Strategic and Tactical Failures, Not Betrayal, Made October 7 Possible

This week, with elections less than two months away, recriminations over October 7 have returned to the forefront of the Israeli public conversation. Most recently, there were reports that the Emirati president had warned Benjamin Netanyahu in September that Hamas was planning something big. The controversy before that involved the prime minister’s claim that his security chiefs failed to wake him immediately after the invasion began, and the contradictory claims of those officials. Much of what Israelis believe about the subject reflects their overall attitude toward Netanyahu, with some going so far as to imagine that high-ranking officials allowed the attack to happen in order to tarnish his reputation.