Yaakov Katz

0:01 I am Rabbi Ami Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and you're listening to In These Times. Today's podcast was recorded several weeks ago, live with Yako Katz, former editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, a senior fellow at the Jewish People's Policy Institute, and author of this new fantastic book while Israel Slept, that he wrote with his colleague Amir Boho.

0:33 And since there have not been commissions of investigation yet established to investigate and analyze what went wrong on October 7th, this book is about the closest we have come so far to understanding the. Collapses, both operational as well as strategic that occurred on October 7th Yako. Congratulations on this important book and welcome back to Steven Wise and to in these times.

1:03 Thank you very much, rabbi. It's a real pleasure to be with you and to be with everybody here this morning. And particularly, I think I said this to you when we last saw each other in Israel just a few months ago, but the sand that you have particularly taken on Israel and since October 7th and your leadership of, uh, strong, unwavering commitment to the security and safety of Israel has been very inspiring for definitely American Jews, but I think also Israeli Jews who have watched this sermons that you've given have made their rounds.

1:36 Not once, not twice. I've gotten them on my WhatsApp feed and seen them across social media, so it's just as much a pleasure to be here with you. Wow, thank you. That that means a lot to me. See, he's really plugged in talking about sermons. You, you ain't heard nothing yet. We're in the middle of a high Holy Day season.

1:59 Uh, it's a great book and I want to talk to you, of course, uh, about the book. Um, first though, there was, uh, some excitement last week at your appearance at the Stryker Center. For those of you who hadn't heard the, uh, event was interrupted, I think several times or throughout from professional protesters.

2:21 How did that make you feel and, and did it say anything about the American scene and where we're at at this point in time? What was funny was, uh, my mother lives here on the Upper West Side for like the last almost 15 years, and I took an Uber down with her across town to go to the Stryker Center. We show up there and they had told me that I should come into the, uh, entrance on fifth Avenue.

2:45 Uh, so the Uber pulls up on Fifth Avenue and there's barricades with policemen all across in the front of the building. And I said, mom, do you know, is there a parade here today that you know, I didn't, I didn't know about? And then we get outta the Uber and, and some policemen sees me and says, you're the speaker.

3:02 So I said, what this has to do with me? I, it never would've crossed my mind that something like this would be for this event. I don't think it had anything to do with me in particular. I don't think that it had Brett Stevens, who then I was in conversation with on stage. He was my first editor back at the Jerusalem Post and now almost 25 years ago.

3:19 But Brett was very taken in. He felt like it was a compliment that they're coming to protest. The two of us, I think these are people who they see anything that has to do with an Israeli journalist, a pro-Israel known, prominent New York Times columnist and at a synagogue and with the title of a book.

3:35 And they just come and they sit there no matter what. I said, it doesn't make a difference every few minutes. Someone popped up from some row and just starts yelling, genocide. And you know, Israel's murdering people and it was very disturbing. It happened about seven times. It was uncomfortable. You definitely lose your train of thought.

3:53 That I can tell you for sure. I wanna get to the book itself again. You all should read the book and all of you, many thousands who are listening to the podcast, you should pick up the book as well. It's very thoroughly researched. How long did it take you and your colleague to research the book and how and how did you do it?

4:13 Explain to us a little bit of the process. You know, so Amir and I wrote a book, this is my fourth book now, two books ago we wrote a book together called Weapon Wizards. That was the title, how Israel created some of the most sophisticated military technology and really changed the modern battlefield.

4:29 You're all familiar with Iron Dome? Um, our satellites, we just launched a new satellite up into space last week. Our missile, defense, architecture, cyber security, and defense, our tank, the, which is one of the most efficient and protected and adaptable tank in the world, and so much more. And then we thought about a sequel to that book, and I came up with this idea, this is already going back over three years ago, that there's a story to be told about how Israel had created a really advanced and sophisticated, very unique precision strike capability.

5:08 I take you back in time to, there was one operation in 2019 when Israel began to do this thing where it would divide, it wasn't targeting Hamas, it was just hurting Islamic Jihad, which is another one of those terrorist factions in Gaza. And they literally put a missile through a window onto a bed and killed this guy, Baja Abta.

