The Israeli government has finally launched an investigation into the failures that led to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023 — but not the independent state commission of inquiry that Israeli law, democratic norms, and public sentiment demand.

Instead, it is pursuing an internal investigation — a scheme central to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to escape political consequences for the catastrophe, and an evolution of his broader project to weaken Israel’s checks and balances.

To understand how we got here, we must recall the argument the government now uses against a state commission: that the public supposedly “does not trust” any effort involving the Supreme Court. This narrative is new, and also false. Until only a few years ago, polling consistently showed that the Supreme Court was one of the most trusted institutions in Israel.

But as soon as criminal indictments for corruption were filed against him in 2019, Netanyahu launched a sustained campaign portraying the court as a bastion of left-wing activism, suspect in its motives at every turn. His claims on this front have, from the start, been false. But a falsehood repeated often enough can shift public sentiment. That appears to be part of the plan.

When Netanyahu addressed the Knesset last week, he claimed that the “vast majority” of the Israeli public “does not believe” in establishing a state commission. This is a transparent lie. According to the Israel Democracy Institute, 74% of Israelis — including 75.5% of Jews and 68% of Arabs — support establishing a fully independent state commission. Among leftists and centrists, support is above 85%.

Families of Oct. 7 victims stood and turned their backs on him. But while the lies may sound obvious, they have had a measurable effect, particularly on the right. This intentional erosion of trust aims to weaken oversight, expand executive power, and delegitimize any institution capable of restraining the government.

Israel has an accepted mechanism for drawing lessons from national disasters, established by the State Commissions of Inquiry Law of 1968. Under that act, commissions are chaired by sitting or retired Supreme Court justices endowed with sweeping quasi-judicial powers and full independence from government control.

The Agranat Commission after the Yom Kippur War and the Bejski Commission after the early-1980s banking crisis are remembered as credible precisely because they were insulated from political manipulation. Their conclusions reshaped national understanding and restored institutional trust, although the Agranat Commission is criticized for largely clearing Golda Meir’s government of blame.

A Sunday decision by the government to instead establish its own probe will, by contrast, allows ministers to determine the mandate, membership, and powers of a “government commission.” In practice, that means those under scrutiny will choose their own investigators, and can limit the scope of the enterprise.

The need for a true reckoning — not this parody of corruption run amok — could not be more urgent. The Oct. 7 attack revealed systemic collapse across Israel’s entire security and political architecture.

Internal reviews since have made clear that longstanding assumptions about Hamas — particularly the belief that the group was deterred and more interested in governance than conflict — were catastrophically misguided. The military left the Gaza border with minimal protection, with much personnel diverted to the West Bank to try to contain provocations against the Palestinians by militant settlers backed by the government. The Defense Minister, Chief of Staff, head of Military Intelligence, head of the Shin Bet, and other senior officials from that period have all resigned or been removed.

These failures were not solely operational; they were strategic, doctrinal, and political. For years, Netanyahu’s Gaza policy — allowing Qatari cash into the Strip, sidelining the Palestinian Authority, insisting that Hamas could be “managed” and finding a benefit in having the Palestinians be politically divided — shaped Israel’s thinking.

Netanyahu, however, has refused to even hint at accepting any responsibility. During the Gaza war, he argued that any inquiry must await its conclusion. Critics howled that such a claim incentivized his prolonging of the war — but thus did Netanyahu buy two more years of time.

Now, with the war seemingly over, comes this latest machination.

Critics across Israeli society have already labeled the government’s decision a whitewash and a cover-up. The Movement for Quality Government decried “a transparent attempt to evade a real and independent investigation.” The October Council — representing bereaved families, survivors, and relatives of hostages — condemned the move as an attempt by those in power to “absolve themselves of punishment.”

