Ever since Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israeli governments under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu have adhered to the conception that Hamas can be contained at the price of relatively short rounds of fighting, which were always referred to as “operations.” Even the longest of these operations – Defensive Edge in 2014, which lasted for 50 days – did not lead to any significant change in the conception that collapsed so catastrophically on October 7, 2023.

In order to analyze the collapse of this political conception, Shomrim approached two of the most senior Israeli historians, who are identified as scholars of the failings of the Yom Kippur War. Uri Bar-Joseph is professor emeritus in the Department for International Relations of Haifa University whose research into the intelligence failings in 1973 have been in the vanguard of academic research, and Prof. Yoav Gelber of the Reichman University, who served as the academic and military assistant to the Agranat Commission, the National Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate the failings in the prelude to the Yom Kippur War.

“The conception that the conflict could be contained became obsolete on Saturday, October 7, at 6:30 in the morning,” says Bar-Joseph, “when it became evident that Hamas is an organization of murderers, the very existence of which cannot be accepted.”

Why did the Israeli right wing develop this approach of containment, which can be summed up in Betzalel Smotrich’s assertion that “the Palestinian Authority is a burden and Hamas is an asset?”

“For those people who want to expand the settlement enterprise and are not interested in the two-state solution to end the conflict, Hamas was seen as an excellent solution. With Hamas, the right thought, you can keep the conflict simmering on a low flame. Hamas won’t demand that Israel enter into negotiations because it doesn’t want negotiations. Especially given its stated goal of destroying the State of Israel. We can’t negotiate our own destruction.”

They also did not believe that Hamas was capable of destroying us.

“True. We can deal with sporadic rocket fire. Now it turns out that they developed awful, devastating capabilities – and they used them. This is a conception collapse of massive proportions and a failure of the intelligence-gathering systems.”

As someone who has studied the intelligence failings of the Yom Kippur War, how do you explain it?

“Military Intelligence still has excellent intelligence-gathering capabilities. It is still not clear why it missed Hamas’ preparations. We’re not dealing here with a cell of five terrorists who made an improvised Carlo submachine gun. These were ongoing preparations with a lot of resources and hundreds of people in on the secret.”

How come no one let the secret out?

“I find it hard to believe that, with so many people involved, no one spoke about it with their family or neighbors. This is also a clear failure on the part of the Shin Bet, which is responsible for collecting human intelligence in the territories. The Egyptians knew and we did not. And I assume that the Egyptians do not have technological intelligence-gathering means in the Gaza Strip and that they relied on human intelligence.”

Gelber, with his experience working with the Agranat Commissions, adds this: “What happened on that Saturday morning is far worse than what happened at the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War. In 1973, soldiers from the outposts on the Suez Canal were sacrificed. Here, it was civilians. The army failed in its most basic missions – protecting the citizens of the State of Israel. The conceptual failing was that the General Staff of the IDF did not expect a Yom Kippur-style war. They viewed the next war through the prism of high-tech: air, sea, nuclear and Special Forces. The rest of the army is kind of second class, superfluous. But precisely because of what has been happening in Ukraine for the past two years, we too should have rethought our approach in this context. But we do not have a strategy when it comes to Hamas. There are strategic advisers for political battles, but not for this kind of challenge.”

Were there two conceptions that collapsed: the right wing’s conception and that of the left wing?

“Certainly. If you know that Hamas wants to destroy you, why send suitcases full of money [Israel agreed to allow millions of dollars in cash from Qatar into the Gaza Strip in order to bolster the Hamas regime there – C.S.] and tankers of fuel, and why believe all the hudnas? In the past, Israeli deterrence lasted longer. There were years between the rounds of conflict. In recent years, they come around every few months. The Israeli leadership should have realized that there was a significance to the increased frequency and that Hamas was less and less deterred – but that didn’t happen. At best, they saw Hamas as a minor player in the regional conflict, which is spearheaded by Hezbollah and, of course, the Iranians.

“Conception is not a dirty word. You cannot live without making basic assumptions. The problem at the time of the Yom Kippur War and now is that there were not frequent enough reassessments, to evaluate whether conditions had changed and whether the conceptions needed to be reexamined.”

Prof. Gelber:  "The Israeli leadership should have realized that there was a significance to the increased frequency and that Hamas was less and less deterred – but that didn’t happen"

‘The Palestinian Authority is Our Only Partner’

In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly some three weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia would “truly create a new Middle East” and “when the Palestinians see that most of the Arab world has reconciled itself to the Jewish state, they too, will be more likely to abandon the fantasy of destroying Israel.”

“In recent years, Netanyahu tried to bypass the Palestinian problem,” says Bar-Joseph. “This was especially evident when he talked about the deal with Saudi Arabia. Now it turns out that the Palestinian problem isn’t going anywhere. Even if Israelis can go shopping in Riyadh, the Palestinian issue is still the most significant threat to Israel. The path to resolving the conflict does not run through an agreement with Saudi Arabia, but through relations with the Palestinians – in which we will also have to make many concessions.”

