpeted their messaging in the media.
For example, Amit Waldman and Udi Segal at the N12 website on May 1, 2017, reported from “sources in the Arab world” that Hamas has “surrendered its goal of destroying Israel.”
A month later, on June 5, 2017, Shaul Arieli published a column in Haaretz referring to the “pragmatic and realistic, clear-eyed leadership of Hamas under Sinwar… seeking to yield on the right of return for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.”
Did these pie-in-the-sky analyses, and many dozens more like them, affect the IDF? Did they influence politicians? Was there a genuine exchange of ideas on the intentions and strategy of Hamas, or did all involved speak only to each other at internal brainstorming and the well-publicized conferences held annually to great fanfare?
These experts, brought into the conversation by the media, thus increasing their influence, were bolstered by the actions of those who believed peace and security could be achieved even with Hamas. Their belief led to tragic circumstances.
Betrayed by those they spent their lives helping
Gideon Segal, a “Road to Recovery” volunteer driver from Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, was interviewed by Haaretz on December 22, 2023, and expressed his feelings of “frustration, rage, and also of vengeance.”
He admitted he was aware that “Gazans will not give up their national dream because of transportation and treatment in our hospitals. Everything we are doing is only for the sake of our own conscience.”
The murdered Oded Lifshitz lived in Nir Oz. In the 1970s, he was campaigning against the removal of the Bedouin population from the Rafiah Salient area.
His wife, Yocheved, was kidnapped and released in November 2023. She related she had confronted Yahya Sinwar during a visit to hostages in a tunnel and had asked him, “Aren’t you ashamed of having done this to people who have always worked for peace with the Palestinians?”
After her husband’s murder, she spoke publicly and admitted, “We fought all through the years for social justice, for peace. To my sorrow, we were hit by a terrible blow by those we helped on the other side.” At his funeral, her eulogy included that “we were betrayed by those we spent our lives helping.”
A survivor, Amit Siman-Tov-Vahaba, who lost her entire family in the attack, stated, “My deepest beliefs were turned upside down. I thought the Gaza Strip was full of people who looked like us... But this was all false.”
Batia Holin of Kibbutz Kfar Aza admitted, “They not only killed friends of mine; they killed my beliefs.” Avida Bachar of Be’eri also felt a “betrayed Leftist” and admitted that had the massacre taken place in Gush Etzion, his reaction would have been that if they lived there, “they deserved it.”
There are those who cannot provide any testimony, such as Hayim Katsman, who was murdered at Kibbutz Holit. He had been active in Machsom Watch. In a paper posthumously published in Jacobin, he envisioned a “non-exclusivist non-ethnonationalist state” for both “Israelis and Palestinians.”
Another was Vivian Silvers. A resident of Be’eri, prior to the 2007 Gaza border closure, she worked with Gazan residents on cross-cultural projects such as fostering connections between Arab and Israeli artisans. Silver was a former board member of B’Tselem. Her incinerated remains were identified only five weeks after October 7.
None of these people are guilty or responsible for Hamas’s al-Aqsa Flood massacre in any way. But their words and actions affected the thinking and decisions of the political and defense elite and its emasculation. The people of Israel deserve to know how the decision-makers were influenced by this atmosphere.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.