The refusal to establish a state commission is not an isolated decision. It sits alongside ongoing efforts to dilute the Attorney General’s authority, undermine independent media, and reshape public understanding of Israel’s core institutions. Internationally, Netanyahu benefits from an American political climate less committed to defending liberal democratic norms. President Trump’s letter to his counterpart Isaac Herzog last week, urging him to pardon Netanyahu and end his bribery trial, underscored this new reality.

In this reality, the election coming up within a year is emerging as a referendum on the fundamental, existential question of whether Israel wants to remain a true democracy, or join the ranks or elected dictatorships, ranging from Viktor Orban’s Hungary all the way to the worst-case scenario of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

And if Israel votes to save itself from Netanyahu and his cabal, expect the new government to decommission the whitewash — and appoint a state inquiry commission.

The post A new scheme dishonoring victims of Oct. 7 — hatched by Israel’s own government appeared first on The Forward.

Hundreds attended the unveiling ceremony of the first monument in North America commemorating the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack at the Shalom Baruch cemetery in Humble, Texas. Photo: Shalom Baruch Cemetery

A Jewish cemetery in Texas recently unveiled the first permanent memorial in North America commemorating the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The 12-foot tall Star of David sculpture at Shalom Baruch – located in the Houston-area city of Humble – honors the victims, survivors, and hostages of the Oct. 7 massacre. It was conceptualized and designed by an art committee that included Anat Ronen, Kirsten Coco, and Jonathan Dror.

“The Star of David emerging from the ground stands as a symbol of resilience, identity, and collective memory,” said Coco. “It honors those we lost, affirms the strength of Israel and reflects a commitment to rise above hate, together.”

A companion ribbon-shaped sculpture nearby, created by Israeli artist Yaron Bob, was made out of shrapnel recovered from missiles that were fired at Israel from Iran and intercepted by the Jewish state’s Iron Dome system.

The sculpture symbolizes transformation and hope, according to a description on the cemetery’s website. Bob is well known for creating a similar piece that US President Donald Trump gifted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this summer and a menorah for President Barack Obama in 2014.

Yaron Bob’s sculpture made from shrapnel. Photo: Chuck Thompson

Shalom Baruch was founded in 2023 by Israeli-American Varda Fields in honor of her father. Guests who attended the memorial’s unveiling ceremony were encouraged to leave notes in the cemetery’s Western Wall replica and promised that their notes would be delivered to the real wall in Jerusalem when Fields travels to Israel next. Memorial stones, made by adult artists living with intellectual and developmental disabilities through Alexander Jewish Family Services’ Celebration Company program, were given to attendees to place at the memorial’s base, in line with the Jewish tradition of placing stones on the grave of a loved one.

The Oct. 7 memorial sculpture is available for viewing to the general public during the cemetery’s regular hours, Monday through Friday. It was unveiled earlier in November during an event attended by several local, state, and national elected officials, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and more than 200 community members, civic leaders, and faith representatives.

“Jewish Houstonians and our many allies showed up for us today,” said Fields. “I can only hope that they continue to speak up against antisemitism, support the Jewish people, and even encourage others around the country and the world to build their own memorials so that we never forget what happened on Oct. 7 and every day thereafter.”

“This monument … serves as a powerful symbol of resilience, identity, and the unbreakable spirit of the Jewish people,” US Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), who attended the unveiling ceremony, said in a statement on social media. “It stands as a reminder that even in the face of unimaginable hate and terror, we rise, together with strength, faith, and a commitment to ensure the world never forgets. May this memorial inspire unity, remembrance, and a continued stand against antisemitism, here at home and across the globe.”

Speakers at the unveiling ceremony, co-sponsored by the Holocaust Museum Houston, included former Hamas hostage Omer Shem Tov, who was abducted from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023, by Hamas-led terrorists and held captive in the Gaza Strip for 505 days. Shem Tov was released from captivity on Feb. 22 as part of a ceasefire deal. He spoke at the ceremony about the hostages and the soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces who were killed protecting Israel since the Oct. 7 attack. The Shalom Baruch cemetery honored him with its inaugural “The Lone Star of Israel Award,” which it will present annually.