5:27 And the kids were in the room next door. And I don't wanna say that nothing happens to him 'cause they were probably very traumatized, but nothing happens to them physically. And Israel had really developed a very unique strike capability because it was trying to be as accurate as possible, minimizing collateral damage, minimizing civilian casualties, trying to do things in a way that no other military in the world does.

5:47 And I, I went really deep into this story 'cause I thought it was fascinating. And what I ended up discovering was how Israel had been on this journey from dropping one ton bombs to kill a single guy and having a lot of extra people killed to being able to develop these small little bombs that can just kill the guy on the bed.

6:03 So you saw tactics, technology, intelligence, and ethics. So I pitched this book to our publisher, St. Martin's Press, and with some reluctance they agreed and we signed a deal. That was in May, June, 2023, and we start working on the book. And then October 7th happens, and as, uh, my editor, who I love dearly, who is a very nice person and believes.

6:32 In our work and my work, as she said to me about a month into the war, unless you call turning Gaza into a crater, a precision strike, it's time to pivot. I, I, I've been blessed with some self-awareness, so I knew that we, uh, we needed to pivot already and, um, we pivoted to this to try to tell the story of how, how did this happen?

6:55 Because I think, like everybody, definitely, we two journalists who have been covering the Israeli story and the defense story, I, I, before being the editor of the newspaper, I served for about 10 years as the military correspondent. I've spent time in Gaza, I've spent time in Lebanon. I've been embedded with the IDF, I've covered all the wars from 2005 up to, you know, 2015 almost.

7:16 I was surprised. I'd been in briefings with the chief of staff, with the head of military intelligence in the months leading up to October 7th and. There was nothing and we didn't understand how this was possible. I think many of us still don't understand how this was possible. So we decided this was gonna be the book, and it took us about a year, I would say, just of meeting hundreds of different people, literally hundreds.

7:37 And then the writing took about another six to eight months or so. And was everybody willing to talk to you? Anybody who you wanted to talk with? I, I, I don't think there was anyone who didn't wanna talk to us who said no, but some people were more difficult than others. We were able to get amazing access to all the people who were really involved.

7:57 And what we offered them was something very simple. We wanted to tell the story in its entirety. We want to give you the opportunity to explain what happened and what transpired. Definitely. For example, in one of the first chapters is what happened between October 6th and October 7th? What happened on that fateful night?

8:13 And so much did happen. So we offered Hertz Vy, who was the chief of staff who, who named Barr, who was the head of the Shin bet, Jerome Finkelman, who was the head of the Southern Command. And so many more of the officers. And the Defense Minister and the Prime Minister and everyone else, just tell it to us and we will present it as is to tell you that I know everything.

8:31 No, to tell you that we had access to everything also. No. That's why I strongly believe we need a state commission of inquiry to really understand everything, because only a state commission can really get to every final detail. But I think that what we've been able to do is really try to create some sort of explanation to the best that we could of, of how this happened.

8:54 It kind of reads like a, almost like a preliminary commission of investigation or at least sets some of the background to it. And in reading the book page after page of what you discovered and lay out, it's not only the information you gathered by talking to hundreds of people, it's the ability to lay it out in a cogent way so that people understand just, just fantastic what you did.

9:18 But it kind of highlights how. Lacking how missing is an official overarching commission of investigation. Your book doesn't replace the need for a commission of investigation. Why do you think that hasn't happened yet? Oh, def. First of all, it definitely doesn't replace as much as I'd like to think that the book is very good, it definitely doesn't replace, and we need one.

9:42 I mean, but why? Very simple reason. Bebe, he refuses. He won't do it. Benjamin Atan, the prime Minister because two reasons. One, he knows what they'll find. He knows what some of those findings will include, and he knows that he is responsible, culpable will be held accountable and he doesn't want it.

10:03 Number two is that just historically, so people ask me, how do I know he won't do it? Maybe he'll do it once the war is open. Look, I can only make assessments based on knowledge and what I know is that he is, I think, the only prime minister in Israel's history and the longest running prime minister he is now.

10:20 About 18 years been Israel's Prime Minister. He has never established a single commission of inquiry. All the other prime ministers have, he hasn't. There's a reason why, I mean, take totally off topic for a moment. Take the Mayron disaster in lag Bauer in 2021. 2022. Ju just a sentence or two. Describe it for people who like Bauer.

