The resignation of the head of AMN, Aharon Haliva, as usual, produced two devout camps in our districts. Those who rushed to congratulate with the voice “Baruch Shaftarno” and added a reservation regarding the wording of the letter and its timing, in their eyes, the wording of the letter did not constitute a full confession and satisfied that the head of AMN was responsible for its failure. The timing of the letter, on the eve of the holiday, was in their opinion an exercise designed to thwart an extensive public and media discussion of the resignation and the resigner.
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The opposite camp preferred to discuss less the monumental failure of the intelligence on the evening of October 7. Instead, they were numerous in describing Haliva’s past rights as a soldier and as a commander in the IDF. In addition, they demanded the resignation of the political echelon – the October 7 government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Aharon Haliva on the security challenges (Photo: Go-Live)
The writer of these lines holds the opinion that the entire political, security and intelligence elite of October 7 should go home. It is amazing in itself that the first to resign is doing so only at the end of more than half a year (!) following the biggest failure in Israel’s history.
The very thought that people who bore responsibility on that day and that day that will be remembered forever, for generations, think that they can hold any public office in the future – is unimaginable.
It will be made clear immediately that what will be written below does not in the least diminish the responsibility of Netanyahu and the October 7 government. Furthermore, Netanyahu bears responsibility not only as the one who had the incident “on his watch” – but also as the one who has been the head of the Israeli government for almost all of the past 15 years, and has central responsibility for shaping the policy towards Hamas and Gaza for all those years. Of course, in addition to Netanyahu, there are many in the political and military elite over the years who were partners in the conspiracy towards Gaza and Hamas. They must not escape “the day following” from their own responsibilities.
But replacing the political and security leadership as soon as possible is only a necessary condition, but absolutely not sufficient, for the required national mental calculation. The intelligence failure is of course resounding, but the operational failure is even more shameful. The spokespersons (official and unofficial) of the army are careful to mention that they warned of the danger of war, and even of the danger of a multi-arena war in the months before October 7. Such a war was expected to include Gaza, of course.
If you watched – where were you?
How was it that there were only a few hundred soldiers around the Gaza Strip that Saturday in front of thousands of Hamasniks who breached the border and washed away the surrounding settlements and bases? How come there were no significant operative conclusions for the consultations on the night between October 6 and 7?
So far, the citizens of Israel have not heard a good answer to the question that the residents of the Otaf asked for long and deadly hours that Saturday: Where was the IDF? How might it be that the IDF did not have a comprehensive plan for occupying the Strip, eliminating Hamas and dealing with the underground? After all, this massive underground system was built on the day of the order of the IDF invasion of Gaza.
Systems thinking
Resigning senior officials is not enough, especially if they are replaced by people who think like them and act in a similar way. There is more than a sign that at the top of the military there is a systemic thinking that fails to track down the enemy’s way of thinking.
We received another indication of this only recently when our intelligence failed to predict the Iranian response to the assassination of General Hassan Mahdavi (according to foreign publications). But worse than that, there is a growing feeling that there are no effective contingency plans to defeat the enemy. Our security system has certain high tactical and operative capabilities. These abilities sometimes routinely cover up the fact that the political level, as well as the military, lacks strategic thinking. In times of crisis this is revealed.
The Iranians, for example, complained for over a decade regarding IDF strikes in Syria as part of the Air Force. But in an overall strategic account, their encirclement of Israel by their affiliates (Hezbollah, Hamas) proved to be successful. In addition, Iran is closer than ever to obtaining nuclear weapons.
Resignations of those responsible for failure is a necessity. It will be completed when the people replace the elected leadership headed by Netanyahu. But that is not enough: where does the defense budget go? What needs to be changed in the way the senior command in the IDF is trained and promoted? What needs to be learned and changed in the preparation of the action plans of the defense establishment for war? What is the translation of the high-input intelligence collection into policy conclusions? For war in all aspects?
These are just examples of the overall home inspection that needs to be done so that we don’t fall into similar or bigger mistakes in the future. So that the huge prices we paid and are still paying will not be in vain.
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