A state commission of inquiry is necessary to examine Oct. 7 failure - editorial

KAN News said this week that the IDF had precise information about Hamas’s October 7 attack plans.

However, due to the prevailing “conceptzia” within the security establishment and the possible negligence of senior officials, the warning signs were ignored.

The term “conceptzia” was coined by the Agranat Commission, which investigated the failures of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, to describe the erroneous outlook that caused Israel to be lulled into complacency before the war. In general, “conceptzia” is a notion that conveys that one responds to new or additional information based on preconceived perceptions.

KAN reported that a document compiled at the IDF’s Gaza Division titled “Detailed End-to-End Raid Training” was distributed to military and intelligence officials on September 19, 2023, extensively describing a series of recent exercises conducted by Hamas’s elite units in the Gaza Strip. These drills included raiding IDF posts and kibbutzim in southern Israel and kidnapping soldiers and civilians to Gaza.

The document’s publication followed widespread criticism of the IDF’s failure to anticipate and prevent the October 7 attack, and the military’s announcement earlier this month that it would begin presenting its internal probe findings in relation to the massacre and the ongoing Gaza war on a rolling basis during July and August.

The N12 news site reported on Wednesday that according to “interim findings,” the military had already determined that on that fateful day, IDF commanders had erred by deciding to wait for more forces and intelligence, rather than engage with the terrorists and enter targeted communities as quickly as possible.

IDF probe will not examine policies of political leadership

As The Jerusalem Post’s military correspondent, Yonah Jeremy Bob, reported, the IDF probe is aimed at reaching operational conclusions for the military but will not examine the policies of the political leadership, thereby avoiding a direct confrontation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers, who have insisted that a broader investigation would harm the war effort and should therefore wait until after it ends.

Although this is the IDF’s investigation into its own failings, its recommendations could have far-reaching implications for the future of the military, particularly with regard to responsibility of the intelligence failure. Although we are jumping the gun, we trust that the investigators will have the necessary authority to ensure that the political and military leadership heed their recommendations.

The overall probe of the IDF’s “conceptzia” related to Gaza and Hamas in recent years is set to be presented by key officers to IDF Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, in early July but it will only made public later in the summer.

The army indicated that the probe would look back as far as 2018 but no earlier than that at this stage because this would entail a significant delay in the publication of the results to the public. According to our reporter, the first probe headed by Maj.-Gen.

Mickey Edelstein should be ready for publication by mid-July and might be about the battle at Kibbutz Be’eri. It will be followed by about 40 other probes regarding battles in the South by September.

The findings could have direct implications for Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gadi Eisenkot, who was head of the IDF from 2015-2019, for Lt.-Gen. (res.) Aviv Kohavi, who was IDF chief from 2019-January 2023, as well as for all current security heads, including Halevi, Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, and IDF intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aharon Haliva. The latter has already taken responsibility for the October 7 intelligence failure and has announced his resignation. He is due to be replaced by Brig.-Gen. Shlomi Binder by the end of the summer.

Halevi has stated that an external investigation would be launched only after the internal IDF probes are completed. Although State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman also began to investigate the failures of the army and the government, the chief of staff asked that this be put on hold to allow commanders to concentrate on the war that is still raging.

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara recently sent a letter to the prime minister asking him to stop blocking the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the government’s handling of the war, explaining that such an investigation would be the best defense against genocide accusations that Israel is facing at the International Court of Justice, along with the arrest warrants sought by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor against Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

She may be right: What is ultimately required is a state commission of inquiry similar to the one held after the Yom Kippur War, which would be taken more seriously by the Israeli public and the international community than an internal IDF investigation. The time for this will come, but we should first give the military a chance to put its house in order. The sooner, the better.