10:41 The, the bonfire holiday of about 33 days after Passover ends. Maro is where the grave of Shimo bar, uh, ancient sage, and that's the traditional pilgrimage site. Tens of thousands of people flock to their, to attend the bonfire celebration. Uh, there was a stampede, 45 people were killed. The greatest civilian disaster in Israeli history.

11:06 And nothing happened. Nothing happened. The guy who was the minister of police became the speaker of the Knesset. The police chief remained in his job. No one was held accountable. The Prime Minister. State the permit. I mean, now I don't think that we, Israel needs to become, I dunno, Korea or Japan where there's a train crash, two people are killed, and the whole government resigns.

11:28 Right? I mean, I'm exaggerating, but you know, it's a, it's a culture of accountability that is extreme. But something, I mean, look at, look at, look at where we are now. Two years almost into this war, 900 soldiers killed so many civilians who were murdered, massacred on October 7th, 48. Hostages remain in Hamas captivity, the country, once again back in a divisive state.

11:53 And by the way, it's, I mean, like, it's almost a miracle. If you think about, you know, from political perspective, how has this government managed to survive? I think there's an explanation because of everything they have coalesced and united around survival. So they, they, they kept going, but I mean, in what world do we live in that no one has taken responsibility?

12:15 Now some of the security officials have, they've all been replaced by now. Hertz Vy has been removed. Ronne Barr has been removed. Yoav Gallant has been removed, although somehow he's become like a darling of the opposition of Netanyahu. And I, I happen to like Yoav and I think he's a good guy. But hey man, you were the defense minister on October 7th, right?

12:35 I mean, you failed miserably, right? So I mean, like, you know, with all due respect in my book, not in the book and, and the way I view life, we need accountability. And, and right now we are sorely missing it. And by the way, sorry, sorry to interrupt. Yeah. Ell the Jewish month, we are currently in, as we're, as we're talking ahead of the high Holy Days, Rosh Kippur.

12:59 This is the month of accountability of hash nefe, right? As, as we call it, not for politicians, no, no. For us, but not, not for them. Uh, I want to get to, uh, the failures. Presumably there will be at some point commissioned of investigation, although the longer you wait, the more the evidence gets stale.

13:23 People forget people pass away and it's just, uh, an offense against the reality and against history. But presumably, uh, at some point much of this will come out. But just on the broadest perspective, how could it be that this country with such advanced technology and this military, which you wrote a book about that is able to locate somebody in their bedroom and kill him and nobody else, with all of this sophisticated intelligence, how is it possible that the military and the country were taken completely by surprise by, uh, terrorist outfit?

14:10 A mile away. Yeah. In Gaza, it's just seems inconceivable. Which by the way, led to some Israelis still today convinced that there was some kind of mole or some spy in the defense forces that prevented the discovery of what was going on. On the other side. If you can answer that question, how is it possible, which is essentially what your book is about, and two, specifically, you talked earlier about what was going on on the evening of October 6th, so maybe you can relate to that as well.

14:43 Can I make the question even tougher? Because let's also look at, let's contrast what Gaza is or what happened, what's been happening in this war with the amazing, brilliant success that Israel has had with Hezbollah Lebanon? The amazing pager attack. Look at what happened in the 12 day war with Iran.

15:06 Israel taking out the entire Iranian scientific nuclear leadership, the entire military leadership, successful operations against the air defense systems and more. So you see that, and then you see what happened on October 7th. You say, how is this the same Israel? And that does breed some of those conspiracy theories that I often hear from people.

15:29 Do. Do you give credence to that at all? No. That there was some kind of conspiracy? No, no. No. Again, could be. I don't, but I, I don't see any evidence of that. I don't think it happened. I think something much simpler, and this is why it's so difficult, you know, when things are, it's like you're the rabbi here on this, on, on the podium.

15:47 Faith is very complicated as well. Right. And because it's an enigma and it's so vague, it can also breed so many different ways of thinking. I think here because of the mystery. People search for something tangible to hang onto. And that tangible thing is there was a mole, there was a spy. Hamas had infiltrated, something had happened because that's the best way to explain away something that is so incredibly difficult to comprehend.

