On Feb. 27 the Israel Defense Forces made public a summary of its self-investigation of its failings leading to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas pogrom. It gives a glimpse of the scope of the massacre that day and exposes the damaging negligence of high-ranking officials in the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet secret-police agency.
But its main purpose is self-serving — to whitewash their actions and insinuate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is really to blame.
“No one anywhere in Israel was able to say on 6:39 a.m. on Oct. 7 that Hamas is about to perform a major attack on Israel,” the IDF report claimed. But their report shows the opposite.
The capitalist class and its political parties in Israel are sharply divided, with factions for and against Netanyahu. Despite the pretense of being “above” politics, much of the high command in the Israeli army and Shin Bet agree with those who loathe Netanyahu and want him ousted.
According to the Times of Israel, the report states that military leaders’ “flawed culture” and “deep systematic problems” led them to ignore years of signs of Hamas’ plans to attack.
In 2018, for example, the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate obtained a Hamas document outlining its plans to destroy Israeli army posts near Gaza, attack kibbutzim “in order to take hostages,” and to “livestream” the pogrom. In May of 2022, the directorate got hold of another Hamas document, “Jericho’s Walls,” with even more details. These and other signs were all kept hidden from Netanyahu.
The IDF report claims that high-ranking officials were “duped” by Hamas into believing it had become more “pragmatic.” They believed that a high-tech border fence was enough to deter attacks.
Starting at 9 p.m. Oct. 6, 2023, and into Oct. 7, Shin Bet and IDF high officials ignored at least five clear signs Hamas was getting ready to launch its pogrom.
Not only did they not send additional troops to the border, they made the decision not to wake Netanyahu or then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. They feared Netanyahu would order an attack on Hamas they considered would be provocative.
US goal: ‘stability’ for imperialism
The high-ranking military officials shared — and bent to — the perspective of the U.S. imperialist rulers, who under the Obama and Biden presidencies sought better relations with Tehran. They sought to avoid a war with Hamas, and once it was underway, their goal was to contain Hamas, not defeat it.
Speaking anonymously, one Israeli official told Israel Hayom that “throughout the conflict, the U.S.’s primary concern” was to prevent a conflict with the Iranian rulers “spiraling into a full-scale war. Their watchword was ‘stability.’” What the U.S. rulers care about are their own interests in the region, not the well-being of Jews.
According to Hayom, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi “was viewed by the White House as a moderate and judicious figure,” that is, someone who shares their views.
Showing its political factionalism has not changed, the IDF command did not even give Netanyahu a copy of its investigation until ordered to by Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Netanyahu is a capitalist politician who also looks to U.S. imperialism to defend Israel as a refuge for Jews, but he understands that Israel must be prepared to go it alone or there will be no Israel. He has resisted all U.S. attempts to end the war short of Hamas’ decisive defeat.
The people of Israel paid a high price for the treachery of the top officials of the IDF and Shin Bet.
Worst pogrom since the Holocaust
Hamas used drones to knock out military communications and cameras all along the Gaza border. There were only 767 IDF soldiers along the border at the time — and not all of them armed — confronting some 5,600 Hamas combatants.
These death squads were able to breach the border at more than 114 locations in three waves, aiming to overrun unprepared military bases and kibbutzim. For hours the IDF command didn’t even realize the depth of the blows to its commanders and units in the south. It took three days before the Israeli military regained full control.
The death squads killed 1,200 people — two thirds civilians — wounded thousands, raped and mutilated dozens of women and took 251 hostages, the worse anti-Jewish pogrom since the Holocaust. And Hamas had planned to go further, targeting airbases and towns much further from the border.
They might have made it if not for the initiative and courage of individual soldiers; kibbutz self-defense members; and off-duty soldiers, former soldiers, and civilians, Jewish and Arab alike, who headed to the front lines to keep the Hamas death squads from advancing further.
Hamas underestimated the people of Israel — Jews, Druze and Arabs — who understood that what was at stake was the existence of Israel, home to half the world’s Jews, and the possibilities for Jewish and Arab workers to live together and to defend their common interests.
And it misjudged its own support among Palestinian working people in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, who overwhelmingly ignored Hamas’ call to join in.