"Netanyahu tried to bypass the Palestinian problem. Now it turns out that the Palestinian problem isn’t going anywhere"

What kind of concessions? Returning to the 1967 borders?

“Yes. The 1967 borders have a very poor reputation, but the decade between the Sinai War in 1957 and the Six-Day Way were the best years ever for the State of Israel. Within those borders, with the Syrians on the Golan Heights, allegedly bombarding us all the time. With the Egyptians in Gaza and the Sinai, the Jordanians in Jerusalem. During those years, we sustained just 200 casualties in enemy operations. That’s an average of 20 a year. During that period, Israel prospered like never before and the economy was developing rapidly. We built cities, communities, we built up the IDF and Israel obtained nuclear capabilities. During those 10 years, there were hardly any conflicts, just occasional shooting incidents. But all in all, we lived pretty well within the 1967 borders.”

Since then, many Israelis – including those on the left wing – have come to the conclusion that we do not have a partner. And there are many on the left wing who, over the past week, have been saying that they now reject the humanitarian approach and their dreams of peace.

“The barbarian who did what they did on that Saturday morning are not all Palestinians. People are praising Major General (Res.) Yitzhak Brick who warned about this kind of war. But Brick also said that the moment it starts, Arab citizens of Israel would take to the streets and prevent the IDF from moving. Look at Israeli Arabs. We can talk to them. Live with them. They’re not terrorists.

“We do have someone we can talk to. The instinctive reaction to such atrocities is that we cannot talk to these people. And I agree that there’s nothing to talk to Hamas about and that we have to kill them. But not all Palestinians are Hamas and we have to find a solution. Otherwise, there will be more bloody wars like this.”

Is the Palestinian Authority the address?

“We can talk with the Palestinian Authority. In one way or another, it has accepted the two-state solution. Two states according to the 1967 borders, with various territorial exchanges, the end of the conflict, the signing of peace treaty and normalization between Israel and the Arab world. The only partner that we have is the Palestinian Authority. We can only hope it does not collapse. Because the Palestinian problem isn’t going anywhere.”

Prof. Bar-Joseph: "The instinctive reaction to such atrocities is that we cannot talk to these people. And I agree that there’s nothing to talk to Hamas about and that we have to kill them. But not all Palestinians are Hamas"

‘Technology Is Not the Solution to an Ideological War’

Gelber, in contrast, does not believe in the Palestinian Authority. “Make no mistake about it,” he says, “the Palestinian Authority does not want us here either. The left is wrong to argue that the Arabs will make do with a state. They won’t. They want the Land of Israel to be as Arab as it was before 1917 [when Britain published the Balfour Declaration and came out in support of the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people – C.S.]. They know that they won’t be able to do that in their lifetimes, or maybe not even in the next generation. But that is what they aspire to and their concept of time is different to ours. For us, when something that we predicted would happen tomorrow doesn’t happen within a week, we’re sure it’ll never happen. They, on the other hand, continue slowly with the grand plan.”

"The left is wrong to argue that the Arabs will make do with a state. They won’t. They want the Land of Israel to be as Arab as it was before 1917"

How do you suggest we deal with 2.2 million Gazans?

“I see no solution other than dispersing them across the world. We are at a crossroads and the Arab countries have no intention of helping us with this. I know that I come across as a dinosaur, but I am suggesting in general that we cannot be cavalier or spoiled. We are a very pampered society – left and right. Not being spoiled means not weeping over every fatality as if the world has come to an end. That’s not a reason for a pogrom or for relocation.”

Will something else emerge instead?

“Yes, but I do not know what that will be. I believe that the current Israeli government will fall after the war – if not immediately after then at the next election. But a lot of things can happen before then. There’s no question that financial resources have to be channeled differently, and if security is the top priority, then we will act accordingly.”

A lot of money was invested in a fence around Gaza but, when it mattered, it didn’t prove effective.

“Technology is not the solution in an ideological war. It’s true that without technology, our situation would be a lot worse, but because of the security and our technological superiority, we allowed ourselves to neglect societal cohesion. What strengthened this collection of rifts was the existential threat.”

I assume that, after the war, the IDF chief and many members of the General Staff will be sent home.

“First of all, let’s wait to see how the war ends and what the balance looks like. But, yes, it does appear that they will go. Far be it from me to say whether there should be a major shakeup in the ranks of the IDF during a war. There have been examples of this happening. Commanders have been ousted and prime ministers have been replaced during war. Churchill was appointed prime minister six months into World War II and he also replaced commanders.”

It seems, according to various reports in the media, that Netanyahu is trying to influence the narrative of the war. Could that also happen in a commission of inquiry?

