Hamas’ preparation for 10/7 was hidden in plain sight by a political agenda

The intel on Hamas attack plan was there, but IDF simply refused to believe it, probe finds

I follow David Horovitz but was disappointed by his op-ed of 19 November. I agree with his premise with regards to Netanyahu’s culpability in and responsibility for October 7. Netanyahu certainly wasn’t the cause. That belongs solely to Hamas. But with more strategic and military acuity – not previously a weak point for Israel – less driven by flawed far Right politics, October 7 might have been avoided or, at the least, responded to in a far more immediate and efficient manner.

The IDF would and should have been better positioned and prepared rather than having off duty and/or differently assigned soldiers run to help and engage. This, as retired former command rank members of the IDF put on their old uniforms and grabbed their personal handguns to head South to the fighting. And thank the stars they all did so.

I don’t disagree with Horovitz that Israel has done, and is still doing, a remarkably poor job at ‘public advocacy.’ But that Netanyahu’s government lost support and global empathy so quickly was far less related to ‘incompetent public advocacy’ and far more from the immediate excessive brutality, destruction and lies. Israel also quickly lost that support for the violence repeatedly coming from the mouths of Smotrich, Ben Gvir and other members of the government.

At a briefing five days after the October 7 massacre by Hamas terrorists, Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, said that “[Gazans are] an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved [in the October 7 onslaught] — it’s absolutely not true.”

Herzog surely knew then and knows now that these dynamics were and are far more complicated. His extreme misrepresentation was an immense self inflicted error from the outset which helped set the stage for what was to come. ‘A blood libel’: Herzog says ICJ ‘twisted my words’ to support ‘unfounded’ contention.

Despite Herzog’s subsequent attempts to walk back this statement, it further compounded Israel’s internal defects appearing to justify the extreme brutality to come. What started as a just war against Hamas turned into a war of utter and far ‘over the top’ devastation to Gaza citizens and infrastructure.

I’d offer that Herzog’s initial self defense which included accusing the ICJ of a ‘blood libel’ wasn’t wholly without merit. Though not at a ‘blood libel,’ a phrase overused and since misused by Netanyahu, that South Africa filed charges of ‘genocide’ against Israel only 3 months after the full war began, and without any mention of Hamas’ atrocities which I specifically recall, displayed a lack of honesty with less interest in Gazan citizens and far more an intent to target Israel.

Despite Netanyahu’s insistence that Israel would achieve ‘total victory’ over Hamas – a goal which hardly seemed feasible from the outset – Hamas has now returned armed and in force (if still fewer in numbers) while reestablishing its violent control over close to the 50% of Gaza from where the IDF has been pulled back. Hamas has now returned to extorting and ‘taxing’ Gaza’s civilians while murdering at will for crimes at their identification.

Hamas has no intention to disarm, demilitarize or end it’s own occupation and governance of whatever portions of Gaza it can control. And Netanyahu’s government has no intention of granting any form of Palestinian sovereignty.

And then there’s Trump whose administration had bastardized the Gaza peace plan originally put forth by the Biden Administration claiming it as its own. Freeing the hostages was a remarkable event. But the use of their more limited manpower to guard and manage the remaining hostages had also likely become less in Hamas’ own interest.

Trump is now far more focused on increasing the ostentatious gold in his White House brothel with it’s yet to be $300,000,000 privately paid for ballroom, occupying and brutalizing Blue American cities while targeting undocumented immigrants (those with brown skin) and resisting US citizens.

Trump is now focused on his national and international extortion ring and Oval Office profiteering the latter being on full display at his Tuesday meeting with Saudi Arabia’s de facto and murderous ruler, MBS, where Trump again shamefully covered for MBS’s brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Trump is also trying once more to force Ukraine into accepting Putin’s violent and unacceptable terms to stop Putin’s Ukraine War.

Please note that Israel and the Middle East are not remotely included here among Trump’s priorities and that, other than on his bank account, Trump’s attention span is akin to a coked up squirrel with his loyalty going to Project 2025 and his Christian Zionist/evangelical sponsors whose long term interest in Israel is not for the fact that it is a Jewish state. Trump, Kushner and others still envision their ‘Gaza Riviera’ which has also been supported by Netanyahu and coalition members.

Israel’s targeting pf Iran, and especially, Hezbollah was strategically brilliant. So why wasn’t this done in Gaza?

One reason was the honest horror of the genocidal massacre and extreme sexual violence by Hamas terrorists on October 7 which swept the whole of Israel. But Netanyahu also needed a sustained distraction and his extremist coalition still fully expects to return Israeli settlers to Gaza in the not to distant future. And annexation is probably only on temporary hold for politics and Trump who will likely and ultimately provide his support.

Netanyahu and his extremist coalition no more wants or expects a ‘durable and lasting peace’ than does Hamas. Netanyahu and his extremist coalition also no more want or will accept a two state solution towards any form of Palestinian sovereignty than would Hamas.

Another driving force has been Netanyahu and the Israeli hard Right’s very deeply flawed and Jewish Supremacist politics. This has ranged from the forming of his Faustian extremist coalition to the fact that the IDF had been politically shifted more towards the West Bank prior to October 7 leaving a very limited presence in southern Israel and at Gaza.

Horovitz wrote it was a ‘failure that, consequently, found Israel with a reported total of 13 tanks deployed that Shabbat, Simchat Torah morning along the entire length of the Gaza border.’ But it was less a failure of ‘imagination’ than of Netanyahu’s politics.

The well identified indifference to ongoing intelligence reports, which Horovitz discusses, while ignoring primary observations by the unarmed but extremely focused and efficient tatzpitaniyot, many of whom died or were taken hostage on that horrible day in Israel’s history, is the other side of this flawed political agenda. While Netanyahu allowed huge payments made to Hamas mostly by/through Qatar, Hamas’ preparations for its huge attack on southern Israel on October 7 was all hidden in plain sight.

It turns out Netanyahu clearly wasn’t the only one capable of properly protecting all of Israel or, especially, the Israeli Kibbutzim on the border with Gaza. That Hamas’ first targets were the peace Kibbutzim was telling. Netanyahu is complicit in the events of October 7 and must resign. And an independent investigation commission must be properly and immediately formed then allowed to start its work.