16:17 And it really is. I mean, Israel is the country that you can't accuse it, of not being vigilant and aware of the threats against it. It's been embroiled in conflict for so long. I think Gaza was unique in the way it was looked at for a number of reasons. And by the way, I've come to think about this, and I don't use this term in the book, but I've come to think about that we believed in a fairytale.

16:44 We believed that a genocidal terrorist group could live alongside us and we could contain it, we could deter it. We could literally buy it off or pay it off. And that's what we did. I, I'd like to think of it this way. If I told all of you today here that we're gonna end the war tomorrow and we're gonna ask our friends in Doha to send $30 million of cash every month to Hamas to buy quiet, you would think I am crazy, but I've lost it.

17:16 Right? But that's what we did for five years. So, so the question really comes down to how did we even think that something like that makes sense. I joke, but you know, Netanyahu apparently didn't watch the Godfather. 'cause rule number one is you don't pay them. Right? I mean, but, but, but that came from something, and I think there's something deeper.

17:39 I think that Israelis, we look at ourselves as part of the western world. We are an advanced society. We're a progressive society. We're a democracy. Our values are aligned with other liberal democracies in the world. Some people think we're changing, and that's very possible. We think sometimes America's changing as well, so there's what to talk about.

17:59 But our trade is with the European Union, our greatest trade partner. Lots of trade with the United States. We consume American media, movies, television shows, literature. We don't read the Chinese books. We don't watch Bollywood, Indian film. We are part of the West. We're a member of the OECD. We are an advanced developed country.

18:21 So if you ask Israelis, are you western or are you eastern? Of course we're part of the western world. There's no question about that. We thought we were Luxembourg, but we forgot that our neighbors are not Belgium, France and Germany, they are Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran. Off on the horizon. And as people who are westerners, we want to live at our very basic core, a quiet, peaceful, good life.

18:49 And life in Israel has been very good. The economy has grown over the last 15, 20 years in remarkable ways. Our high tech industries booming. I mean, even during the war, look at some of the recent exits that have been announced in, in 25, $30 billion. The stock market today is at record High Israel.

19:07 The stock market is record high. I mean like in all, despite the war. So the, the shekel remains strong. I mean, there's, there, there's so many different elements. This, but all of this was, was in the lead up in these years, and a lot of it under Netanyahu has to be said. Abraham Accords reached under Netanyahu in 2020, opening us up to normalization with the rest, with large parts of the, of the Arab world, that until then were closed off to us.

19:32 For that reason. I spend a lot of time in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, 500,000 Israelis. Went to Dubai in the first year after the Abraham Accords were announced. That's like 5% of our country. I mean it, it's remarkable. So I think that that that's at the foundation and that leads you to believe that if I can delay this confrontation that I know will happen and is going to happen because it's happening every two years.

19:59 We're fighting. We pull outta Gaza in 2005, 2006 already. They kidnapped Gilat Shali. We go in in an operation called Summer Rains 2008 nine. Operation Cast LED 2012, pillar of Defense 2014 Operation Protective Edge. It's a terrible cycle. It's like a game of whack-a-mole. But we say to ourselves, we have to find a way to delay this even more.

20:19 Or this is just reality. So containment comes, and the containment policies built, I think on three legs. Leg number one is the technology. They develop missiles. We create Iron Dome, we swat them out of the sky, we take away the missile. It's no longer a strategic threat to us. So basically they can fire missiles at us, but we don't really have to respond 'cause we got Iron Dome, we're okay.

20:44 We just keep on living. They come in in 2014, they dig tunnels, they cross in, they kill Israeli soldiers. So what do we do? We dig an underground wall and we cut off the tunnels. We spend billions of dollars. We create teams of engineers, sonar, seismic geologists. They can detect if a tunnel's being dug, where it's being dug, and what tool is being dug with.

21:06 So sophisticated, remarkable. How many tunnels were used on October 7th to infiltrate Israel? Zero. They all crossed above ground. They went old tech, old school. That was leg one created a false sense of security. Leg two was that we had bigger issues to deal with. We had Iran, we had Hezbollah. I was in all those briefings over the years.

21:33 I'm sure you've heard a lot about it. You read about it in the media of what Hezbollah arsenal could do to us. 150,000 rockets and missiles could devastate the state of Israel, unlike anything we've ever seen in the past. So is when, when you're the leadership, you have to prioritize Iran, number one, Hezbollah number two, if not close to being number one.

