Israel needs to know the truth about Oct. 7 catastrophe

Early last month, the Israeli High Court of Justice instructed the government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Justice Minister Yariv Levin to hold a Cabinet meeting within 60 days to discuss the establishment of a state commission of inquiry to investigate the events of Oct. 7, 2023. By any objective criteria, it beggars belief that 15 months after the worst single day in Israel’s history, and everything that has followed since, the government in office at that time is still at the helm and has not had the common decency and integrity — first and foremost among them Netanyahu — to resign and vacate the political stage.
Admittedly, there is an element of naivete in mentioning Netanyahu and his entire Cabinet in the same breath as notions of “integrity” and “decency.” Such virtues are not usually associated with the prime minister and those who self-servingly continue to run the country. But on that disastrous October day they also demonstrated an abominable incompetence and lack of judgment that caused the needless deaths of 1,200 Israelis. That disastrous event exposed a lack of preparedness fueled by a poisonous cocktail of utter misunderstanding of the enemy, the volatility of the situation and Israel’s own contribution to it, and topped by sheer arrogance. But the calamity did not stop there.
The war in Gaza has turned into a multifront conflict costing even more lives, and Netanyahu and the Knesset that he controls are continuing to block the appointment of a state commission of inquiry, thereby betraying those who have lost their lives over the course of this war, those still held hostage by Hamas, and all those whose normal lives have been severely interrupted in the course of serving their country. To say nothing of their country’s plummeting reputation abroad and the risk of more international arrest warrants.
But Netanyahu’s blocking of an independent inquiry is hardly surprising. He has a longstanding record of never taking responsibility for anything that goes wrong on his watch, while taking all the credit for his governments’ few successes, including those he has had little to do with. In their audacity, he and his political allies would like to appoint their own committee to investigate the events of Oct. 7, just as he would have loved to appoint the prosecutors and judges in his corruption trial and thus ensure an outcome that would inevitably exonerate him and find that everyone else was to blame.
Worse, he would prefer an inquiry to conclude that he has been a victim of the “deep state” that deliberately hid crucial information and even misled him as part of a wider conspiracy to bring him down. The real victims, according to the prime minister, are not those killed, maimed, or traumatized for life as a consequence of Oct. 7; not the many thousands of Palestinians who have lost their lives or their homes or been displaced several times over; and not even Israel’s reputation or its crumbling society and crippled democracy. No, the real victims are Netanyahu, his wife, and children. This is the fantasy universe that the current Israeli government wants everyone to believe in.

Netanyahu fears an independent state investigation.

Yossi Mekelberg

Netanyahu fears an independent state investigation led by a senior judge whose members are independent experts, because he knows that regardless of all that his toxic machinery is pumping out via pandering “journalists“’ and social media, ownership of the colossal failure of Oct. 7 is first and foremost his. How would he explain to them his strategy of allowing hundreds of millions of US dollars to be transferred to Hamas without realizing that this would enable them to build a military capable of badly hurting Israel?
Whatever the intelligence failures of the Israeli military, Shin Bet and Mossad, he was prime minister on that fateful day, and surely the buck must stop at the very top, especially with a top dog who for years has boasted that he is “Mr. Security” and the supreme defender of Israel and its people? Moreover, by polarizing Israeli society for years he has weakened that society, including the military, and this has been an open invitation to its enemies to attack. In his biggest security test, Israel’s leader has failed, and with the most tragic and catastrophic consequences.
The simple truth is that Israel as a nation will not be able to move on until the full truth about every single detail that led to the Oct. 7 massacre and the government’s response sees the light of day. The families of those murdered, captured or raped while serving their country, living in the communities bordering Gaza, or attending the Nova party so close to the border — with, it must be emphasized, the permission of the security forces — as much as those who survived and will probably suffer from trauma for the rest of their lives, have the right to know who failed them by failing to comply with the most basic duty the state has to its citizens: to protect their safety and wellbeing. Those who were taken hostage — and 100 are still in captivity — and their loved ones are entitled to know who abandoned them, and who continues to leave them to their fate, and exactly why the Netanyahu government has declined to reach a ceasefire deal that would see them return home.
An independent inquest into the war in Gaza should also look at the decision to set, as one of the aims of the war without clearly defining it, the total eradication of Hamas, while linking the release of the hostages with military pressure on that extremist organization. That decision, instead of bringing them home, has cost the lives of dozens of the remaining hostages, while the Israeli military is now embroiled in a never-ending war.
Israel will not recover as a nation and its international credibility will remain tainted until there is a thorough investigation into why there has been no clear strategy to end the war in Gaza; and no end to the use of massive force also against its civilian population that has already been displaced several times over; to treating the mass deaths and destruction visited upon them as mere collateral damage; and to humanitarian aid being blocked from reaching them.
The investigation must also consider that several Israeli leaders have continued to blame the entire population of Gaza as perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacre, and that this is one of the main reasons why Israel finds itself accused of genocide in the International Court of Justice and why the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Yoav Galant.
Those are some of the pertinent questions that a state inquest needs to provide answers to, through a meticulous investigation. If, after the last 15 months there remains any hope left for Israel’s recovery and renewal, and for the rebuilding of trust in the state’s institutions, the process must start with the truth of the tragic events on and since Oct. 7, and the holding to account of those responsible.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg