At a closed-door Knesset committee session, the prime minister said he did not believe malicious intent from within Israel led to the October 7 attack. Netanyahu never rejected the claim publicly, despite many Israelis believing defense officials aided Hamas in an attempt to remove Netanyahu
Haaretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday during a closed-door committee session that the October 7 attack on Israel was the result of ‘intelligence failures,’ not treason, according to sources present at the discussion.
Responding to a question from MK Chili Tropper during a classified session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Netanyahu said that, as he sees it, there had been massive intelligence failures, but no malicious intent, behind the shortcomings that led to Hamas’ surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
According to the sources, Netanyahu also said that the bill exempting ultra-Orthodox men from military conscription ‘will be legislated very soon.’ He praised committee chair Likud MK Boaz Bismuth for his ‘good work’ on the matter, adding that the bill would advance alongside legislation extending mandatory military service to 36 months.
The sources added that the prime minister arrived at the session carrying binders and reports from previous years. They said that opposition members tried to press Netanyahu to address pressing matters on the agenda for about an hour and a half before ultimately deciding, partly due to an argument that developed with Bismuth, to walk out of the meeting.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said members of his party ‘will not take part in the prime minister’s media circus, which is meant to evade a truth-seeking inquiry into the October 7 disaster and turn the committee into an hallow public relations show.’
Netanyahu has never stated explicitly in a public forum that there was no treason on October 7. A source familiar with the details of a meeting between the prime minister and former IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi told Haaretz that Halevi demanded that Netanyahu make such a statement publicly.
According to the source, Netanyahu took out a pen, scribbled something on a piece of paper and promised the then-chief of staff to include clear statements in one of his speeches, to the effect that nobody in the IDF or Shin Bet top brass collaborated with Yahya Sinwar in planning the October 7 attacks.
This speech has never been made.
A senior defense official told Haaretz that claims of treason ‘are directed at [former Shin Bet chief] Ronen Bar, Halevi and other senior figures not only by Netanyahu adherents but also from more normative parts of society. People have gone through an event of biblical proportions, and they are looking for a reason for the madness. Netanyahu has been constantly fueling this thing in a sophisticated way.’
A new study done last month by researcher Nimrod Nir came up with some stunning findings: 56.7 percent of coalition voters believe that Israeli officials had advance knowledge of the surprise attack or had made it possible.
Almost 50 percent of them believe that former defense officials aided Hamas in an attempt to remove Netanyahu, while only 20 percent rule out this theory.
Twenty-three percent of opposition voters, too, believe that Israelis had facilitated the massacre.
50% of the entire Israeli public believes that treason within the Netanyahu government played a direct role in the attacks.