As the evidence of what happened on 7 October accumulates, the stomach clenches and the anger grows. Hamas acted with planned satanism: mass murder, beheadings, amputations, rapes, kidnappings, house burning were all part of the operation's plans. The mob that followed completed the work, looting everything that came to hand.
You have to be hateful, blind or Queen of Jordan to claim that none of this happened. Abundant evidence exists for each of the sections. Israeli public diplomacy is anemic and slow, and needs an urgent refresh. To send the foreign minister to the UN with a gold tape of a murderer who boasts of talking to his parents about killing ten people is a huge miss.
Eli Cohen is not the right person for the job, and the UN is not the right platform. Such testimony (which had previously been given to foreign correspondents in Israel, while they were forbidden to publish it) should have opened news broadcasts on the world's leading television channels, and not been swallowed up by an insignificant discussion colored by the scandalous remarks made by the UN secretary-general.
Does not fit in any parameter. Gal Hirsch, Photo: GPO
Israel has talented advocates. Many of them would have left everything and enlisted in Order 8, had they been called. But this business, this business too, is run with too much ego and politics. Just like the Headquarters for the Release of the Abductees, which managed this week to cause real damage with the embarrassing amateurism that enabled Yocheved Lifshitz's interview, just after she was released from captivity. You can't prevent citizens from speaking, but you can ask them, instruct them, or at least film them by a government team and distribute the tape in a controlled manner.
Don't look for an alternative
Everyone who works with the Headquarters for the Release of Abductees tells of a mess. Some of it is understandable considering the number of abductees, their ages, the lack of clarity about their situation. The other part is the result of unnecessary power plays. Gal Hirsch made the mistake of taking pictures with the first two abductees, as if he had released them himself from Hamas tunnels. He also made a mistake in his scolding conversation with the foreign ambassadors, made a mistake when he decided to employ his wife at headquarters, and made a mistake when he briefed the prime minister's wife before he even met the families.
Hirsch's appointment is problematic not because he is a member of the Likud: Meir Dagan was also a member of the Likud and head of the party's election day staff, before being appointed head of the Mossad (and one of the best). Nor is the appointment problematic because Hirsch works for the prime minister: this position requires high trust and special closeness to the captain. But this appointment is problematic because Hirsch has no special training to carry it out: he is not an expert on Hamas, he has no connections in the region, he does not speak Arabic, and he does not even enjoy special trust in the security establishment. Above all, he has wounded dignity, which he is determined to rehabilitate at the least opportune time and place.
The issue of abductees is critical because it also delays the ground operation. The argument that the forces are not sufficiently prepared can last forever: they can always be trained more, equipped more, crushed Gaza from the air. But in order to decide, as the government promised, you have to go in on the ground. Not in small raids, but in a large mass. Wash the entire area, then start cleaning it. It will take time, it will have a price, but there is no alternative. Otherwise, Hamas will recover, arm itself, and at some point attack again. Anyone who thinks otherwise is welcome to return to Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge.
It must be stated clearly: Hamas will not be defeated until the last of its members. This is impossible, because Hamas is in the hearts and minds of Judea and Samaria and Lebanon and Western countries. But its military and governmental capability in Gaza must be uprooted by force. Just like the West did with ISIS and al-Qaeda: the idea is alive, but every time it raises its head it is attacked.
This is exactly what Israel did in Operation Defensive Shield. The whole world came to learn from her how to defeat terrorism. Gaza is not Judea and Samaria and Hamas '23 is not Hamas '02, but the principle should be the same. If he doesn't, we'll have a double problem: No one will want to live near the borders for fear that the enemy will attack, and the enemy will attack because he understands that Israel is deterred and afraid of struggle. If there is anything that will deter Hezbollah, it is only if Hamas and Gaza pay such a price, which will reverberate throughout the region and beyond. Every country that desires life, in the West and in Arab countries, understands this very well, and Israel has a full green light to act.
