Journalist Claims Waking Leaders Would Have Prevented October 7th Attack
Translated & summarized from Srugim by baba
Journalist Avishai Ben-Haim claims that alerting Israeli prime ministers, including Benjamin Netanyahu, in real-time would have prevented the October 7th Hamas attack by prompting a swift military response. He argues this simple action, rather than intelligence debates, was the crucial missing element.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Journalist claims waking leaders would have stopped October 7th.
- Real-time alerts, not intelligence debates, were key.
- Any prime minister would have mobilized the army.
- Swift military response would have deterred or defeated Hamas.
- Questions why military and intelligence failed to alert leadership.
Israeli journalist and commentator Avishai Ben-Haim asserted that the key to preventing the October 7th Hamas attack was not in long-standing debates about intelligence concepts or financial transfers, but in the simple act of alerting political leadership in real-time.
In a social media post, Ben-Haim argued that if Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, or even more recent leaders like Yair Golan, Ofir Winter, Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennett, and current Premier Benjamin Netanyahu had been woken up on the night of the attack, it would not have happened. He extended this to 'almost any prime minister,' stating that waking them would have prompted an immediate military response.
Ben-Haim believes that while discussions about intelligence warnings, the prevailing security concept, and financial aid to Gaza are important, they distract from the core issue. He contends that any prime minister, upon being alerted, would have mobilized the army.
He further elaborated that a swift military response would have either deterred Hamas from launching the attack or caused it to fail at the border, preventing the scale of the disaster that occurred. Ben-Haim concluded by posing a critical question to military and intelligence officials: given the dramatic intelligence signs, why was the prime minister and the army not alerted? He offered his own answer: waking the prime minister would have prevented the destruction of October 7th.