No, another October 7th is not inevitable

AN OPEN LETTER TO N12 JOURNALIST AMIT SEGAL AND OTHERS WITH A SIMILAR IDEOLOGY:  SHAME ON YOU!

You are endorsing baseless slogans.

To say that October 7th could happen again is tantamount to the belief that we are a weak nation and utterly defenseless against our enemies, like the Jews were in World War II.

It is fear-mongering, that together with other cynical slogans is promoted by the Messianics and pyromaniacs in our government to mask their evil agenda behind the continued fighting in Gaza, which we all know will bring neither complete victory nor surrender. That is a fact. It is impossible to fight an ideology, there has to be de-radicalization and a DAY AFTER diplomatic plan to remove Hamas, which Bibi has refused to agree to ever since Biden initially proposed it.

The proclaimed aims of the war were to BRING HOME OUR HOSTAGES;THOSE WHO ARE ALIVE AND THOSE WHO ARE DEAD,  AND TO DEFEAT HAMAS.

It was not to depopulate Gaza, nor to re-settle there, and it was most definitely not the aim of the most moral army in the world to deliberately starve innocent Gazans and their children as was advocated by Likud minister Amit Halevi, who said that the IDF should be ordered to  “destroy all water, food and energy sources in the Gaza Strip in order to achieve the war aims” and on another occasion to suggest that Israel should occupy and cleanse Gaza, stating “We want to occupy the territory in order to cleanse it of the enemy; otherwise, he will kill your children and kidnap your grandchildren again”

This kind of rhetoric from Halevi, Smotrich, Ben Gvir and many other government ministers is what has given our enemies and the European courts the ammunition to accuse us wrongly of genocide and war crimes.

But the statements of the ministers mentioned above do not reflect the views of the vast majority of Israelis whose support of the war is justly unwavering in the resolve to defeat Hamas and to procure the release of all of our hostages. These were the explicit goals of the war. They did not include de-population, inflicting hardship on innocent people nor did they delineate re- settlement of either part or all of the entire Gaza strip.

We are all now aware that our security was almost non-existent on October 7^th. The IDF, Shin Bet, Mossad, Military Intelligence and Unit 8200 all failed catastrophically to prevent and respond to the October 7th attack.  And yet despite widespread admission of guilt and failure from all these agencies, there is still no such admission from our government to whom all of these agencies are subordinate.

The success of the Hamas invasion of October 7^th led to a monumental and devastating massacre due to the apathy and negligence across all of our institutions and our government. A failure that was entwined with intolerable arrogance and male chauvinism towards our young female border observer soldiers, who for months had been reporting unusual Hamas maneuvers to superiors that disregarded their claims.

There was no up-to-date intelligence as most was assessed from a distance due to difficulties in recruiting and operating human sources in Gaza. An IDF strategy for a large-scale surprise attack did not exist, not enough forces were deployed on the border of adjacent lands that were governed by a terrorist militant army, broken observation balloons had been left unfixed…etc. etc.

Those who stand by the slogan of another October 7^th have apparently no faith in our future as a strong nation. They apparently reject the idea that we will learn from this tragic event and never allow ourselves to be unprepared again.

That said, we cannot stop our enemies from trying to attack us, but if our defenses are in place, they will not succeed. Example: two massive (attempted, but unsuccessful) attacks by Iran last year.

Moreover, we were constantly thwarting attacks, predominately in Judea and Samaria prior to October 7th and since then with our heightened intelligence awareness in all other areas as well. The discovery of Hezbollah’s plan to emulate Hamas’s October 7th attack in the north is a prime example. Accurate intelligence and exceptional IDF performance were behind the assassinations of Hamas leaders in Tehran and Nasrallah in Lebanon.

All of the Munich terrorists were caught and killed by our forces, so it is not far-fetched to believe that we are perfectly capable of recapturing released prisoners who are exchanged for our hostages.

The inexcusable negligence and dismal lack of intelligence and chaotic military strategy underscore the fundamental reasons why Hamas was able to carry out the massacre on October 7^th. The Gaza border was completely vulnerable. If the security essentials and the army had been present, the outcome would have been very different. The Hamas infiltration would have met with adequate forces, which would have led to coordination with the entirety of the IDF and security establishment. Under those measures certainly no Israeli citizen would have been left abandoned in shelters for 8 hours waiting for help and a significant part of the tragedy of that day could have been averted. The monumental disaster that has plunged us into excruciating and ongoing pain could have been prevented.

Nevertheless, the many achievements of the IDF and intelligence agencies since October 7^th are proof of our capabilities when the system is working as it should be. So, if anyone really believes that we cannot prevent or defend ourselves against another October 7^th…then there is really no hope for us here….which means that perhaps we don’t even deserve our beautiful country.

But if we are the nation of survivors that I believe we are, then instead of spreading doom and gloom of succumbing to impending attacks, we should move forward with the belief that we CAN absolutely defend ourselves. We are a strong and incredibly talented and resourceful nation, with an amazing army of brave young soldiers. Your fear-mongering is an attack on the very values and strength that defines us. We will rise again. Our future will be the exact opposite of what you are suggesting and because of who we are we will prevail in upholding the adage “NEVER AGAIN“