For the residents of Nahal Oz, there can be little doubt that the Israeli military failed miserably in protecting the country on Oct. 7, 2023. For at least seven hours, they were undefended, at the mercy of Hamas militants engaged in acts of murder and sexual violence on the kibbutz and across a wide swath of Israel’s western Negev region.
According to an investigation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released on March 4, the first wave of 180 Hamas members entered Nahal Oz at 6:30 a.m. under cover of rocket fire. The only resistance they met was from 11 border guards who happened to be stationed there. Further waves of attacks followed at 10 and 11 a.m. The first significant amount of troops only reached the kibbutz at 1:15 p.m., long after the worst of the Hamas attack was over. Fifteen people from Nahal Oz were killed that day, and eight others were kidnapped, one of whom was subsequently killed in captivity. Two are still being held hostage in Gaza.
For the residents of Nahal Oz, there can be little doubt that the Israeli military failed miserably in protecting the country on Oct. 7, 2023. For at least seven hours, they were undefended, at the mercy of Hamas militants engaged in acts of murder and sexual violence on the kibbutz and across a wide swath of Israel’s western Negev region.
According to an investigation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released on March 4, the first wave of 180 Hamas members entered Nahal Oz at 6:30 a.m. under cover of rocket fire. The only resistance they met was from 11 border guards who happened to be stationed there. Further waves of attacks followed at 10 and 11 a.m. The first significant amount of troops only reached the kibbutz at 1:15 p.m., long after the worst of the Hamas attack was over. Fifteen people from Nahal Oz were killed that day, and eight others were kidnapped, one of whom was subsequently killed in captivity. Two are still being held hostage in Gaza.
“I know that lots of people were murdered, and their last words were, ‘Where is the IDF?’ I know that. It’s very hard for us [to accept that],” Herzi Halevi, who was Israeli chief of staff on Oct. 7, said to local council leaders in leaked remarks.
Seventeen months later, Israelis continue to ask, “Where was the IDF?” And that’s precisely where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants the questioning to stop—with the army and the rest of the defense establishment taking the blame rather than the civilian leadership. At no point since the attack has Netanyahu accepted any personal responsibility for it. He has resisted pressure to form a state commission of inquiry to investigate the debacle that ended with approximately 1,200 Israelis dead and 251 kidnapped.
Having issued reports in recent weeks, the IDF has taken at least one step toward answering the question of where the military was that day (Shin Bet, Israel’s security agency, also published a report of its own). But it’s only a step. It did not assign personal responsibility to the generals involved and was careful to steer clear of addressing the role of civilian leaders. Halevi himself has admitted responsibility and recently stepped down from his post, as have a host of other generals who had a direct role in the Oct. 7 debacle.
As to its overall role in the disaster, the IDF was pretty candid, even if it added relatively little new information to events that have been thoroughly documented by the media, personal testimonies, and even independent citizens’ commissions of inquiry. The Shin Bet and military intelligence ignored the evidence that Hamas was preparing for a major attack. Thus, the 40-mile border Israel shared with Gaza was manned by just 767 soldiers when an estimated 5,600 attackers stormed the border fence, quickly overrunning military installations and civilian communities. Blinded by Hamas’s assault on the high-tech equipment that was supposed to alert the Israeli army to an incursion, the top military brass had no clear picture of what was happening for hours. In the meantime, it responded slowly and with confusion.
There was, of course, a much bigger and deeper failure that enabled all this to happen—one that goes back at least to 2014—as the army report recounts. Resources were directed to fighting Iran and Hezbollah on the assumption that Hamas had been pacified at least to the degree that it couldn’t or wouldn’t ever mount a large-scale attack. It was believed to be mainly interested in preserving its power in Gaza and, for that purpose, it wanted to improve economic conditions. With that misconception driving policy, the IDF calculated that it just needed timely intelligence and early-warning systems to ensure Israel’s security. Hamas encouraged this Israeli misconception, even as its leader, Yahya Sinwar, began planning what the organization called Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
While the responsibility of the political echelon is not addressed in the IDF investigation, the army’s faulty assumptions were shared by Netanyahu. He wasn’t interested in a decisive military assault on Gaza and lent a hand to stabilizing its economy by authorizing Qatar to deliver suitcases of money to Hamas in the years after 2018. The prime minister preferred a strong and stable Hamas as a rival to the more moderate Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank. Keeping the West Bank and Gaza divided would make Netanyahu’s goal of evading a peace process harder.
