Benny Gantz and body language, from a month ago, and current "Jericho Wall" news, the NYT news scoop, now widespread. Netanyahu and cabinet - were they really surprised or did they let it happen so airstrikes and IDF ground war could destroy two-thirds of Gaza and kill thousands, maiming thousands more, with an aim to destroy Hamas? Circumstances fit either scenario, and either way, they'd say the same thing, "What a surprise!" and back then it was strange but no smoking gun. Today is clearer. Netanyahu wanted a "justification" to do what's been done and some 1200 Israeli lives were expendable people to get his aim moving. Or that's the circumstantial inference Crabrgass has reached.
Back a month ago it was <i>strange</i> that the Oct. 7 slaughter happened with Israel sitting still as it happened. Mossad and Shin Bet have the reputation of being proactive. But no smoking gun that Bibi and crew said, "Let it be, tomorrow belongs to us." Today is clearer.
Netanyahu wanted a "justification" to do what's been done and some 1200 lives arguably were expendable people to get his aim moving. Or that's the one circumstantial inference Crabrgass has reached, (the other being surprise).
And, yes, they say otherwise, but what would they say in either event. The circumstantial inference Crabgrass draws is premised on who Netanyahu is and has been. As well as who Mossad, IDF, and Shin Bet have been. We view the quality of character Netanyahu has shown and that within his governing coalition.
Evidence for readers to reach their own conclusions -
Netanyahu slammed for post blaming intelligence chiefs for Oct. 7 failure; apologizes - PM deletes tweet hours later, then apologizes and says he fully backs security chiefs, after Gantz upbraids him: ‘When we are at war, leadership must display responsibility -- ’By ToI Staff and Agencies
In a late-night tweet Saturday night, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu repeated previous claims that he was not warned by security
chiefs about an impending Hamas attack, and claimed all security chiefs
had consistently assured him Hamas was deterred, drawing sharp criticism
over the apparent attempt to blame them and evade responsibility for
the disaster. He deleted the post some nine hours later, and issued a
rare apology shortly afterward.
“Contrary to the false claims: Under no circumstances and at no stage
was Prime Minister Netanyahu warned of Hamas’s war intentions,” read
the original tweet, posted shortly after 1 a.m. local time, hours after
Netanyahu held a joint press conference with Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz.
The tweet elaborated: “On the contrary, all the security officials,
including the head of military intelligence and the head of the Shin
Bet, assessed that Hamas had been deterred and was looking for a
settlement. This assessment was submitted again and again to the prime
minister and the cabinet by all the security forces and intelligence
community, up until the outbreak of the war.”
At the press conference, Netanyahu had been asked about a written
warning about the growing likelihood of war ostensibly issued in recent
months by the head of the Shin Bet and the head of IDF military
intelligence, and said the question was “inaccurate.”
About an hour after he deleted the post, Netanyahu issued a rare
apology for the statement, writing on X late Sunday morning: “I was
wrong. The things I said following the press conference should not have
been said and I apologize for that.”
He added that: “I give full backing to all the heads of the security
services. I am sending strength to the [IDF] chief of staff and the
commanders and soldiers of the IDF who are on the frontlines and
fighting for our home.”
Netanyahu’s statement, seeming to place blame on security officials
for the failures leading to the October 7 massacre rather than accept
any responsibility himself, drew sharp criticism Sunday morning,
including from within his emergency government.
Body language, while another guy speaks -
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks
(left) as Defense Minister Yoav Galant (center) and head of the National
Unity party Benny Gantz (right) during a joint press conference at the
Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. October 28, 2023. (Dana Kopel/POOL)
The item continues -
“The prime minister must retract his statement and stop addressing
this matter,” Gantz tweeted in response on Sunday, in what appeared to
be the first public disagreement between the two since the National
Unity party leader joined the coalition following the outbreak of war.
“On this morning in particular, I want to support and strengthen all
the security forces and IDF soldiers, including the IDF chief of staff,
the head of military intelligence, the head of the Shin Bet,” Gantz
added. “When we are at war, leadership must display responsibility, make
the correct decisions and strengthen the forces in a way that they will
understand what we demand from them… the prime minister must retract
his statement.”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who has refused to join the emergency
war government, tweeted that “Netanyahu crossed a red line tonight” and
must apologize.
“While IDF soldiers and officers are fighting bravely against Hamas
and Hezbollah, [the PM] is trying to blame them, instead of supporting
them. The efforts to evade responsibility and place blame on the
security establishment weakens the IDF while it is fighting Israel’s
enemies,” Lapid said.