21:51 Hamas is down there on the totem pole one day. You know, if we have to deal with it, it's contained. We got the technology, we got good intelligence, and we can whack him once in a while we'll be okay. And then there was number three, which is a little more controversial, I think that Netanyahu saw in Hamas something of an asset.

22:10 Now don't, don't misunderstand me. I don't think he wanted this, God forbid, I don't think he wanted to see Hamas be able to attack us in this way. But the idea of the Palestinian people being divided for him was an opportunity to further. Torpedo or prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, which I think in his core being is one of his motivations and his ideologies.

22:38 And therefore the separation of, and by the way, basal sm rich can always count on the far right to say it straight. Uh, Al Muer said this at one point a couple years ago, the Hamas is an asset. He called it a an asset because of exactly this. 'cause when Obama would come to Bibe and say, listen, you gotta establish a Palestinian state, make concessions, confidence building measures, whatever whatcha talking about, they don't even get along right.

23:03 The Palestinian authority can't even enter Gaza. So what kind of Palestinians did are we even talking about? And so I think that therefore the Hamas was there. I mean, think, think about this Rabbi. We were allowing money into Gaza by the Qatari, but at our request that 30 million every month, and at the same time we're lopping here in the United States.

23:26 For what becomes known as the Taylor Force Act legislation that passes in both houses of Congress that deducts from American Aid. The amount of money that the Palestinian authority pays to terrorists who are in prison, which is a terrible abomination. They should not be paying terrorists who are in Israeli prisons for having committed terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews.

23:50 However, they're not actively fighting us, so we're paying those who are actively fighting us and taking away money from those who are not fighting us. That tells the story in of itself. So you talked about the political level, and maybe this was the case in the IDF as well. You talk about not only strategic mistakes, but tactical mistakes on the ground as well.

24:16 Maybe that they were informed by a certain concept, what you call co concept, you know, the strategic flaws. In observing reality. You know, I, I keep on thinking that even with all of the lack of understanding what was going on on the other side, still had there been, you know, 10 helicopters in the sky, 10 fighter jets, 25 tanks, October 7th wouldn't have happened even despite everything, despite all of these flaws.

24:50 So the weakness was pervasive in the IDF as well. Yeah. So talk to us about why that was the case and what was happening on October 6th. This paradigm or this co conception, which starts at the top and trickles down and also comes from the bottom up, it was accepted. I, I, I use we, because we are all responsible, everyone in the military.

25:21 In the political establishment, right? It was, it was mostly Netanyahu, but there was Bennett and Lapid for about 18 months in between, and they held by the same policies. They did the same things, right? Bennett took great pride in allowing in Palestinian workers from Gaza into Israel, as again, one of those ideas of we create economic prosperity and assets that they have to lose and that will give us leverage and we can deter, and they want to build up Gaza.

25:47 So he did the same things as Bebe. At the end of the day in the military, there was a belief in the same way that Hamas was deterred, they were missing the signs. I think that there's a great saying by Donald Rumsfeld, something along the lines of, it wasn't for lack of information, it was that we lacked imagination.

26:10 If you go to October 6th. The alarm bells were ringing in Israeli military intelligence headquarters at the Shin Bet headquarters. There were a number of clear indicators that something was happening. There always are. In re retrospect, there always are. Exactly. So that's exactly the dilemma. So there was one was, for example, cards, about a hundred Israeli sim cards suddenly go live on the network are detected inside Gaza.

26:40 So there aren't a hundred Israelis in Gaza, but there are Palestinians who are putting now Israeli sim cards into their phones. Are they planning an invasion? We don't know Israel. The intelligence guys look back and see that a year prior, they had tested about 30 of them around the same time, same day, almost.

26:58 So maybe this is the annual test. During the night, they see the uncover rocket launchers, underground rocket launchers, maybe preparing to fire, but then they intercept a phone call between an Islamic Jihad guy and a Kamas guy. The Islamic Jihad guy says, are you guys doing something? 'cause we're seeing things also that are happening.

