George Friedman
Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7, 2023, was not Israel’s first intelligence failure. In the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Israel was surprised by Egypt and Syria’s two-front armored attack. It is the mission of national intelligence services to avoid such surprises. Nothing is perfect; some levels of imperfection are to be expected, and the public never sees the after-action report. In fact, most intelligence failures register far below the level of intolerability. But Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack was an intolerable failure.
Israel has since completed a review of its intelligence failures that day, even going so far, apparently, as to give the media complete access to its operations. The Times of Israel recently published an article about the findings, which are fairly damning. The first two paragraphs tell the tale:
“The Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence Directorate received information and plans outlining Hamas’s intent to launch a wide-scale attack against Israel over a period of several years, but dismissed the plan as unrealistic and unfeasible, according to a probe of the intelligence failures leading up to the October 7 attack.
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