Illustrative” Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

University College London (UCL) on Thursday condemned an on-campus incident in which its former researcher uttered “vile” antisemitic statements during an event organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a global anti-Israel network linked to jihadist groups.

As seen in footage shared by StandWithUs UK, the researcher, Samar Maqusi, delivered a pseudo-academic lecture at the UCL Student Union which argued that Napoleon Bonaparte recruited Jewish financiers to join him in a conspiracy to end the Ottoman Empire’s occupation of the Holy Land, saying the French emperor sought the fictional partnership because “Jews pretty much controlled the financialization [sic] structure.”

Additionally, she charged that Jews harvest the blood of gentiles to use it as the key ingredient of “special pancakes,” a classic antisemitic trope pulled from the medieval age and used to justify pogroms and many other forms of legalized anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution.

“I am utterly appalled by these heinous antisemitic comments. Antisemitism has absolutely no place in our university, and I want to express my unequivocal apology to all Jewish students, staff, alumni, and the wider community that these words were uttered at UCL,” university president and provost Michael Spence said in a statement. “The individual responsible is a former fixed-term researcher at UCL, but not a current member of UCL staff. We have reported this incident to the police and have banned her from campus.”

He added, “We have launched a full investigation into how this happened and have banned the student group which hosted it from holding any further events on campus pending the outcome of this.”

UCL’s Student Union also condemned the incident while announcing disciplinary sanctions for SJP which halts its operating on campus indefinitely.

“The antisemitic tropes used throughout the lecture are reprehensible, and we condemn this language in the strongest possible terms. Every person in our community has a duty to call out and challenge hate speech on our campus,” it said. “We have suspended the two organizing societies, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jews for Palestinian Justice, with immediate effect. A full investigation through our disciplinary procedures will now take place.”

UCL is not the only university in the United Kingdom to see recent antisemitic acts.

At City St. George’s, University of London Israeli professor Michael Ben-Gad has been unrelentingly pursued by a pro-Hamas organization which calls itself City Action for Palestine. It has subjected him to several forms of persecution, including social media agitprop, spontaneous, unlawful assembly at his place of work, and even a petition of their own.

City Action for Palestine is one of London’s most notorious anti-Zionist groups, convulsing higher education campuses across the city with pro-Hamas demonstrations which demonize pro-Israel Jews, attack policies enacted to combat antisemitism, and amplify the propaganda of jihadist terror organizations. Ben-Gad is not its only victim, as the group has targeted Members of Parliament, the Union of Jewish Students, and City University London president Anthony Finkelstein, who is Jewish and the child of a Holocaust survivor.

In 2023, just months before Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel, the National Union of Students (NUS), a body representing thousands of university students in the UK, apologized for discriminating against Jewish students.

The expression of contrition followed years of incidents to which Jewish groups pointed as evidence that antisemitism was prevalent throughout its organizing structure. Jewish students had reported incitement of violence against Israeli civilians, the spreading of conspiracy theories about Mossad’s rumored role in the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), and opposition to a motion proposing observance of Holocaust Memorial Day.

In November 2022, NUS removed president Shaima Dallali after finding her guilty of antisemitism and other misconduct. Dallali’s tenure at NUS brimmed with controversies, including the discovery of tweets in which she called Hamas critics “Dirty Zionists” and quoted the battle cry, “Khaybar, Khaybar o Jews, the army of Muhammad will return,” a reference to the Battle of Khaybar in 628 that resulted in a massacre of Jews.

UK Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson recently called on higher education officials to “tackle this poison of antisemitism,” calling the trend “unacceptable.”

“There can be no place for harassment and intimidation,” she said while appearing on a program by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which has itself been scrutinized for deluging the airwaves with false stories fed by the Hamas terrorist organization. “Universities can and must act on that.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.