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen, considered a close Netanyahu ally,
said Sunday morning to Kan public radio, “Responsibility is something
you take at the start of your job, not midway.” Cohen noted that when he
led the Mossad, “everything that happened in the agency, from top to
bottom, was my responsibility.”
Cohen, who left his post in June 2021, said that he did not want to
address “whether there were any warnings” leading up to the devastating
October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
Cohen added that he had not been privy to intelligence reports since
he left his role, but that the heads of intelligence services are the
ones ultimately responsible for understanding intelligence reports and
passing that information to the appropriate channels.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left)
and head of the Mossad Yossi Cohen during a toast ceremony for the
Jewish New Year on October 2, 2017 (Haim Zach/GPO)
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir also joined the
criticism of Netanyahu’s since-deleted post, writing that “the problem
isn’t specific warnings, but rather the entire mistaken concept. The
policy of containment, the imaginary deterrence, and buying temporary
quiet for an exorbitant price” were the cause of the entire problem.
Ben Gvir added, however, that such a discussion “is not for now,” but
that there will be “a lot of time afterwards for an accounting,”
alluding to the position he will likely adopt after the war against
Netanyahu’s policies of trying to contain Hamas.
Nobody openly on record questioning whether Netanyahu knew, but let it happen as a tool to boost the Israeli public into a jingoistic war he and cabinet wanted. As in "Remember the Maine." The report went on -
Netanyahu’s late-night tweet came just hours after the prime minister
took questions from reporters for the first time since the outbreak of
the war, during a Saturday night press conference alongside Gallant and
Gantz.
See the prior image of the three at the press conference, where Crabgrass reads Gantz as thinking "His lips are moving and he's lying," with consequent body language. But that's only a guess. Nobody was openly on record suggesting he may have let it happen to boost the nation to want war. The month old report continued;
During that appearance, the prime minister once again stopped short
of taking direct responsibility for the Palestinian terror group’s
deadly onslaught.
[...] He also refused to commit to setting up a state commission of inquiry
— the most powerful and consequential investigative panel — to
investigate the failings that enabled the Hamas atrocities. “There will
not be a stone left unturned,” he said, adding that his focus right now
was only on winning and “saving the state.”
[... image omitted] Netanyahu was also asked whether his government’s judicial overhaul
efforts had distracted attention from security challenges, and said the
legislative proposals to weaken the courts are “no longer on the agenda”
and that disagreements had been resolved in the face of war.
[...] Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s security perimeter around Gaza
under the cover of thousands of rockets, and then operated with relative
impunity for much of that Saturday.
That last paragraph has mojo in light of the recent "Jericho Wall" reporting, as will in due time be noted in the post.
Hamas
fighters used earth-moving equipment to breach the border fence between
Gaza and Israel on Saturday, allowing more than 1,500 fighters to surge
through nearly 30 points along the border.Credit...Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa/Reuters
The
reporters spoke to current and former Israeli security officials to
build an understanding of how Israel failed toforesee and confront the
Hamas attack.
"Failed to foresee," and "failed/declined to confront the Hamas attack" are two very different things. Obviously. Non-confrontation might have happened alone, or in combination with surprise. Continuing -
Shortly
before attackers from Gaza poured into Israel at dawn on Saturday,
Israeli intelligence detected a surge in activity on some of the Gazan
militant networks it monitors. Realizing something unusual was
happening, agents sent an alert to the Israeli soldiers guarding the
Gazan border, according to two senior Israeli security officials.
But the warning wasn’t acted upon, either because the soldiers didn’t get it or the soldiers didn’t read it.
Shortly
afterward, Hamas, the group that controls Gaza, sent drones to disable
some of the Israeli military’s cellular communications stations and
surveillance towers along the border, preventing the duty officers from
monitoring the area remotely with video cameras. The drones also
destroyed remote-controlled machine guns that Israel had installed on
its border fortifications, removing a key means of combating a ground
attack.
Again, keep in mind detail of how events happened -
That
made it easier for Hamas assailants to approach and blow up parts of
the border fence and bulldoze it in several places with surprising ease,
allowing thousands of Palestinians to walk through the gaps.
These
operational failures and weaknesses were among a wide array of
logistical and intelligence lapses by the Israeli security services that
paved the way for the Gazan incursion into southern Israel, according
to four senior Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of
anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter and their early
assessment of what went wrong.
