After the Hamas-led offensive of October 7, 2023, it was portrayed as “Israel’s 9/11,” which came out of the blue. Yet, this assumption is not supported by verified facts, including ignored intelligence, abandoned hostages and neglected Israeli communities around Gaza.
A day after October 7, Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer said that the “massive attacks by Hamas leadership into Israel… is no less than Israel’s 9/11.” By contrast, in the same interview for CNBC, I said that October 7 did not come out of the blue. “The Israeli-Hamas War is a logical result of 50 years of failed military policies.” Our views were diametrically opposed.
I had warned of the ticking time bomb in Gaza already in 2018, half a decade before. A day or two before October 7, I wrote an essay on the coming explosion in Gaza. It was not prophetic insight. October 7, 2023, was the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War and I fully expected a high-profile reaction.
After the brutal Hamas-led assault, Israeli authorities vehemently condemned what they called “our September 11” and a “surprise attack.” But the hard questions were conveniently ignored – and still are.
A week ago, the Israeli Defense Forces’ landmark investigations into the October 7 attack disclosed severe, deep-rooted intelligence miscalculations and fundamental misconceptions on the nature of Hamas and its intentions by both the Israeli government and military. Probing the same attack, Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, recently pointed fingers at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Typically, the prime mistakes featured the political conception of Hamas as an Israeli asset, the intelligence misjudgment that it couldn’t launch a large-scale attack, and weak defensive deployment.
The intriguing part of the story is that these facts were pretty well known already in the first days after October 7, 2023 – that is, more than a year ago – as I argue in The Fall of Israel. And there is more to the story.
Why was the abundant intelligence on the impending Hamas attack deliberately ignored? Why were the Israeli hostages effectively abandoned? Why were the strategic border communities neglected? With all its might, backed up with U.S. military aid and financing, how did Israel fail to see the writing on the wall?
Hellbound and Down 