27:17 Kama says, no, it's a drill. So is it a drill or is it not a drill? We see them preparing underground bunkers for their top commanders, Moham death, the elusive military commander who is eventually killed in the war. They're preparing the bunker for him and his family. Why would they need to prepare the bunker if they're not preparing to descend into the bunker?

27:37 So there's so many different indicators, and now when after it all happens, you look back, you see that there was much more intelligence that was even coming from the tragic tits, the female spotters, those surveillance soldiers, who, in my view, paid the ultimate price at a base called Als along the border, 15 of them murdered.

28:01 Six of them taken in tag Gaza, one of them rescued early on, but five remained there in captivity for way too long. I can only imagine what they went through eventually released in January of this year. So they had written reports saying, we're seeing things in our area that are different than what's usually going on here.

28:23 More senior commanders coming and watching drills that they don't usually do. They were normalizing being alongside the border where they're not supposed to be. So all of that is there. And the IDF all throughout the night, and this surprised me, I was not aware just how much they were talking about this all throughout the night.

28:43 The chief of staff with the head of the Southerner command, with the head of the operations director, the head of the Gaza division, the Shin BET director goes from his home back to headquarters at about three four in the morning because he feels something is off. He takes one of his elite teams of commandos and dispatches them to the Gaza border, although just a handful of people, nothing that could stop what was coming.

29:06 But in other words, there were signs. They were caught on the issue of is this a drill or is it an attack? And if it is an attack, what kind, what's the scope? What's the scale? They thought at the worst penetration at two points in the end. Do you know how many places they penetrated the border? Close to 70 points of entry along the border that day?

29:27 It, it was, it was just, like I said, lack of imagination and understanding. And I think Rabbi, you're a hundred percent right, and this is, as we were writing this and rereading and editing, you wanna bang your head against the wall at some point because I mean, it's very easy to say What if we could've, we should've.

29:45 But you could've just taken two tanks, move them up to the border, turn down the floodlights and say, Hey guys, we know what you're doing. We're here. Don't you dare. Now, would there still potentially have been something maybe, but smaller? You could have taken Apache helicopters. They're based at the Ramon Air Force base.

30:00 It's about a 10 minute flight from Gaza. You just send them to the border. Choppers flying, making noise. They probably wouldn't have done anything. I mean, and then there's the whole other issue, which is also astounding when you think about it. You had eventually about 3000 people who invaded Israel that day.

30:19 About half of them were looters. Pillers people who saw this opportunity, who came into steal to kill, to rape as well. But that core of the, of the elite Hamas commanders, definitely who were in the know were in the beginning, just a few dozen. But when the green light was given, it grew to hundreds.

30:39 Not one could call up an Israeli agent like we are this great intelligence agency. We didn't have one human informant on the ground. WA was there one human on. There must have been humans on the ground in Gaza, and there was not. And this is, this is, how could that be there? They were all in Lebanon and Iran.

30:57 We tell a story of a unit called the 504th unit of the military intelligence, which is really one of the elite. Units of Israel's military intelligence. They activate, recruit and manage, handle human assets in different theaters. They scramble to the Gaza border because one of their team members by chance is at the Nova Music Festival, is shot in wounded and calls headquarters.

31:26 So they scramble to go down there. They totally neglected Gaza for years. It just wasn't a priority. Israel, back to the technology, we thought we knew everything because we were listening to everything we had tapped their internal communication systems. We had eyes and ears everywhere. We thought we knew it all, but we didn't.

31:48 Yako, you're an expert on analyzing and observing and among other things, the character of Israeli society, it's like happened like almost to the day, 50 years after the same kind of failure in the Yom Kippur. Do you think there's something about the Israeli personality that tends to, over time when the immediacy fades and it kind of seeps into a transmitted history rather than lived experience, do you think there's something about human personality or Israeli personality and specifically that kinda steps back and, you know, has a element of hubris and arrogance and, you know, look how far we've developed and look how far we've come and these people are living underground, so what can they do to us?

32:37 Do you think there's something about that or, or all intelligence agencies would've essentially fallen into the same trap? I think it's a, it's, it's complicated. I think that there are intelligence agencies that would also face a similar challenge to the one that Israel was dealing with when it came to Gaza.