[...] For
hours, the strongest military in the Middle East was rendered powerless
to fight back against a far weaker enemy, leaving villages defenseless
for most of the day against squads of terrorists who killed more than
1,000 Israelis, including soldiers in their underwear; abducted at least
150 people; overran at least four military camps; and spread out across
more than 30 square miles of Israeli territory.
The
four officials said the success of the attack, based on their early
assessment, was rooted in a slew of security failures by Israel’s
intelligence community and military, including:
Failure by intelligence officers to monitor key communication channels used by Palestinian attackers;
Overreliance
on border surveillance equipment that was easily shut down by
attackers, allowing them to raid military bases and slay soldiers in
their beds;
Clustering
of commanders in a single border base that was overrun in the opening
phase of the incursion, preventing communication with the rest of the
armed forces;
And
a willingness to accept at face value assertions by Gazan military
leaders, made on private channels that the Palestinians knew were being
monitored by Israel, that they were not preparing for battle.
Get real? All that intelligence, and it happened? That does not sound right. Mossad and Shin Bet being exemplary agencies in knowing what's up, when, how, and who's afoot.
Continuing, where an official notes the incredulous events:
“We
spend billions and billions on gathering intelligence on Hamas,” said
Yoel Guzansky, a former senior official at Israel’s National Security
Council. “Then, in a second,” he added, “everything collapsed like
dominoes.”
The
first failure took root months before the attack, as Israeli security
chiefs made incorrect assumptions about the extent of the threat that
Hamas posed to Israel from Gaza.
Hamas
stayed out of two fights in the past year, allowing Palestinian Islamic
Jihad, a smaller armed group in Gaza, to take on Israel alone. Last
month, Hamas leadership also ended a period of rioting along the border,
in an agreement brokered by Qatar, giving the impression that it was
not looking for an escalation.
Politico, Oct. 24, 2023: ‘Netanyahu Got All the Warnings,’ Says Former Head of Israeli Military Intelligence -- Former chief of Israeli military intelligence Amos Yadlin on where the war goes from here.
Amos
Yadlin has unique insights into all these questions. The 71-year-old
former Israeli intelligence chief, who oversaw the destruction of
Syria’s nascent nuclear program and the serial sabotage of Iran’s, has
emerged as a key voice on the crisis, briefing members of Israel’s war
cabinet. For nearly a decade following his term as intelligence chief,
he served as head of Israel’s highly influential Institute for National Security Studies, and he remains a security eminence grise, now running the national-security consultancy Mind Israel.
In a new interview with POLITICO
Magazine conducted via Zoom over two days last week, Yadlin offered a
useful window into official Israeli thinking on the escalating war —
from solutions to the ongoing hostage crisis to the challenge of
avoiding Palestinian civilian casualties.
Yadlin made clear that Israel’s
policy in this war was not simply to retaliate for the massacre or
weaken Hamas, but to definitively end the jihadist group’s 16-year rule
in Gaza.
[...]
Birnbaum: You said that Israel
would not go back to the 2005 line. What do you mean by that? Will
Israel maintain some sort of a buffer zone even after the invasion?
Yadlin: After the destruction
of Hamas, we have no desire to control 2 million Palestinians in Gaza,
but we have an obligation to ensure that a catastrophe like the 7th of
October never happens again. So the way to do it is, as you mentioned, a
buffer zone — a perimeter of one or two kilometers, well-mined with
anti-tank obstacles, that will make sure that if there will be another
intention to invade Israel, it is not going to be as easy as it was last
time. And the idea that you pay in territory if you kill Israelis is
also an idea that we want them to fully understand. But this is based on
future security needs. Nobody in Israel will come back to live one
kilometer from the border if there is no security zone that will ensure
we have enough time to stop the next attack.
[...]
Birnbaum: How much of these failures would you attribute to Israel’s domestic crisis over the judicial overhaul?
Yadlin: There were nine months
that Netanyahu pushed Israel into a domestic crisis that took all the
energy of everybody. The attention of Israel was inside and not outside.
And Netanyahu got all the warnings — from his defense minister, from
the chief of staff, from the head of intelligence, from the head of Shin
Bet and from independent writers like me, like others — that this is
weakening Israel deterrence and endangering Israeli national security,
that he is risking and weakening every source of Israeli power — the
high-tech industry, the Air Force, the intelligence, the deterrence, the
relations with the world, with the U.S.
