From the Liveblog of
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Lapid: Netanyahu knew Israel was in great danger and a violent eruption was looming, but failed to act
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
On August 21, 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary Brig. Gen. Avi Gil gave both the premier and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid a security update during which he warned that Israel’s enemies — from Iran and Hezbollah to terrorist organizations in Gaza and the West Bank — had identified “weakness on the Israeli side,” Lapid tells an independent commission of inquiry probing the government’s failure on October 7.
These signs of weakness seen by Israel’s enemies, he says, included internal tensions and a loss of capability within the Israeli military “alongside an emerging crisis with the Americans.”
Lapid says he is determined “to debunk the claim” that the political echelon had not been updated that Hamas was no longer deterred from attacking Israel. He says he had been updated and so had the prime minister.
He recounts that IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi sought to meet with Netanyahu about the national security repercussions of the divide in Israel over the judicial overhaul, and was refused. Halevi instead resorted to writing to Netanyahu about the dangers. Says Lapid: Halevi wanted it on record that he had warned and been ignored.
At the August 21, 2023 briefing, Gil told Netanyahu and Lapid that Iran and terror groups in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza “all identified weakness, an internal divide, tensions, and a loss of preparedness in the army, alongside an emerging crisis with the Americans.”
Gil’s presentation, which synthesized material from all the defense hierarchies, indicated that Israel’s enemies saw an opportunity to harm it, says Lapid.
While he considered this warning to be dramatic, Lapid says, “the prime minister — and here I am giving only a personal impression, so it can be disputed — seemed bored and indifferent to the issue, and did not comment on it.”
Over the next few weeks, Lapid says, he viewed classified intelligence material provided to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that indicated that deterrence had indeed eroded. He also saw highly classified material, made available to him as a former prime minister.
On September 18 at the committee, he “saw a further warning,” he says. “To me, what was written there was unequivocal: Israeli deterrence has eroded dramatically; our enemies think they have a rare opportunity to harm us,” Lapid says.
The material showed “Israel is at the greatest level of danger,” says Lapid.
Deeply troubled, Lapid recalls, he held a press conference on September 20 where, he reminds the commission, he warned of a looming multifront confrontation.
Lapid reads out to the commission what he said publicly on September 20, beginning with the following warning: “Ahead of Yom Kippur, I am compelled to warn the citizens of Israel: We are drawing close to a multifront confrontation. According to the security establishment, the number of alerts in Judea and Samaria is unprecedented. And the recent events at the Gaza border are precisely of the kind that in the past have led to rounds of fighting…”
Summing up this portion of his testimony, Lapid says the prime minister did know of the looming danger but ignored it. Netanyahu knew, the cabinet knew, “the defense establishment did warn,” and all the intelligence establishments warned repeatedly.
Lapid says it is important to “distinguish between the fact that on October 7 there was no tactical, concrete warning of the breaching of the fence, and the repeated strategic warnings of an eruption of violence and the loss of deterrence.”
Netanyahu, he charges, “knew that deterrence was weakened, and knew that the terror groups were watching [the rifts in] Israeli society.”
The prime minister also knew he had appointed ministers “who should not be anywhere near Israel’s sacred security,” says Lapid, naming Bezalel Smotrich, who he says was given an untenable role of responsibility within the Defense Ministry, and Itamar Ben Gvir, who as minister of national security is responsible for the police, border police and Temple Mount.
Netanyahu knew Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad saw “an opportunity,” Lapid says. “He knew it was the government’s responsibility to act on the warnings, and did not do so.”