32:55 But I think that you are a hundred percent right, that we had a sense of arrogance of hubris. When it came to a strategic surprise that was being prepared for us, we thought it could never happen. No one in their wildest dreams imagine that this was possible. You know, look at the hundreds of miles, literally of tunnels that Chris Cross Gaza still there.

33:22 It now seems that there might be about four or 500 miles of tunnels in the beginning. About a year ago, Israel thought it had already neutralized 60 to 70%. Latest numbers I hear is maybe 50% right? About a week and a half ago, you might have read a story about another tunnel, about two kilometers long that was discovered in Hannis, in southern Gaza with side rooms, one of those, what they call strategic tunnels, only being discovered.

33:48 Now, we're two years into this war Now. Part of the reason was we knew there were tunnels in Gaza, but we didn't collect intelligence on them. We were focused just on the cross border tunnels. Now, why did we not collect intelligence on them? Yeah, because never anyone ever imagined it was possible that they would take 251 people from Israel, steal them away to Gaza and hide them in tunnels.

34:12 So why would we? We knew there were tunnels. We knew they had underground bugs. We knew that there were hatches under each home, but we don't have to map them out and find out what their routes are, because we'll never have to go in there. We'll never have to do it. When you say people couldn't even conceive that this would happen, what do you mean by this?

34:29 This operational capacity to do what they did or the philosophy? The, the intention. The political will. The military capacity to do that. In other words, was there a underestimation of their genocidal intention or their capacity to carry out their genocidal intentions? It was both. Plus one more. No one thought that S Noir was interested in this.

34:55 The prevailing belief was that Yasir, the leader of Kamas, wanted quiet. Wanted economic prosperity. It was what he was transmitting to Israel. There was almost communication between him and Netanyahu, not in direct talks, but when they would fire a missile and we would look at it and see where it landed, we would say, okay, they just struck at an empty spot.

35:17 Wolf's hit, you know, an empty sand dune in Gaza. So we communicate through targets, but we know that they don't want to hit us and we don't want, we would wink at each other, we called it. Right. It was fake. So the political level, we never thought Xir would do this on the operational level. We didn't think they were capable.

35:35 But then there was the other issue, because of the first two, we did not have in the military, even operational plans for a full invasion and assault on Gaza because it was never something that was imaginable. You have to also remember and put into context that Prime Minister Netanyahu had become disenchanted.

35:57 With the IDF Ground Forces capability, Netanyahu, in all his years, people tend to look at him as very aggressive. He's actually very hesitant when it comes to the use of military force. Let's take out these last two years, of course, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it's good. Be careful, be cautious, very infatuated with standoff capabilities where you can put a plane over Iraq and drop a missile that can fly 50 kilometers or miles into Iran.

36:30 You never even have to cross into Iranian airspace. All those bombings we've seen over the years in places like Syria, the aircraft are, for the most part, in Israel, they just hover above the border and the bombs fly so accurately and far. But Netanyahu was scarred by the Israeli ground forces in two major operations.

36:51 One was 2006, the second Lebanon war. Then he was not prime minister, but that war ended. And was not believed to be a success for the Israeli military. Definitely the ground forces in 2014 when he was Prime Minister and eventually had his arm twisted to allow in the ground forces just two kilometers to take out some of the cross border tunnels, then he was also not impressed by what the military could do.

37:18 And it took a lot of convincing even after October 7th, even after the greatest atrocity where the most Jews were murdered on a single day since the Holocaust. Even then he needed to be convinced that the military could do this. So there was the lack of belief in what Hamas could do or wanted to do, and the lack of belief in the capability of what the Israeli military could do.

37:44 Your book is really terrifying. Uh, when you describe page after page of what was actually happening on the ground, one before sunrises on October 7th and two, the. Hours of that day. And the, you described the chaos in Israel, and I mean, Israelis I think were completely stunned and shocked. And you describe how it took so long for the defense forces to actually understand what was going on and to begin to not even go develop plans about invading Gaza, but figuring out how to save Israelis who were under assault.

38:22 And you describe in your book that a common refrain from people who were eventually rescued is what took you so long? What took so long? This is one of those great still mysteries that I think does breed some of those conspiracy theories. Where was the Air Force? I mean, I met with pilots who were sent in the immediate aftermath of the attack when the rockets began to fly off into the Mediterranean to protect gas rigs because maybe Hamas or Hezbollah would be attacking.

