They didn’t see it coming and they didn’t know it was happening...More than 2,000 Hamas terrorist operatives, flying over the border into Israel in 40 locations, in tandem with thousands of rockets raining down on communities.We all know what happened last week, but we are still left wondering how did Israel’s intelligence apparatus not tweak to an invasion so large?Helping us understand that, is Ronen Bergman, one of Israel's leading investigative reporters and a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.The author of Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations, he appeared on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN on Sunday.How did Israel not anticipate this attack?”As you know, it happened exactly 50 years and a day after the previous, but was considered until last Saturday, the biggest blunder in the history of Israeli intelligence, the surprise attack on the 6th of October 1973 of Egyptian and Syrian Army," said Bergman. “The result is amazingly, frighteningly the same, a surprise, strategic attack that Israel knew nothing about and caused Israel unbelievable damage.”But it's different, says Bergman.In 1973, there was a lot of information, much intelligence from all kinds of intelligence. They saw the Egyptian Army, they saw the Syrian Army, but unfortunately they interpreted the intelligence differently.“Israel was either not monitoring the right channels, not recruiting the right agents or maybe it was Hamas who learned from previous experience, who learned from its masters in Tehran — the Quds voice of the Revolutionary Guard — and was able to create a parallel channel.”It’s possible too, said Bergman, that Hamas knew which channel(s) was under the surveillance of Israeli intelligence and fed those false information.Information that made Israel believe what Hamas wanted them to believe — that everything was calm and peaceful.Interestingly, just five days before the attack, Israel’s national security advisor Tzachi Hanegbi said in an interview, “Hamas is deterred.” He was not aware, nor was Israel’s national security apparatus."It's my mistake, and it reflects the mistakes of all those making (intelligence) assessments," Hanegbi told a press briefing.“So no intelligence, no ability to understand and we are talking about a massive operation, 2,000 perpetrators crossed the fence that day. So there were 3,000 at least people involved,” said Bergman.“These must (have) created intelligence noise and none of that was picked up by Israeli intelligence.”On the contrary, Hamas terrorists had ample intelligence on Israel.They knew about the kind of weaponry they would face, they had maps and they also knew classified information.In short, they were well prepared.”We'll start first with this kind of leakage, massive leakage of information from Israel to Hamas,” said Bergman.“The ability of Hamas to understand what are the vulnerable points on the fence, how to cripple the cameras and the automatic machine guns, what base it should attack to create this kind of blind spot — this fog didn't allow the commanders, the ones that were not killed, to understand that massive troops are just crossing the fence.”One of their specific goals was a secret intelligence hub, not identified on any maps, said Bergman.“They go there, they don't go to the main gate. They know to go to the side, to a side gate that is not manned, exploding that, going into the base, looking for the bunker, the secret bunker.”“And when they don't find it, the commander tells one of the soldiers, "Give me the map," and he's holding a map of that base. Now this could be a map based on satellites, but the identification, where is the secret bunker, how to get there.““And we have this from all other groups, designated groups that crossed the broken fence in 40 different places that day. Hundreds of different groups each allocated to a different place with a clear map of the area and understanding who are the enemies, what are the challenges.”Bergman added Israel would need to have a very serious investigation on why it was not able to understand Hamas secrets, while Hamas knew quite a lot about Israeli secrets … and also use horrifying videos on social networks to broadcast their savagery.So who should shoulder the blame after this major intelligence failure?Israel’s influential Haaretz came out and brazenly blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming the “scandal-plagued charlatan” completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while "embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians."“The leaders of the Israeli defense establishment and intelligence community came to Netanyahu, showed him with classified intelligence saying, ‘This is how Israeli enemies see the political crisis. They believe that Israel is weak. They believe that this is the time to strike.’ ” Bergman said.“‘Mr. Prime Minister,’ they told him, ‘you must stop this so-called legal reform or judicial overhaul because if you continue, they will use this opportunity to strike us.’"Netanyahu did not listen, of course. In fact, in many of the cases, he even refused to see the leaders of the intelligence and the military, Bergman said.“He continued, contrary to the advice again, he continued this legal reform."“He continued to polarize the country in a way that was perceived by Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, as 'Here is our enemy in its lowest, weakest point. If we want to strike we, the Axis of Muqawamah, the Axis of Resistance, this is the time’ . . . and so, you see the results.”Not surprisingly, the majority of Israelis want Netanyahu out following this horrific debacle — the worst perpetrated against Israelis since the Holocaust.According to a poll reported by the Jerusalem Post, almost 56% of the population believe Netanyahu must resign after the ongoing conflict with Hamas ends.This perspective drew the support of 28% of coalition voters, according to the poll released by the Dialog Centre.
