For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has relied on a straightforward defense to shield his legacy from the tragedy of Oct. 7, 2023. His narrative has been simple: Israel’s military and intelligence chiefs kept him completely in the dark, and “no one woke me up” on the morning of the Hamas massacre.
However, that political shield has completely shattered. A blockbuster investigation published by the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz, combined with news that Netanyahu is launching a high-stakes libel lawsuit against the publication, has upended the country’s political landscape just weeks before national elections.
The Haaretz report details a secret, 45-minute phone call that allegedly took place 10 days before the attack. According to the investigation, Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan personally phoned Netanyahu to give him an explicit warning. The Emirati leader reportedly stated that Hamas’s Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a massive operation meant to destabilize the region and fracture the historic Abraham Accords.
Netanyahu allegedly brushed the warning aside, assuring the president of the United Arab Emirates that Israel was fully prepared and that Hamas’s true ambitions were focused on the West Bank. Crucially, the report notes that Netanyahu never passed this intelligence down to his security and military commanders.
Netanyahu’s office immediately went on the defensive, calling the report an “absolute lie” and a “malicious fabrication” timed to destroy his reelection campaign. He has now instructed his lawyers to file a defamation lawsuit against Haaretz and the investigative journalist behind the story, Shlomi Eldar. Netanyahu claims his team reviewed all national security phone logs and office entry records, finding zero evidence of the call. Meanwhile, Haaretz stands firmly by its reporting.
Whether this lawsuit succeeds, Netanyahu’s broader defense, that he had no idea an attack was brewing, is no longer sustainable. The UAE bombshell is simply the final entry in a yearslong paper trail of internal and external warnings that Netanyahu systematically chose to ignore.
In mid-2024, the Israeli military confirmed that Netanyahu had received four specific warning letters from Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate between March and July 2023. As detailed in reports by the Times of Israel, these official documents explicitly warned the prime minister that his aggressive pursuit of a highly controversial judicial overhaul was tearing Israeli society apart.
Furthermore, and of great importance to note, intelligence chiefs warned that regional adversaries, including Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, viewed this internal chaos as a moment of extreme Israeli vulnerability. The letters stated that Israel’s strategic deterrence had severely eroded and that adversaries no longer feared a unified response. Rather than taking these insider briefings seriously, Netanyahu publicly dismissed his own generals, viewing their warnings as a political attempt to sabotage his agenda.
The warnings were equally stark at the tactical level. Over a year before the attack, Israeli intelligence intercepted Hamas’s actual 40-page blueprint for the invasion, codenamed “Jericho Wall.” According to investigative reporting by the New York Times, the document laid out the exact playbook that unfolded on Oct. 7: a massive rocket barrage, drones knocking out border cameras, and waves of commandos breaching the Gaza fence to overrun military bases and civilian communities.
While the blueprint circulated widely within the military, senior leaders dismissed it as purely aspirational. This dismissive attitude came directly from the top. Netanyahu’s long-standing security dogma was built on the belief that Hamas was “contained” through economic incentives and Qatari cash transfers. This ideological stubbornness left him entirely blind to the threat growing right on his border.
When regional neighbors tried to wave red flags, they were met with the same hubris. Beyond the newly revealed Emirati phone call, Egyptian intelligence officials made contact with Israeli security channels in the weeks leading up to the attack. As covered by BBC News, the Egyptians explicitly warned Israel that Hamas was preparing an unusual, “terrifying operation.” Because the warning lacked precise tactical coordinates, it was ignored.
Now, with a critical election looming next month, Netanyahu’s self-made image as “Mr. Security” has collapsed. His political rivals are weaponizing these compounding failures. Former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have openly declared him “unfit” for office.
THERE’S A TICKING TIME BOMB INSIDE AMERICA — IT’S CALLED HEZBOLLAH
To make matters worse, Netanyahu’s inner circle is currently engulfed in a separate corruption scandal. His chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, has been placed under police investigation for allegedly trying to blackmail a military officer into altering the official minutes of wartime Cabinet meetings. As noted by the Times of Israel, the suspected goal was to alter timestamps retroactively to shift blame and hide exactly how much advance knowledge Netanyahu had before the disaster hit.
The historical record is no longer ambiguous. Netanyahu did not fail on Oct. 7 because of a sudden, unpredictable intelligence blind spot. He failed because he spent years ignoring a deafening chorus of warnings from his own analysts, his own generals, and his closest global allies. Suing a newspaper will not change the fact that his own complacency finally caught up to him.
Dr. Eric Wargotz is a geopolitical analyst and policy writer who has held leadership roles across government and medicine. He is a clinical professor emeritus at The George Washington University, a Maryland judge, a former Senate nominee, and an elected county commission president. The views expressed here are entirely his own.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
