While the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) took a significant amount of responsibility for the disasters on October 7 in its report published unexpectedly on Tuesday, it also implicated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by implying that his policies regarding the Temple Mount, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, and the judicial reform led to Hamas’s decision to initiate its long-planned invasion.
The report never mentions Netanyahu by name, and technically, some of these policies were those of then-national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Netanyahu, though, as prime minister, allowed many of the policies to continue despite having the power to stop them.
Ben-Gvir vastly expanded the volume of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount compared to prior years, violated some of the rules of what activities could be performed on the Temple Mount, publicly called for completely changing the “status quo” there, and enforced policies that worsened the treatment of Palestinian prisoners.
His moves led to public condemnations by moderate Sunni Arab allies, the West, and Hamas, and to private warnings by the Shin Bet.
Other policies carried out under Netanyahu that the agency flagged as problematic and as contributions to Hamas’s decision to invade were his facilitation of Qatari funding to Hamas and his opposition to proposed assassination operations of top Hamas leaders at the time.
The judicial reform was also a Netanyahu policy, although just as his critics can blame him for pushing the legislation forward, so can the prime minister argue that the backlash against the reform impacted both the IDF’s readiness and Hamas’s perception of the army’s capabilities.
Reforms insufficient in preventing future disasters
At another key point in the report, the Shin Bet wrote that even as it was implementing its own vast reforms for its massive failures on October 7, these would be insufficient in preventing future disasters, barring changes in the interface between the political and defense echelons.
Most of the report, however, was about the Shin Bet’s own failures. It did not warn about an invasion, it misinterpreted Hamas’s intentions – both before October 7 and on the day – it failed to adjust to Hamas as a sophisticated military entity, allowing Hamas to massively arm itself, and it did not recognize the depth of the harm being done to Israeli deterrence.
Another blind spot was the agency’s belief on the eve of October 7 that Hamas might be focused on an attack in the West Bank, partially because its leaders carried out an unusual terrorist attack there on October 5.
Conceptually wise, the Shin Bet said that it had far too much confidence in the IDF’s hi-tech border fence, was too invested in quiet and stability, and was too worried about miscalculations in pressuring Hamas that could lead to instability or an “unnecessary” war – as the 2014 conflict was viewed.