Hitting back at his former Shin Bet chief, Netanyahu says his alternate Oct. 7 probe is only way to ‘reach the truth’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds to former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar’s speech at Tel Aviv University’s Cyber Week 2025 conference, in which he called for a state commission of inquiry into the failures of October 7, 2023, in his own remarks to the event.

Bar, in his speech, had asserted that the only correct way to probe the failures surrounding the Hamas-led invasion and massacre would be through a full state commission of inquiry, and that by choosing not to do so, Israel’s leaders would be dooming the country to another catastrophe in the future.

In his answer to Bar’s remarks, Netanyahu sticks to his usual argument that the findings of a traditional probe would be inaccurate, and would be rejected by a sizeable portion of the public.

“There was a failure here, a huge failure,” Netanyahu tells the conference. “This failure must be thoroughly examined; it must examine the political echelon, the military echelon, the security echelon, everyone.”

“And this is only possible if we do it as a broad national review,” the premier asserts, referring to the probe his government has decided to establish.

Despite being touted as an “independent” investigation, the government commission’s mandate will be determined by cabinet ministers, and the government will strive for its makeup to receive “as broad public approval as possible,” per a government decision on the matter last month.

He cites a bipartisan commission created by the US to investigate the September 11, 2001, attacks to back up his vision, saying that this ensured that “nobody had any advantage, anyone could put forward any question.”

“This is what will happen here, too,” he promises. “Everyone will come and everyone will be questioned, and only then will we reach the truth.”

Netanyahu has long opposed establishing a state commission of inquiry into October 7, initially claiming that it could not be conducted while Israel was still at war. Subsequently, he and his government have argued that the president of the High Court could not be trusted to appoint a fair-minded judge or retired judge to head the investigation into what went wrong and who was to blame, and that such a panel’s conclusions would not be accepted by a sizeable proportion of the public.