This requires an unwarranted leadership decision, Churchillian. Although this is not World War II and the comparisons to the Holocaust are far-reaching, this time too it is necessary for the prime minister to tell the public honestly what was said at the time: "I can offer nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We face a test of the most difficult kind. We face many months of struggle and suffering. You ask what our policy is? I will answer you: fight at sea, on land and in the air, with all our strength and with all the power that God can give us. You ask, what is our purpose? I can answer with one word: victory. Victory at all costs. Victory, no matter how long and difficult the road may be, because without victory there is no survival."
They practiced, here they ignored
Hamas has been preparing for years for a ground attack on it. He prepared a fortified defense: an elaborate system of thousands of kilometers of tunnels, booby-trapped houses, barrel bombs, and thousands of fighters waiting at every corner. After his attack on 7 October, it is worth taking him seriously: this is a basic condition for achieving victory.
The days that pass reveal just how much this attack was planned in detail. Thousands of fighters participated (estimates range from 1,500 to 3,000). Each force was trained individually, on a model of the settlement or route it attacked. Each such force had a commander, and below it sub-commanders, down to the level of a lone fighter. Everyone was coordinated and knowledgeable about the task: they practiced it repeatedly, including recently.
The instructions to the forces were clear. They were included on a page found in the clothes of one of the terrorists. To sow as much death and destruction as possible, and to bring as many abductees as possible to Gaza. Some of the atrocities were planned: the terrorists' minds were brainwashed with preachers and videos of beheadings and organ extraction, including from living people. The rapes were also not spontaneous: there are testimonies of a terrorist who was about to murder a girl, and his friend shouts at him to stop because "this is rape."
Israel was familiar with this plan of attack: Hamas sought to carry it out through the tunnels already in Operation Protective Edge. It believed all along that if there was an attack, it would be carried out against one or two communities and not across the entire sector and in depth. Therefore, it was not prepared with sufficient protection, and even reduced the forces and weapons in favor of the security forces in Judea and Samaria. Nor did she realize that Hamas had undergone a transformation into ISIS: from a program of targeted killings and kidnappings to a program of systematic atrocities. Above all, she didn't realize that this time was not just another drill, but a real attack.
More could have been gotten out of it. Eli Cohen, this week at the United Nations, photo: Reuters
Israel's failure resonates, and the more time passes, the more it resonates. There is a twofold problem with it: first, the mistaken belief that Israel's intelligence capabilities will provide it with any information, in any sector, at any time. And the second, more serious one, is that we are convinced that we know and understand what the Arabs want and plan.
The first failure is responsible for intelligence: for this he gets up in the morning and goes to sleep at night. The contribution of the captains to this matter is the need to remind themselves that there will always be black holes and surprises. It happened to the Americans in Pearl Harbor and the twin terror attacks, and it happened to us on Yom Kippur and Simchat Torah.
The captains share the mental failure equally with the security establishment: their job is to challenge the concept at all times. They must also set clear horizons and objectives, from which the action plans will be derived. Over the past decade and a half, Israel has become addicted to rotations and quiet but adamantly refused to tell itself what kind of future it wants vis-à-vis Gaza – and to aspire to achieve it.
The result has been a systematic strengthening of Hamas over the Palestinian Authority, and a continuous blunting of the IDF edge in favor of controlled airstrikes. Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik warned about this (not in the Gaza context, but in general in the context of the IDF's readiness for war), when he claimed that the IDF was hollow and would collapse on command. The army's performance on 7 October shows that Brick was quite accurate. The fact that his warnings were published everywhere, and were also delivered personally to the prime minister, surely places part of the responsibility on the shoulders of the latter.
Waste of time and money
But the military side is only one part of the equation. The second part is the civil system. The past three weeks show that it is rotten to its core. If it weren't for good citizens, and organizations and associations, business here would collapse completely. The ministers who sought to castrate the judicial system on the grounds that it interfered with their rule were found to be completely incompetent. Many of the trustees appointed to key positions were exposed as manifestly incompetent.