Netanyahu also has to be blamed for
releasing Sinwar and hundreds of other dangerous terrorists [in the 2011
Shalit deal]. And he conflated Hamas with the Palestinian Authority in
Ramallah because the PA was a body that he should negotiate with, and he
didn’t want to negotiate. So he said, ‘OK, Hamas is not that dangerous,
we can live with it. Every three, four years, we’ll do a round of
exchange of fire. But this is not the most dangerous enemy of Israel.’
Birnbaum:You’re a longtime
supporter of the two-state solution. In your opinion, from an Israeli
perspective, did what happened strengthen or weaken the case for a
Palestinian state?
Yadlin: Weaken, dramatically.
By the way, I’m a supporter of a two-state solution, but with zero
military presence in the Palestinian state, because I know what the
Palestinians want to do. We went through decades of terror, and exactly
what happened on Simchat Torah is making me — a security hawk and
political dove — even more strict on security. This attack will move the
Israeli public even more to the right. The right already blames Oslo
and the Disengagement. And the idea that we can give the Palestinians
the capability to build even security forces at the levels that the PA
has — this will be very difficult now. The only reason that the polls
are not showing a move to the right is Netanyahu, because Israelis blame
Netanyahu, even on the right. But when Netanyahu departs, getting a
two-state solution will become more difficult.
Birnbaum: President Biden visited Israel after the Hamas attack. Are you satisfied with his administration’s response thus far?
Yadlin: I think this is a very
friendly administration, and Biden personally is the best president
toward Israel. He’s not shy to say that he’s a Zionist — that you don’t
have to be Jewish to be a Zionist. He still remembers the Holocaust. His
two speeches belong to the Hall of Fame of speeches. He was empathic.
He was making a moral statement that supports Israel. He promised Israel
a lot of assistance and security and gave us the sense that we have an
ally, that we are fighting together against this very cruel terrorist
organization.
Having said that, America has its own
interests, and one of the interests is that the war will not escalate
to the north and to Iran, so Biden urged Netanyahu not to launch a
preemptive strike against Hezbollah. He is also concerned about the
Palestinians. He wants a two-state solution. He cares about the
Palestinians who are not terrorists, who are under the Hamas control and
unfortunately being used as human shields. He supports the war’s
objective, to destroy Hamas, but he asked Israel to do it according to
international law, with minimum suffering to innocent people.
Birnbaum: Some Republicans
have criticized the Biden administration’s recent deal with Iran that
unfroze $6 billion in oil revenues, saying it indirectly or even
directly helped finance these attacks. Is there any merit to those
charges?
Yadlin:America is now
approaching an election, and the two sides will use arguments against
each other. I’m looking at something that is more encouraging — that
Israel is again becoming a bipartisan issue on the Hill, with both
parties supporting Israel. This is not the case on the [college]
campuses. Over there, the [boycott, divestment and sanctions] and
Palestinian supporters are still quite influential. … But in Washington,
you see bipartisan support for Israel, and this is what’s important.
A lengthy excerpt, but in a vague way, (insufficiently followed up as to what warnings), but for certain saying, Netanyahu had all the warnings.
TODAY -
The NYT story which has grown legs comes next, Netanyahu and his people indeed had detailed warnings.
First, to show how widespread the story has become: search = 40-page battle plan, code-named "Jericho Wall"
Israel had detailed Hamas attack plans a year ago, dismissed them - NYT
The document outlined "a
methodical assault" in which drones would attack Israel's surveillance
system as terrorists entered the country using paragliders and
motorcycles under the cover of rockets.
Palestinians break into the Israeli side of Israel-Gaza
border fence after Hamas terrorists infiltrated areas of southern
Israel, October 7, 2023.(photo credit: REUTERS/Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa)
A bombshell report by the New York Times claims that Israeli
officials had a detailed, approximately 40-page document outlining
"point by point" the plans for a Hamas attack on Israeli soil, but
[ostensibly] dismissed the plan as aspirational and beyond the group's capacities.
The
document, which authorities codenamed "Jericho Wall," is reported to
have outlined "a methodical assault" in which drones would attack
Israel's surveillance system as terrorists entered the country on foot
and using paragliders and motorcycles under the cover of a barrage of
rockets.
The
document is also said to have included the locations and sizes of IDF
forces in the area, and specifically stated as an objective to overwhelm
the military base in Re'im, the site of the nature party on October 7
that was targeted early in the attack. At the top of the document was a
quotation from the Qur'an: "Surprise them through the gate. If you do,
you will certainly prevail."