“Commissions of inquiry have procedures. The government has to decide to establish one and it also dictates the mandate of the commission. In other words, it defines what will be investigated. The commission cannot veer from that mandate. It has a certain degree of flexibility when it comes to interpreting it, but if the mandate is to examine the first few days of the war, it cannot look at the last days. From there, the ball is on the court of the chief justice. The president of the Supreme Court appoints the members of the commission and can also appoint him or herself. Given the relationship between the government and the judiciary, it will be interesting to see how that develops.”

What if the government ignores that – like it ignores so many other things – and doesn’t set up a commission of inquiry?

“Then the public will topple it. I cannot imagine anyone having the nerve not to set up a commission of inquiry.”

Dr. Goodman: "After the war, we will rebuild the State of Israel in many respects. Our contract with the ultra-Orthodox will not be the same. The welfare policy will be revamped"

‘The Likud Will Collapse’

Bar-Joseph believes that there is a major political upheaval on the way. “What happened on October 7 will be with us for a very long time and will have an impact on everything,” he says, “including the political structure. Most of the Israeli public believes that there was a massive failure by the fully right-wing government. We will see Likud collapse, because what that party promised for so many years turned out to be a complete failure – not to mention that lack of leadership that it has provided since the current government was fromed. It was not interested in the good of the country. At least not the good of the country as most Israelis perceive it.

“Moreover, the leadership shown by [Yair] Lapid and [Benny] Gantz has not answered the challenges being posed. If Gantz thinks that he can be influential here and there, he’s totally mistaken. Now there will be a demand for a new bloc that provides new answers. And I am not certain that he can provide them. There is a massive political vacuum in Israel that has to be filled.”

What about the protest leadership?

“That has not yet been translated into parties, but it is certainly a possibility. Shikma Bressler is a dead ringer for Joan of Arc.”

Bressler is an inspiring woman, but to her credit I would say that she’s no politician.

“At times of crisis, leaders emerge. Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister during the war. Before that, he was considered a political joke but during the war he proved himself to be an outstanding leader. No one thought that Zelenskyy would save Ukraine during its war with Russia and he has proved himself to be an exceptional leader. We need a leader the stature of Ben-Gurion, who will say that his or her goal is to rebuild the State of Israel. To define realistic goals. The sense of insecurity will continue for a long time and the road to security does not necessarily run through another F-15 fighter jet – but reaching an agreement that will also answer the needs of the Palestinians.”

And if we talked with Germany just seven years after the Holocaust, couldn’t the unbelievable happen here, too?

“Exactly. We signed a reparations agreement with Germany in 1952 and representatives of the State of Israel sat down with representatives of West Germany and signed agreements. There can be dialogue with the Palestinians.”

Prof. Bar-Joseph: “At times of crisis, leaders emerge. Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as British prime minister during the war. Before that, he was considered a political joke but during the war he proved himself to be an outstanding leader"

‘The Paradigm of Netanyahu’s Rule was False’

These two historians, thanks to their more advanced years and their experience, have cohesive worldviews. Dr. Micah Goodman, the author of “Catch-67” who has been engaged in dialogue with Naftali Bennet, Gideon Sa’ar and Yair Lapid in recent years and is considered the ideologies behind the so-called government of change, is currently trying to recalibrate his direction.

"At the moment, we are going into a black hole and the laws of physics no longer apply"

“It was not just one conception that collapsed,” he says. “There is a whole pile of conceptions that collapsed. I knew that Hamas was a terrorist organization and that they hate us, but even after I studied its charter and I saw that it espoused a Nazi ideology, I did not internalize the fact that they are Nazis. That may sound oxymoronic, but you understand what I mean. I thought that, after all, we’re all humans and they won’t choose our death over their own lives – because that would be the outcome if the IDF responded.”

You put forward a theory – which you called “shrinking the conflict” – whereby you proposed reducing Israeli involvement in the lives of the Palestinians without dealing with the final-status solution. Is that relevant anymore?

“Shrinking the conflict was in reference to what could be done in Judea and Samaria. It was not part of the conception, but that does not mean I did not believe in the conceptions that failed. And, in any case, I no longer feel obligated to all of my previous beliefs and theories. I will re-examine everything once the war is over.

At the moment, we are going into a black hole and the laws of physics no longer apply. Everything that was once certain has collapsed and we have not yet picked up the pieces. The paradigm of Netanyahu’s rule was false, as was the disengagement [from the Gaza Strip] and the Shalit prisoner-exchange deal. Everything collapsed. We are clinging only to the understanding that we must be victorious and, once we are, we will re-examine everything.

“After the war, we will rebuild the State of Israel in many respects. Our contract with the ultra-Orthodox will not be the same. The welfare policy will be revamped. And I believe that there will be a constitution. In the annals of history, it will be written that the State of Israel is a special country because it was established twice. The first time in 1948 and the second time in 2023, once this nightmare is over.”