The claim that this event is big on the system is ridiculous. For years, Israel has been preparing for a much worse scenario, of an earthquake or war with Hezbollah. We had the Carmel disaster and the Meron disaster to understand that in a national emergency nothing works. Correction: Nothing, except for the rescue organizations and security services, which took time to recover from the blow they suffered.
Israel needs a thorough overhaul of systems. To professional managers in all fields, and above all to elected officials who care about the public, not themselves. If government ministers had basic dignity and integrity, they would resign – at least those who hold fictitious positions. Shamefully, Galit Distal Atabrian is the only one who did. Amichai Eliyahu, Orit Strock, Dudi Amsalem, May Golan and others continue to waste precious public money, which is needed for vital tasks of security and rehabilitation of communities and residents.
GPO
Take, for example, Gila Gamliel. Minister of Intelligence according to her official title. She has no responsibility for intelligence, she doesn't read intelligence and she doesn't understand intelligence. Therefore, it also bears no responsibility for the Hamas attack, but it must be responsible for the tens of millions of shekels that its unnecessary ministry wastes every year.
In response to criticism of her fictitious office, she announced that she was a complete mambo-jumbo, the essence of which is that the ministry maintains technological incubators and works to bring Iranian exiles to Israel. With all due respect, greenhouses exist in abundance, and Iranian exiles can be cared for by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They also tell, in the Ministry of Intelligence, about position papers they write. One of these, exposed this week in Calcalist, indicates an idea to transfer the Palestinian population from Gaza to Sinai. Without a doubt, this is pure genius: it only needs Egyptian consent, which will never be given, because the Egyptians in their wisdom gave up Gaza in the peace treaty and are busy over the top with their 100 million hungry people, and certainly do not want 2 million Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood supporters to threaten the regime in Cairo.
The Israel of the day after must be different. More modest, more united. We all need it, including the media. But the process must start from the head. Less "me" and more "us." Less "directed" and "directed," and more "I am responsible." Whoever doesn't want to, let him step aside. This fracture will raise up many good people from among us who will get under the stretcher.
Equality as a value and a need
The defense establishment will also be required to overhaul systems. Everyone who touched the failures of October 7 will go home. Some of them will lay down the keys on their own initiative: the chief of staff, the heads of intelligence and the Southern Command, the head of the Shin Bet and the heads of the southern region, and probably the defense minister as well. The prime minister will fight, but it won't help him: the public will expel him, out of a desire to see a different Israel.
But the personal side is only a small part. There will be another country here, and there will be a different army. The service will not be shortened, it will be extended. The IDF will be required for everyone, including everyone, and anyone who does not serve will be asked to support the country in other ways. Here, too, those who don't understand it live in the film. There will no longer be a situation in which some will serve and work and pay taxes, and some will live at their own expense.
The IDF will need this equality not only as a value, but because its missions will be different. The idea that technology and fences would block any enemy was shattered. More forces, many more forces, will be needed to guard the fences in all sectors, and to be ready for any mission. These forces will have to be armed up to their necks (from state funds and not donations), and well trained for offensive and decisive action in enemy territory.
It will cost many, many billions. Some will come from Uncle Sam, and some from our taxes. In recent years, investment in security has decreased as part of the addiction to silence, and this distortion will now be corrected. The La La Land of coalition funds will run out, simply because otherwise the country will collapse. Even so, we can expect a deep and long recession, which will require every Israeli to shrink.
Israel can meet this challenge. It has faced significant challenges in the past, although this time it is a particularly large and complex challenge – security, economic, political, religious, propaganda, political, and in fact what not. In order to succeed in it, it needs two things: a clear victory in the Gaza campaign, and leadership that will see far and clear, and will tell the public the hard truth in order to harness it to the long campaign that awaits us all.
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