So, holding the roadmap of Hamas, the enemy, a concert style event was put on at a military site, (the nature of the site being at or adjacent to a military base is news; yet see two searches, here and here), i.e., a military target where coincidentally, civilians had flocked. This is troubling news. Continuing -
The
plans "circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence
leaders," the report says. The IDF's Gaza division wrote an assessment
of it, reporting plans for "a new raid, unprecedented in its scope," but
concluding that the plans were a "compass," detailing Hamas's ambitions
for the future, rather than an immediate plan of action.
Colonel called the plans "totally imaginative," said to "wait patiently"
Then,
in July 2023, the IDF's signal intelligence division, Unit 8200,
reported that Hamas had been spotted conducting training exercises that
mirrored the blueprint in "Jericho Wall," including exercises to
simulate shooting down Israeli airplanes, occupying a kibbutz, and
overrunning a military base.
During
the exercise, Hamas terrorists used the same quotation from the Quran
that appeared at the top of the "Jericho Wall" document. The Unit 8200
analyst who wrote the report warned that Hamas was building the capacity
to put the plan into action, and that the exercises Hamas was engaged
in closely reflected what was outlined in the document.
The
colonel who received the report apparently called the exercise "totally
imaginative," saying, "in short, let's wait patiently."
An
internal debate followed, with others endorsing the analyst's warning.
One even invoked the example of the Yom Kippur War, writing "We already
underwent a similar experience 50 years ago on the southern front in
connection with a scenario that seemed imaginary, and history may repeat
itself if we are not careful."
"Internal debate" without that term being fleshed out in who, where, when, debate opinions, debate outcome - failing to flesh things out in reporting begs the question big time.
But those internal considerations presumably reached Netanyahu and his cabinet. It is unthinkable that others had discussions with the chief of state and cabinet left in the dark.
So, chief and cabinet; what message did they have when, and what message did they hand down? We prepare? We stand down and things happen as they may?
If the latter, with what expectations would you imagine such a policy was formed, and what does that say about the quick, massive destruction of Gazan property and civilians that quickly ensued?
One possible thing happening as it may if "let it be" was affirmative policy is that there was clearly discernible resultant carnage, on a predictably major scale. What doors of retaliation might that open in terms of appearances to the UN, to the world, and allies of Israel?
In short, "internal debate" is the whole point of whether good or bad
faith carried the day and whether mutual war crime from both sides was
directly or implicitly expected and sanctioned as chosen policy.
The
world deserves to know and ostensible, "oh, my, who'd have thought," is insufficient in terms of detail enunciation. The
circumstantial Crabgrass inference is Netanyahu remained an opportunist
in terms of thinking what such planned Hamas actions would hand him and
how he'd use the opportunity, and that he'd made a conscious choice
accordingly.
The JP item ended:
A previous warning, also unheeded
"Jericho
Wall" was not the first intelligence that had prompted such a debate,
the Times reports. In September 2016, the Ministry of Defense prepared a
top-secret memo, signed by then-defense minister Avigdor Lieberman,
warning of an invasion and hostage-taking operation by Hamas.
The
memo outlined Hamas's purchases of drones, GPS jammers, and other
sophisticated weaponry. It also reported that Hamas had swelled its
fighting force by 6,000 men in two years, and aimed to grow it from
27,000 to 40,000 by 2020.
WHAT NEW YORK TIMES REPORTED:
Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago - A
blueprint reviewed by The Times laid out the attack in detail. Israeli
officials dismissed it as aspirational and ignored specific warnings.
Israeli
officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack
more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews
show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan
as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.
With reference to "documents, emails and interviews," things can be decided and then documented in accordance with such decision making, either evidencing it, or smokescreening it; and we do not know which direction was chosen. We are told "wrongly dismissive," but what else would you expect to be said? Continuing:
The
approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities
code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of
devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.
The
translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not
set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed
to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli
cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.
Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out
the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and
gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and
on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.
Lo, there were further RED FLAG things Mossad and Shin Bet could not have reasonably ignored or dismissed as "hope, not reality." Specifically -
The
plan also included details about the location and size of Israeli
military forces, communication hubs and other sensitive information,
raising questions about how Hamas gathered its intelligence and whether there were leaks inside the Israeli security establishment.
The
document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence
leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and
ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and
officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or
other top political leaders saw the document, as well.
Last
year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli
military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border
with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.
“It
is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully
accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment
reviewed by The Times.
Then,
in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with
Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had
conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to
what was outlined in the blueprint.
