Mobileye CEO calls for Netanyahu’s ouster after ‘failures, dissonance and incompetence’

Amnon Shashua, who heads the self-driving car company Mobileye, is calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ouster amid the fallout of the October 7 Hamas onslaught.

Shashua says Netanyahu’s government was guilty of “failures, dissonance and incompetence.”

“We must cut our losses and do it quickly. The only solution to the current situation in Israel is to replace the government, and it needs to happen immediately,” Shashua writes in an op-ed in the Calcalist business daily.

In a late-night tweet Saturday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated previous claims that he was not warned by security chiefs about an impending Hamas attack, and claimed all security chiefs had consistently assured him Hamas was deterred, drawing sharp criticism over the apparent attempt to blame them and evade responsibility for the disaster. He deleted the post some nine hours later, and issued a rare apology shortly afterward.

Shashua says Netanyahu’s government is more concerned with its political survival than “the good of the country” and a new election should be called in order to install new leaders.

Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to take responsibility for the intelligence and operational failures that led to the October 7 assault and asserts that he will only face a probe on his performance after the war is over — a war that some Israeli officials indicate could take months, if not longer.