I must say the “surprise” in this case should not have been so. Shin Bet, Mossad, and IDF all had the intel and summation of it for about a year. This is not so much an intel failure as a failure of leadership, imagination, and estimation of enemy capabilities. But it goes even further than that. The ruling coalition and Netanyahu had every incentive to let this happen to distract from his failed legal reforms and his own legal troubles.
The problem with governments ruled by extremist fractions (I do not mean "factions") is exactly why the mass of the IDF was moved to the West Bank before Oct 7. Rather than protecting extremist "settlers" in the West Bank, the government should have been keeping them off land they do not own.
Basically, Netanyahu was protecting his government, not his country.
I must say the “surprise” in this case should not have been so. Shin Bet, Mossad, and IDF all had the intel and summation of it for about a year. This is not so much an intel failure as a failure of leadership, imagination, and estimation of enemy capabilities. But it goes even further than that. The ruling coalition and Netanyahu had every incentive to let this happen to distract from his failed legal reforms and his own legal troubles.
The problem with governments ruled by extremist fractions (I do not mean "factions") is exactly why the mass of the IDF was moved to the West Bank before Oct 7. Rather than protecting extremist "settlers" in the West Bank, the government should have been keeping them off land they do not own.
Basically, Netanyahu was protecting his government, not his country.