Boaz Golan, the Channel 14 presenter and founder of the 0404 website, gave a wide-ranging interview to Einat Miron on Maariv’s podcast about the blame and responsibility for the October 7 failure. Golan was sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but said the catastrophe cannot be reduced to a single scapegoat and reflects a much deeper, years-long systemic breakdown.
He said, “Bibi is guilty. Bibi is responsible,” but immediately widened the circle of blame to other political and military figures. “Bennett is guilty. He does not have the responsibility, because he was not in charge at that moment, but he is guilty. And the whole group, and Eizenkot is guilty. And the whole group that saw ahead for years. There are many guilty people in this incident. You arrived at an incident with no single manager,” he said.
Golan argued that the failures must be examined across the command and leadership levels, not only at the top political echelon. He said dismissing the issue by blaming one person alone misses the complexity of what happened. “You say, he is guilty, and the incident is over. This is a complex incident,” he said, adding that Netanyahu cannot be expected to personally take battlefield action. “He cannot. He is not in the event. But there are many things here that need to be checked.”
During the interview, Golan also spoke about the army, the long-standing “concept” that shaped Israeli thinking before the attack, and the need for a commission of inquiry. He said he revealed for the first time a chilling real-time exchange he had that morning with a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri on the Sabbath and Simchat Torah. He also turned to the regional threats from Iran and Lebanon, and gave a pessimistic assessment that the current war is still far from over.