But a colonel in the Gaza division brushed off her concerns, according to encrypted emails viewed by The Times.
“I
utterly refute that the scenario is imaginary,” the analyst wrote in
the email exchanges. The Hamas training exercise, she said, fully
matched “the content of Jericho Wall.”
“It is a plan designed to start a war,” she added. “It’s not just a raid on a village.”
Officials
privately concede that, had the military taken these warnings seriously
and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas
attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even
prevented them.
Instead,
the Israeli military was [was positioned as if] unprepared as terrorists streamed out of the
Gaza Strip. It was the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
Israeli
security officials have already acknowledged that they failed to
protect the country, and the government is expected to assemble a
commission to study [and/or whitewash] the events leading up to the attacks. The Jericho
Wall document lays bare a yearslong cascade of [ostemsible] missteps
that culminated in what officials now regard as the worst Israeli
intelligence failure since the surprise attack that led to the
Arab-Israeli war of 1973.
Underpinning
all these failures was a single, fatally inaccurate belief that Hamas
lacked the capability to attack and would not dare to do so. That belief
was so ingrained in the Israeli government, officials said, that they
disregarded growing evidence to the contrary.
The Israeli military and the Israeli Security Agency, which is in charge of counterterrorism in Gaza, declined to comment.
Officials
would not say how they obtained the Jericho Wall document, but it was
among several versions of attack plans collected over the years. A 2016
Defense Ministry memorandum viewed by The Times, for example, says,
“Hamas intends to move the next confrontation into Israeli territory.”
Such
an attack would most likely involve hostage-taking and “occupying an
Israeli community (and perhaps even a number of communities),” the memo
reads.
The
Jericho Wall document, named for the ancient fortifications in the
modern-day West Bank, was even more explicit. It detailed rocket attacks
to distract Israeli soldiers and send them hurrying into bunkers, and
drones to disable the elaborate security measures along the border fence
separating Israel and Gaza.
Hamas
fighters would then break through 60 points in the wall, storming across
the border into Israel. The document begins with a quote from the Quran: “Surprise them through the gate. If you do, you will certainly prevail.”
The same phrase has been widely used by Hamas in its videos and statements since Oct. 7.
One
of the most important objectives outlined in the document was to
overrun the Israeli military base in Re’im, which is home to the Gaza
division responsible for protecting the region. Other bases that fell
under the division’s command were also listed.
Hamas carried out that objective on Oct. 7, rampaging through Re’im and overrunning parts of the base.
The
audacity of the blueprint, officials said, made it easy to
underestimate. All militaries write plans that they never use, and
Israeli officials assessed that, even if Hamas invaded, it might muster a
force of a few dozen, not the hundreds who ultimately attacked.
Israel
had also misread Hamas’s actions. The group had negotiated for permits
to allow Palestinians to work in Israel, which Israeli officials took as
a sign that Hamas was not looking for a war.
But
Hamas had been drafting attack plans for many years, and Israeli
officials had gotten hold of previous iterations of them. What could
have been an intelligence coup turned into one of the worst
miscalculations in Israel’s 75-year history.
In
September 2016, the defense minister’s office compiled a top-secret
memorandum based on a much earlier iteration of a Hamas attack plan. The
memorandum, which was signed by the defense minister at the time,
Avigdor Lieberman, said that an invasion and hostage-taking would “lead
to severe damage to the consciousness and morale of the citizens of
Israel.”
The memo, which was viewed by
The Times, said that Hamas had purchased sophisticated weapons, GPS
jammers and drones. It also said that Hamas had increased its fighting
force to 27,000 people — having added 6,000 to its ranks in a two-year
period. Hamas had hoped to reach 40,000 by 2020, the memo determined.
Last
year, after Israel obtained the Jericho Wall document, the military’s
Gaza division drafted its own intelligence assessment of this latest
invasion plan.
Hamas
had “decided to plan a new raid, unprecedented in its scope,” analysts
wrote in the assessment reviewed by The Times. It said that Hamas
intended to carry out a deception operation followed by a “large-scale
maneuver” with the aim of overwhelming the division.
But
the Gaza division referred to the plan as a “compass.” In other words,
the division determined that Hamas knew where it wanted to go but had
not arrived there yet.
On July 6,
2023, the veteran Unit 8200 analyst wrote to a group of other
intelligence experts that dozens of Hamas commandos had recently
conducted training exercises, with senior Hamas commanders observing.