They didn’t see it coming and they didn’t know it was happening...More than 2,000 Hamas terrorist operatives, flying over the border into Israel in 40 locations, in tandem with thousands of rockets raining down on communities.We all know what happened last week, but we are still left wondering how did Israel’s intelligence apparatus not tweak to an invasion so large?Helping us understand that, is Ronen Bergman, one of Israel's leading investigative reporters and a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.The author of Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations, he appeared on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN on Sunday.How did Israel not anticipate this attack?”As you know, it happened exactly 50 years and a day after the previous, but was considered until last Saturday, the biggest blunder in the history of Israeli intelligence, the surprise attack on the 6th of October 1973 of Egyptian and Syrian Army," said Bergman. “The result is amazingly, frighteningly the same, a surprise, strategic attack that Israel knew nothing about and caused Israel unbelievable damage.”But it's different, says Bergman.In 1973, there was a lot of information, much intelligence from all kinds of intelligence. They saw the Egyptian Army, they saw the Syrian Army, but unfortunately they interpreted the intelligence differently.“Israel was either not monitoring the right channels, not recruiting the right agents or maybe it was Hamas who learned from previous experience, who learned from its masters in Tehran — the Quds voice of the Revolutionary Guard — and was able to create a parallel channel.”It’s possible too, said Bergman, that Hamas knew which channel(s) was under the surveillance of Israeli intelligence and fed those false information.Information that made Israel believe what Hamas wanted them to believe — that everything was calm and peaceful.Interestingly, just five days before the attack, Israel’s national security advisor Tzachi Hanegbi said in an interview, “Hamas is deterred.” He was not aware, nor was Israel’s national security apparatus."It's my mistake, and it reflects the mistakes of all those making (intelligence) assessments," Hanegbi told a press briefing.“So no intelligence, no ability to understand and we are talking about a massive operation, 2,000 perpetrators crossed the fence that day. So there were 3,000 at least people involved,” said Bergman.“These must (have) created intelligence noise and none of that was picked up by Israeli intelligence.”On the contrary, Hamas terrorists had ample intelligence on Israel.They knew about the kind of weaponry they would face, they had maps and they also knew classified information.In short, they were well prepared.”We'll start first with this kind of leakage, massive leakage of information from Israel to Hamas,” said Bergman.“The ability of Hamas to understand what are the vulnerable points on the fence, how to cripple the cameras and the automatic machine guns, what base it should attack to create this kind of blind spot — this fog didn't allow the commanders, the ones that were not killed, to understand that massive troops are just crossing the fence.”One of their specific goals was a secret intelligence hub, not identified on any maps, said Bergman.“They go there, they don't go to the main gate. They know to go to the side, to a side gate that is not manned, exploding that, going into the base, looking for the bunker, the secret bunker.”“And when they don't find it, the commander tells one of the soldiers, "Give me the map," and he's holding a map of that base. Now this could be a map based on satellites, but the identification, where is the secret bunker, how to get there.““And we have this from all other groups, designated groups that crossed the broken fence in 40 different places that day. Hundreds of different groups each allocated to a different place with a clear map of the area and understanding who are the enemies, what are the challenges.”Bergman added Israel would need to have a very serious investigation on why it was not able to understand Hamas secrets, while Hamas knew quite a lot about Israeli secrets … and also use horrifying videos on social networks to broadcast their savagery.So who should shoulder the blame after this major intelligence failure?Israel’s influential Haaretz came out and brazenly blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming the “scandal-plagued charlatan” completely failed to identify the dangers he was consciously leading Israel into when establishing a government of annexation and dispossession, when appointing Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir to key positions, while "embracing a foreign policy that openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians."“The leaders of the Israeli defense establishment and intelligence community came to Netanyahu, showed him with classified intelligence saying, ‘This is how Israeli enemies see the political crisis. They believe that Israel is weak. They believe that this is the time to strike.’ ” Bergman said.“‘Mr. Prime Minister,’ they told him, ‘you must stop this so-called legal reform or judicial overhaul because if you continue, they will use this opportunity to strike us.’"Netanyahu did not listen, of course. In fact, in many of the cases, he even refused to see the leaders of the intelligence and the military, Bergman said.“He continued, contrary to the advice again, he continued this legal reform."“He continued to polarize the country in a way that was perceived by Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, as 'Here is our enemy in its lowest, weakest point. If we want to strike we, the Axis of Muqawamah, the Axis of Resistance, this is the time’ . . . and so, you see the results.”Not surprisingly, the majority of Israelis want Netanyahu out following this horrific debacle — the worst perpetrated against Israelis since the Holocaust.According to a poll reported by the Jerusalem Post, almost 56% of the population believe Netanyahu must resign after the ongoing conflict with Hamas ends.This perspective drew the support of 28% of coalition voters, according to the poll released by the Dialog Centre.
