Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has published his answers to an investigation into the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel, drawing fury from the opposition who accused him of deflecting blame for one of Israel’s worst security disasters that took place on his watch.
The material, made up of selected quotes from the transcripts of cabinet meetings over the past 13 years, paints a picture of Mr Netanyahu pushing for the assassination of senior Hamas leaders in the years before the attack, while portraying political opponents and security chiefs as being against such action.
The Prime Minister also accused the judiciary of interrupting the investigation.
Mr Netanyahu and his far-right coalition attempted to push through large-scale reforms of Israel’s judicial system in the opening months of its rule, a highly divisive episode that critics said emboldened Israel’s enemies to attack on October 7, 2023.
The anger over Mr Netanyahu’s response is the latest turn in the bitter question about how Israel should investigate the failures that led to the October 7 attack, the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Many of Mr Netanyahu’s opponents want a state commission of inquiry, which gives investigators a broad mandate to summon witnesses, but which Mr Netanyahu opposes.
Opinion polls also show that the majority of Israelis want a state commission. Mr Netanyahu has never acknowledged responsibility for the events of October 7, when 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage in a surprise attack led by Hamas.
Questions abound on whether Mr Netanyahu’s policies in the years leading up to October 7 empowered Hamas. He has served as Israel’s prime minister since 2009, except for an 18-month period in 2021 and 2022. Critics want an assessment of whether his government’s divisive agenda and the rifts it caused were picked up on by Israel’s enemies as a sign of internal weakness.
In response to Mr Netanyahu’s answers, the leader of Israel’s opposition, former prime minister Yair Lapid, posted on X: “In complete contrast to his claims, Netanyahu was warned again and again before October 7, including by me, and he ignored every single warning.”
Critics of the Prime Minister noted apparent inconsistencies in his answers. In a post on X, former Jerusalem Post editor Yaakov Katz wrote: “Netanyahu claims that [senior opposition politicians] Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman opposed a ground invasion during the 2014 Gaza war. Yet in his own autobiography, Netanyahu writes the exact opposite − that they pushed for a ground operation and that he stopped it due to other priorities at the time.”
“Another example: Netanyahu now argues that the 2005 disengagement from Gaza paved the way for the October 7 attack and that he opposed the pullout. This, too, is revisionism. Netanyahu voted multiple times in favour of the disengagement and only turned against it at the very last stage, when it was already clear that the decision would pass,” Mr Katz added.
Former Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner described the prime minister’s actions as “an attempted cover up at the highest level of government”.