The
training included a dry run of shooting down Israeli aircraft and
taking over a kibbutz and a military training base, killing all the
cadets. During the exercise, Hamas fighters used the same phrase from
the Quran that appeared at the top of the Jericho Wall attack plan, she
wrote in the email exchanges viewed by The Times.
The
analyst warned that the drill closely followed the Jericho Wall plan,
and that Hamas was building the capacity to carry it out.
The
colonel in the Gaza division applauded the analysis but said the
exercise was part of a “totally imaginative” scenario, not an indication
of Hamas’s ability to pull it off.
“In short, let’s wait patiently,” the colonel wrote.
The
back-and-forth continued, with some colleagues supporting the analyst’s
original conclusion. Soon, she invoked the lessons of the 1973 war, in
which Syrian and Egyptian armies overran Israeli defenses. Israeli
forces regrouped and repelled the invasion, but the intelligence failure
has long served as a lesson for Israeli security officials.
“We
already underwent a similar experience 50 years ago on the southern
front in connection with a scenario that seemed imaginary, and history
may repeat itself if we are not careful,” the analyst wrote to her
colleagues.
While ominous, none of the
emails predicted that war was imminent. Nor did the analyst challenge
the conventional wisdom among Israeli intelligence officials that Yahya
Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, was not interested in war with Israel. But
she correctly assessed that Hamas’s capabilities had drastically
improved. The gap between the possible and the aspirational had narrowed
significantly.
The failures to
connect the dots echoed another analytical failure more than two decades
ago, when the American authorities also had multiple indications that
the terrorist group Al Qaeda was preparing an assault. The Sept. 11,
2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were largely a
failure of analysis and imagination, a government commission concluded.
The official version of the Trade Center events is not universally accepted, including stories of thermite residue found and destruction of Building 7 into its footprint, as with the two towers into theirs, when no aircraft were said to have hit that Building 7. Stories of dancing Israelis in New Jersey exist. A commission was formed and reported, as with the Kennedy assination, where, also doubt over the official commission version doubt lingers.
“The
Israeli intelligence failure on Oct. 7 is sounding more and more like
our 9/11,” said Ted Singer, a recently retired senior C.I.A. official
who worked extensively in the Middle East. “The failure will be a gap in
analysis to paint a convincing picture to military and political
leadership that Hamas had the intention to launch the attack when it
did.”The breached security fence in the village of Kfar Azza, Israel, three days after it was attacked by Hamas.
Ronen Bergman
is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv.
His latest book is “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s
Targeted Assassinations,” published by Random House.More about Ronen Bergman
Though the U.S. and Israel have a close intelligence relationship,
Israel does not appear to have shared the secret battle plans with U.S.
intelligence officials, according to the current and former officials,
who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
[...] National
Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said he could not confirm the
Times report, and referred to Israel for comment. A spokesperson for the
Israeli Defense Forces did not respond to a request for comment. A
spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment.
But
top Biden administration officials have previously said explicitly that
the U.S. had no knowledge that Hamas was planning an attack of this
scale.
“If
we had those indications, we would share them with Israel,” Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in Brussels in October. “But to my
knowledge, we did not see that.”
“There
is going to be plenty of opportunity for a full accounting of what
happened on Oct. 7, including looking back to see what happened, who
knew what when, and Israel’s been very clear about that,” Blinken said.
On Capitol Hill, members of the
Senate and House intelligence committees have received several briefings
about the Oct. 7 attack, according to a congressional aide familiar
with the matter.
In at least one of those closed-door
conversations, members were told that Israel had been aware about the
potential for a Hamas attack from Gaza. But those readouts did not
include the specific details of the Jericho Wall document, said the
aide.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including
Democrats, have in recent weeks raised questions about the extent to
which the Biden administration relies on Israel for intelligence about
Hamas.
Why would they have not shared such
intelligence with our nation is a fine question which many will ask. As
in, "Were we hung out to dry?"
Or, "Why were we hung out to dry?" Or, "Are our own people being truthful?"
Or, hopefully, "How do we react to being hung out to dry by Israeli leadership?"
Or, "What do we do with AIPAC people, propaganda and money - the Benjamins - after being hung out to dry?"
Clearly the last two questions presuppose things which might or might not emerge as true.
Pandora's Box.
FURTHER: A mid-November, 2023,
poll in Israel, i.e., weeks before the "Jericho Wall" disclosure, had
Benny Gantz gaining seats, Netanyahu losing seats in the Knesset. After
the NYT report, the best guess is an even greater shift toward Gantz.
