Israel Intelligence Failure
Updated 2023-11-13
2023-10-16 Gaza is Burning in Lockstep with the Great Reset The latest Israel-Hamas conflict was either deliberately engineered or it was the result of a remarkable concatenation of security lapses. Current affairs commentator Efrat Fenigson, a former Israel Defense Force (IDF) reservist, was among the first to concisely unpack the sheer improbability of a Hamas sneak attack on an ultra-secure Israeli border complex. https://www.activistpost.com/2023/10/gaza-is-burning-in-lockstep-with-the-great-reset.html
2023-10-12 Israel had intel on Hamas activity but didn’t put Gaza border on high alert Why it matters: Israeli leaders are facing growing criticism — and questions — over how they failed to prevent or quickly stop the deadliest attacks on its territory in decades.
Behind the scenes: The Israeli officials said that on Friday — the day before the attack — Israeli intelligence saw signs of Hamas activity in Gaza that suggested the militant group could have been preparing for an attack. As a result, several high-level consultations took place on Friday night to try to understand what the new intelligence meant, the officials said. IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Shin Bet director Ronen Bar and Aharon Haliva, head of military intelligence, participated in some of these consultations, which discussed whether the irregular activity was a Hamas exercise or initial preparation for an attack. Israeli officials said that one of the possibilities that was raised in the consultation was to put IDF forces around Gaza on high alert because of a possible attack. But after the consultations, the leaders decided to wait for more intelligence to come in. Several hours later, Hamas attacked. https://www.axios.com/2023/10/12/hamas-attack-israel-intelligence-failure-high-alert-shen-bet
2023-10-11 While Israeli Media Examine Government Failure, US Papers Push ‘National Unity’ How could Israel—so famous for its military might and advanced intelligence capabilities—have missed the warnings of such an attack? The coordinated nature of the rocket attacks and assaults on nearby towns make clear that this was a huge operation that took time and planning; paragliding attacks require practice runs that are not easy to hide (L’Orient Today, 10/9/23), for instance. Already, Israeli media have begun looking closely at the Israeli government’s actions to understand how and why this happened—in sharp contrast to US broadsheet opinion, which has largely rallied unquestioningly behind Israeli “national unity.”
An Israeli military veteran in the New York Post (10/9/23), hardly considered a pro-Palestine publication, blamed Israel for ignoring warnings from Egyptian intelligence about “something big.”
An editorial at Ha’aretz (10/8/23) put the blame squarely on Netanyahu, saying “he is the ultimate arbiter of Israeli foreign and security affairs.” It also pointed the finger at his right-wing policies on settlement expansion and allies with far-right extremist parties. “As expected, signs of an outbreak of hostilities began in the West Bank, where Palestinians started feeling the heavier hand of the Israeli occupier,” the editorial said, noting that “Hamas exploited the opportunity in order to launch its surprise attack.”
At the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (10/7/23), David Halperin, chief executive officer of the Israel Policy Forum, wrote that for the last year, “my colleagues and I…have joined with others in expressing concern about the nature of Israel’s far-right government.” The article—which questioned why Netanyahu’s government, famously hard-nosed on security, failed to protect the people—was reprinted in the Jerusalem Post (10/7/23).
Alon Pinkas (Ha’aretz, 10/9/23) wrote more directly: “Netanyahu should be removed as prime minister immediately—not ‘after the war,’ not after a plea bargain in his corruption trial, not after an election. Now.” https://fair.org/home/while-israeli-media-examine-government-failure-us-papers-push-national-unity/
2023-10-08 SCOTT RITTER: Israel’s Massive Intelligence Failure The origins of Israel’s intelligence failure on the Hamas attacks can be traced to the decision to rely on AI instead of the contrarian analysis born of the earlier intelligence failure of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. How did such a massive, complex undertaking escape the notice of Israel’s vaunted intelligence service? An equally important question is why wasn’t this attack detected by the U.S. intelligence community as well, given the massive expenditures made in countering terrorism since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland of September 11, 2001?
The answers lie in the history of success Israel has enjoyed in identifying and responding to Hamas operations in the past, success which manifested itself into a culture of complacency, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Israeli citizens — the very people the intelligence services were dedicated to protect. The fact that this attack took place 50 years and a day from when Israel suffered what had been — up until this moment — Israel’s greatest intelligence failure, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, only reinforces the depth of the failure that transpired.
Israel’s fatal mistake was to openly brag about the role AI played in Operation Guardian of the Walls. Hamas was apparently able to take control of the flow of information being collected by Israel.
There has been much speculation about Hamas “going dark” regarding cell phone and computer usage to deny Israel the data that is contained in those means of communication. But “going dark” would have, by itself, been an intelligence indicator, one that AI would have certainly picked up. Instead, it’s highly probable that Hamas maintained an elaborate communications deception plan, maintaining a level of communications sufficient in quantity and quality to avoid being singled out by AI — and by Israeli analysts deviating from the norm. In the same way, Hamas would likely have maintained its physical profile of movement and activity to keep the Israeli AI algorithms satisfied that nothing strange was afoot. This also meant any activity — such as training related to paragliding or amphibious operations — that might be detected and flagged by Israeli AI was done to avoid detection.
The Israelis had become prisoners of their own successes in intelligence collection. https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/08/scott-ritter-israels-massive-intelligence-failure/
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