Getting to the truth of a cataclysmic event is a laudable goal. The United States did so after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and 9/11, South Africa did so after the fall of apartheid, and much of Eastern Europe did so after the fall of communism. However, such efforts inevitably come with a political cost for those held responsible, a fate Netanyahu is determined not to suffer.
In the case of Israel, there is a long history of state commissions of inquiry being established after a catastrophe. Among the most important: the Agranat Commission that probed the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Kahan Commission that looked into the Sabra and Shatila massacre of 1982, and the Shamgar Commission that investigated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination. The Winograd Commission (technically a somewhat lesser government commission of inquiry) formed after the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War led to IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz to resign. Netanyahu demanded the resignation of Ehud Olmert, who was prime minister at the time. Olmert limped along for another two years, but his political career was over.
These commissions, whose status is set out in a 1968 law, are independent and powerful. They can call witnesses; recommend further action against politicians, generals, and officials found culpable; and propose policy changes. Their conclusions have the imprimatur of official history, so it comes as no surprise that Netanyahu fears an Oct. 7 commission.
For the supremely legacy-conscious prime minister, a commission that holds him at least partially responsible for the debacle—as is inevitable—would create a powerful narrative in contrast with the image he cultivates of an unparalleled strategist and statesman, as well as the country’s resolute protector. More concretely, the commission might recommend that he should step down. Almost certainly, it would dim his reelection prospects.
The risk for Netanyahu is especially high given the role played in state commissions of inquiry by the Supreme Court, an institution Netanyahu has been at war with due to the government’s judicial overhaul plans. By law, commission members are appointed by the chief justice of the court and the panel itself is usually chaired by a former chief justice. The current chief justice, Yitzhak Amit, was named over the objections of the government, which has been boycotting him. Netanyahu perceives Esther Hayut, Amit’s predecessor and a likely chair, as no less an enemy.
Netanyahu and his allies have offered various justifications for not forming a state commission, including: It must wait until the war is over (although he seems determined to continue the fighting indefinitely); a state commission is fated to be biased against him; and there isn’t a national consensus to form one. However, a majority of the public supports forming either a state commission or a government probe (which would have fewer powers) at the very least. A news poll from last week, for instance, found that only 15 percent of the public say there is no need for such a probe. Worryingly for Netanyahu, other polls show Israelis believe he is more to blame for Oct. 7 than the heads of the IDF or Shin Bet.
The Supreme Court, which often rules on issues of public concern, ordered Netanyahu’s cabinet to debate the issue and to justify its opposition by May 11. Meanwhile, a coalition backbencher has proposed a sui generis type of commission appointed by the Knesset. On paper, the plan sounds reasonable, but between the lines, it’s clear its terms are designed to turn the panel into a partisan slugfest whose conclusions, if it could reach any, would be tainted. Last December, coalition lawmakers blocked an opposition bill to form a state commission, meaning it cannot be resubmitted as legislation until June.
Netanyahu has poisoned the political atmosphere surrounding Oct. 7 so much that even if one is eventually formed, a commission may be unable to win broad support for its conclusions. The prime minister’s supporters not only defend their chief against any and all connection with the debacle, but proffer conspiracy theories built on the canard that there a leftist deep state out to topple him. Before Oct. 7, the conspiracy theories centered mainly on the judicial system; since then, they have come to include the army and the Shin Bet, which are alleged to have conspired to enable a catastrophe on a scale that the prime minister would have no choice but to resign. As implausible as this sounds, a
Thus, far from being a basis for a national reckoning and a process for making sense of what was the most traumatic event in the country’s history, the idea of a state commission has become a political punching bag—which means Netanyahu has already gotten his wish.
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