Israel cannot prevent another October 7 if Netanyahu keeps rewriting the first one - opinion

SEPTEMBER 4, 2026 12:53“We are getting dangerously close to a violent, multifront confrontation. According to reports from the security establishment, the number of warnings in Judea and Samaria is unprecedented.“The ones who will pay the price are our children, who will once again have to enter the Jenin refugee camp, once again go into Gaza, and perhaps once again into Lebanon. The ones who will pay the price are our parents, who will once again have to sit in their safe rooms.”These words sound like something that could have been said yesterday. They were, however, spoken by Yair Lapid, the head of the opposition, three years ago this month, on September 20, 2023 – just a couple of weeks before the Hamas invasion on October 7.Lapid later explained that he decided to go before the cameras with such a stark, dire warning after receiving one of the regular monthly security briefings given to the opposition leader by the prime minister and his military secretary. During that meeting, Lapid said, he was shown some of the most sensitive and classified intelligence collected by Israel’s security establishment.The message, as he understood it, was clear: Israel’s enemies were watching the deep divisions tearing through Israeli society over the government’s judicial overhaul. They saw weakness and vulnerability. And they believed there might be an opportunity to strike.The aftermath of Hamas's Nova music festival massacre in Re'im, southern Israel, on October 7, 2023. Picture taken November 2, 2023 (credit: Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)That was why, on the eve of Yom Kippur in 2023, Lapid issued his warning. He could hardly have been more prophetic. Two-and-a-half weeks later, Hamas invaded Israel. Our children were sent to fight in Gaza, Jenin, and eventually Lebanon. Our parents – and the rest of us – were sent running to bomb shelters and safe rooms.October 7 to play a role in next electionFrom the moment elections were called for the end of October, it was obvious that October 7 would play a central role in every political party’s campaign. What was less obvious was the extent to which the disaster would become the subject of manipulation, distortion, and outright fabrication, particularly by members of the governing coalition determined to deflect criticism and wash their hands of responsibility for the greatest catastrophe to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust, a catastrophe that happened on their watch.That is how we need to look at the interview that Sara Netanyahu gave this week to Channel 14 in which she attempted to tarnish the reputation of Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats Party, who famously put on his uniform on the morning of October 7, drove south, and helped rescue Israelis from the killing fields around the Supernova music festival.Like so many heroic Israelis who saw their fellow citizens in mortal danger that morning, Golan did not wait for orders. A former deputy IDF chief of staff, he took his sidearm and headed toward the fighting, repeatedly entering an area crawling with terrorists to rescue people and bring them to safety.Yet Sara Netanyahu insinuated that Golan must somehow have had advance knowledge that something was about to happen, because he put on his uniform that morning – while her husband, the prime minister, had not been woken by the heads of the security establishment.It was a disgusting accusation. It not only suggested some sort of conspiracy against Benjamin Netanyahu, but cast suspicion on a man who risked his own life to save others. To question the integrity, courage, and motives of Israelis who voluntarily entered a combat zone that morning is appalling.While her comments were rightly condemned across the political spectrum, Sara Netanyahu is not really the story. She is the prime minister’s wife, not an elected official, and her comments should not consume too much of our attention.The more important story is the coalition itself, which continues to do all it can to evade responsibility.While Sara was in the headlines, Netanyahu was also pushing his new claim – had he been woken at 4 or 5 a.m. on October 7, he would have made decisions that could have prevented the Hamas invasion. Why wasn’t he woken? Because, he suggested, the security chiefs knew that he would force them to act, and they did not want him to.There are several problems with this argument. The first is that it is highly unlikely Netanyahu would have done what he now claims.Had he been woken, he would have heard from IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) director Ronen Bar, and Military Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva. All three would have given him essentially the same assessment they themselves mistakenly believed as they analyzed the little intelligence that was coming in that night: Hamas was probably not preparing for a major attack, and if something was going to happen, it would be limited in scope.With every senior security official presenting essentially the same assessment, does anyone seriously believe Netanyahu would have ordered Israel to launch a war against Hamas at 4 or 5 in the morning?Far more likely, he would have instructed them to remain vigilant, continue monitoring the situation, and reconvene a few hours later.That, essentially, was the catastrophic mistake that Amir Bohbot and I describe in our book While Israel Slept. The warning signs were there, but they were interpreted through an intelligence framework that assumed Hamas did not want a major war.But Netanyahu’s political objective now is to portray October 7 as exclusively their failure, a tactical intelligence breakdown that had nothing to do with him, his policies, or the strategy he pursued toward Hamas for years.That strategy included containing Hamas, allowing Qatari money to flow into Gaza, and repeatedly deciding against using the IDF to remove Hamas from power.Keeping the national debate focused narrowly on the intelligence and operational failures of the night of October 6 and the early hours of October 7 serves Netanyahu politically. It keeps attention away from the much larger question of strategy: how Israel reached a point where Hamas was able to build an army on the other side of the border, prepare an invasion for years, and convince Israeli leaders that it had no intention of using it.The second problem with Netanyahu’s argument is even more fundamental.It is a wrong illustration of leadership. Leadership is supposed to mean understanding that subordinates will sometimes make mistakes – even catastrophic ones – and that ultimate responsibility rests with the person at the top.Sometimes I wonder what would have happened politically had Netanyahu chosen a different path after October 7. What if he had gone to the funerals of those murdered and visited their families during shiva? What if he had stood before the families and heard their yells and criticism, had appeared before the Israeli public and said something simple: I failed. What if he had publicly grieved for the 1,200 people massacred on his watch and accepted even a measure of responsibility for what happened?Perhaps it would even have helped him politically. Perhaps showing compassion, humility, and accountability would have won back some of the Israelis who turned away from him after October 7.It is an interesting thought experiment, but that is all it is. Because Netanyahu’s political doctrine has long been clear: never accept responsibility, never admit failure, and, above all, never say sorry.The tragedy is that nearly three years after October 7, Israel is not only still fighting over who was responsible for the failures of that day. It is heading into an election in which those failures are being rewritten in real time.And a country that cannot honestly confront how it reached October 7 will have a much harder time ensuring that another one can never happen.The writer is a co-founder of the MEAD Forum, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. His latest book (with Amir Bohbot), While Israel Slept, is a bestseller in the United States.Follow us on Google