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Who Must Share Responsibility for the Events of Oct. 7?

Smoke rises following Israeli strikes in Gaza, October 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

JNS.orgThe former head of the Mossad, Uzi Arad, was very critical of Benjamin Netanyahu in an Oct. 4 interview with Shira Rubin of The Washington Post. Netanyahu, he said, “championed a radical reconceptualization of Israel’s approach to Hamas.” It was a strategy of “containment that relied on shoring up the group’s government in Gaza with financial support from intermediaries while keeping its military capabilities in check with occasional bombing campaigns.” Arad, however, is of the opinion that “it was self-delusion. And there wasn’t anyone who challenged it.”

Conceptualizations have been the bane of Israel’s security failures before, most notably regarding the 1973 Yom Kippur War. That debacle, at least, was one in which the government was convinced a full day earlier that war would break out, unlike Netanyahu’s cabinet. Whereas Israeli premier Golda Meir and her ministers decided not to act preemptively on the information available to them and based on army intelligence, Netanyahu was not even woken up to digest the incoming reports or given a chance to make a wrong—or correct—decision until 6:29 a.m. on the day Hamas crossed the border.

Journalistic investigations into the debacle of the performance of the Israel Defense Forces leading up to Oct. 7, including lack of reinforced shelters and arms training, as well as the near-total collapse of any effective organized defense action until well after midday by the IDF, make for painful reading. Even if Israel’s governments preferred to simply contain Hamas—and worse, allowing themselves to be convinced that Hamas was deterred—it is the army’s responsibility, at the very least, to be prepared to confront attacks.

No one in the IDF, in the Mossad, in the GSS thought to alert the prime minister of a possible dangerous development in Israel’s south. Even Maj. Gen Aharon Haliva, now retired, the former commander of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate, slept through the night while other commanders discussed and debated the situation.

The most senior commanders, in the two previous years, had either ignored or suppressed indications of a change in Hamas strategy from the field spotters. Herzi Halevi, appointed as IDF Chief of Staff by Benny Gantz (over protests that were ignored by the State Attorney General, appointed by Gantz’s government on the recommendation of Gideon Sa’ar) was previously the commander of the Israeli Southern Command, responsible for Gaza, and before that, the chief of the Military Intelligence Directorate. It would appear that the IDF’s role in the debacle is not incidental. One decision was to remove rifles from the members of the emergency intervention teams of the communities. Another was to close the Open Source Intelligence unit and merge it, making it less effective.

The army, however, was only part of the problem of a wrong and misguided conceptualization. The political echelons over the years contributed to the willingness of the senior command to dismiss or minimize the threat that Hamas represented.

The idea—the belief that peace is obtainable by convincing the Arabs that Israel is willing to compromise—only fed their convictions that the Zionist entity is weak. Ever since the Oslo Accords, and even previously, territorial surrender combined with a strengthening of the military capabilities of the Arab terror groups, mainly via Iran, undermined Israel’s strategic security. It needs be acknowledged that between Gaza and Iran, Israel’s governments viewed the threat of a nuclear enemy as one that demanded the most attention.

It is another matter if Netanyahu had ordered the army these past few years to operate in a much more aggressive manner and if those opposing his policies would have applauded that approach. For example, what has occurred in Judea and Samaria—the elimination of more than 600 mainly Hamas terrorists over the past year, including drone strikes and aerial bombings—would have been unacceptable if not for the Oct. 7 invasion.

An unexpected voice highlighting a different approach to responsibility is that of Aviad Bachar. A resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, he lost his wife and son Carmel. They were killed in their safe room during the overrunning of the kibbutz. His right leg required amputation. The kibbutz belongs to the historic Mapai stream—founded in 1946 as one of the “11 points in the Negev”—and was a center of Habonim settlement training. An island of socialism.

Touching on the responsibility of a political conceptualization that weakened, perhaps, security planning, back in February, he said, “Migration is a solution. The State of Israel must encourage emigration. … Physically expel them, so that there will not be one there.”

Interviewed recently on Israel’s Channel 12, he added, “Those who live on the other side there, they don’t talk to you about life, and you can’t negotiate with them about people, only land. They understand land. By the way, they didn’t kill us because of our Jewishness, and massacred us with unbearable brutality, because they simply wanted this land.

He is not the only one to reconsider their ideological positions and the responsibility of those positions for what led to Oct. 7. In Haaretz, you could read this headline in February: “‘Settlers Are Right’: The Kibbutz Movement Should Break Away From the Left, Outgoing Leader Says.” Well-known chef Meir Adoni announced that he was that he was “ashamed that he was part of the delusion of the delusional left who don’t understand that we are surrounded by extreme Islam monsters who have no interest in peace and normalcy, and only want to burn us alive.” He even asked forgiveness for having identified as left-wing.

Another peace activist, Yael Noy, who heads Roads to Recovery—the group that drove Gazans into Israel for hospital treatment—while refusing to yield on the need for the continuation of such volunteering, admits: “Even people on the left say that we should flatten Gaza. Both sides have become more and more radicalized.” While a minority still, there is no doubt many left-wingers are less comfortable in their ideologies than previously.

Returning to the IDF’s responsibility, there is a need to reflect on two post-Oct. 7 events: the promotions of senior officers who were involved in the failures, such as Shlomi Binder; as well as the removal of officers supposedly considered “too assertive” and too identified with rightist, nationalist outlooks, like Ofer Winter and Yaniv Asor. Asor had urged a stricter attitude towards the reservists and volunteers promoting the campaign of the Brothers in Arms group to refuse to serve. That campaign is widely believed to have encouraged Hamas in its decision to attack, seeing it as a weakening and a collapse of Israel society.

There is much to be investigated. It must be a broad and deep process. No one—from the prime minister (and former prime ministers) to IDF commanders—should be immune. But it must be done to identify not only who failed but how to be victorious in the future.

The post Who Must Share Responsibility for the Events of Oct. 7? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire

Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado

The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.

It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.

The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.

“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”

“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.

The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”

Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.

“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”

Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”

The post UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.

The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.

“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.

The post Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’

FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo

Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.

US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.

“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.

“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.

“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.

The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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