And Smotrich out of play, as the poll indicated. A reckoning is needed, and from the poll one seems likely. Four billion annual American taxpayer bucks should have a better ROI return. AIPAC should, hopefully, see its influence lessen. Absent a two state movement, sincere and effective, why keep subsidizing?
FURTHER: Link. Also, Biden is put into a bad light by having given unconditional military aid to the Netanyahu government. His tendency is not liking to be hung out to dry. He gets impatient. The time has come . . .
FURTHER: Times of Israel, 30 Nov. 2023; there is no Israeli plan, or none that they will tell to Blinken. This is troubling news. It appears that the IDF is unprepared to conduct a war cognizant of enemy civilian loss of life. IDF appears unwilling to act with precision, which may mean to take more losses in the IDF's ground war effort. The fact seems to be the Israelis don't give a shit how many civilians they kill. This is crazy and genocidal. Why have we allowed ourselves to be backed into support of these ghoulish war mongering planners?
FURTHER: With regard to Minnesota DFL ranks, this link. State Sen. Ron Latz has too brashly bandied the "antisemitism" smear against those disagreeing with him. The death counts stand against his position, and they are mounting. BDS may be a factor in quelling the worse of what is happening after we've thought over "Jericho Wall" implications.
ST. PAUL — An often overlooked governmental body at the state Capitol drew much attention on Wednesday.
The
Minnesota State Board of Investment — which includes Gov. Tim Walz,
Attorney General Keith Ellison and other top officials — had to meet in a
larger room than usual, and one that made entry and exit for state
officials more accessible.
That’s because pro-Palestinian and
Jewish groups gathered there to weigh in on the state’s foreign
investments. The board manages public pension accounts and other
investments. Those benefiting Israel make up $116.3 million, or 0.14% of
the state’s portfolio, according to the governor’s office.
“As a nurse, this latest bombing campaign — unprecedented in
the century by every measure of death and destruction — was
unimaginable,” retired nurse Sarah Martin said during the meeting’s
public comment period. “Hospitals were at the center of Israel’s
attacks. My pension, which I get because I took care of sick and injured
people in a state-of-the-art hospital just down the street, was used to
destroy the hospitals of Gaza.”
Human Rights Watch on Sunday said
its investigation into an Oct. 17 strike on Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital
suggests a Hamas misfire caused that blast. But Israeli bombardments
have caused massive death and destruction, including at hospitals.
Israel’s military says Hamas uses the facilities as shields for an
underground network of tunnels.
The retired nurse, along with five other speakers, asked the
state to divest from Israel and weapons manufacturers. The activists
said the board moved on its own to divest from South Africa in the 1980s
in response to apartheid, pointing to it as a precedent for the actions
they want the board to take now.
It’s part of a global movement
known as Boycott, Divest, Sanctions, or BDS. Supporters want
institutions and governments to withdraw investments in Israel. Some in
the Jewish community say the movement is anti-Semitic.
“Divestment
as part of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction movement would be a profound
mistake. You don’t divest from the victim of an attack,” state Sen. Ron
Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, said at a press conference before the meeting.
[...] As for the investment board, it did not indicate whether Wednesday’s
actions would change its investment practices. Its members thanked
people for their comments and ended the meeting without engaging further
with the crowd.
If it does take action — as it did in 2022 with Russia and
Belarus and in 2009 with Iran — it will not be swift. The state
typically will gradually withdraw its investments to avoid hurting
pensions.
For example, six months after the 2022 law went into
effect, the state still had about $1 million invested in businesses tied
to Russia or Belarus, with about 30% of those targeted for divestment.
Both laws also have language exempting humanitarian relief, education
and journalism organizations.
Being victim of an initial incident is an Israeli status called into question by the "Jericho Wall" situation. Being a bogus victim, a possibility unfortunately, being set up to stand as initial victim is a real thorny thicket, and Latz must know that at this point, where the Netanyahu government seems to have stood down when they knew they should have stood up complicates his position immensely.
Yes, the dead Israelis were victims. But if in large part they were victimized by their own government's coarse decision making, the BDS question takes on nuances and complications.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks (left) as Defense Minister Yoav Galant (center) and head of the National Unity party Benny Gantz (right) during a joint press conference at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. October 28, 2023. (Dana Kopel/POOL)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and head of the Mossad Yossi Cohen during a toast ceremony for the Jewish New Year on October 2, 2017 (Haim Zach/GPO)