38:54 To the Tamara rig or the, uh, ish rig or whatever it was. Hamas' attack was old school or old tech, but sophisticated. They understood that if they're able to take out the sensors along the border, we have cameras, we have remote control weapons, and they did that with drones, dropping explosive devices, but they did by firing hundreds and thousands of rockets at 6 29 in the morning when the rocket assault began was they know that the Modus app operandi, and the way that the IDF operates is all soldiers in the immediate vicinity of the border go into the safe rooms or the safe areas.

39:32 So everybody's hunkering down and they have a few minutes. And in those minutes, people on just motorbikes, by the way, some of the GoPro videos later came out. You can watch it where you see them at one point sitting around a table, having one last coffee, getting their weapons ready, communication devices ready, and then within minutes, five minutes, they're already over the border.

39:54 On the back of a motorbike, two guys, few motorbikes, they drive straight to the border under the cover of the rockets. They plant an explosive device, they cross in and within seconds they're in Israel. And because of the borderline positions, what they immediately attack right away, air communications, they know where the communication boxes are, they know where the power is for the sensors.

40:14 And right away they blow those up and they destroy them. So what ends up happening is you have no lines of communication, not between anyone on the border, not between the borderline positions and the headquarters in Tel Aviv, which is where the Air Force headquarters are. So who's gonna scramble the Air Force?

40:32 Who's the Air Force gonna talk to? How are they gonna know what's happening on the ground? So they don't have, there's no eyes, there's no one to see what's going on. And inside the bases, the commanders are fighting for their own lives, right? So every base is assaulted re aim, which is even a little further from the border where the Gaza Division headquarters are, which is supposed to coordinate everything.

40:53 The commander, this guy Rosenfeld, Brigadier General, he's an elite commando. In his past, he served in the Alag unit, one of the elite units of the IDF. He's inside the al, the Al, the war room. The command center, which is, I've been in there a few times. It's heavily fortified. He's in there. He can't see what's happening outside, but he knows now that his base is in, has been infiltrated and part of him wants to go out and fight, right?

41:18 Vy, the chief of staff, who's at his house, gets into the car, starts driving towards the military headquarters. At some point, he has a thought, maybe I should even drive South. I should go fight. And then Logic takes over and he realizes I'm the chief of staff. I gotta go to headquarters and run this thing.

41:37 But there was that imperative because it was all breaking down. No one understood what was happening. And you had amazing stories. By the way, this has to be said of courage and bravery and heroism, unlike anything we've seen before. Of how just regular Israelis or people who weren't in uniform were not even in service anymore, took their sidearm, got in their car and just drove down south when they heard something was happening to help.

41:59 And many of them paid with their lives and many of them saved immense life. This breakdown communications led to a great lag and delay in the IDFs effectiveness and ability to launch a real response coordinated. I mean, there's stories I spoke to people in, in Far za in Beri, near Oz. Three of the kibbutz heavily, heavily hit near os.

42:27 One in four people either murdered or kidnapped, abducted by Hamas. At one point, it was in Za, where a helicopter comes, drops off a squad of elite soldiers. Then some of them get wounded in the meantime. They come, they start to fight, but they're small in number. About 500 kamas guys had infiltrated Raza at this point.

42:50 And there's what's known as the nu the, the rapid response team of the kibbutz. They're fighting. They're what? The 15 people? 12 people. And now there's the Shada guys. They're fighting policemen come in, they come under fire, they leave. At some point, some of these Alda guys get wounded. The helicopter comes back just to pick up the Shalah guys, not to pick up the, the civilians.

43:10 Now, not that anyone wanted this to happen to the civilians, but there was just, there was no communication and that's why it took so long. Yeah, it's really terrifying because in some cases on the kibbutz, it took a day, two days, and even by the third day to totally clear them out. Clear out. Yeah.

43:29 And, and there were people who were wounded and killed and entrapped during that time. And you, you just have this. Such effective military that, as you say, the people that were eventually rescued, it was a common refrain. Where were you? Yeah. What took you so long? I mean, they, the outpost, the military outposts that they eventually went to where the TPIs were taken from by the time they got there, it was over when they were in already, there were really no terrorists left anymore.

44:00 By the time they got there, they were done. They had killed pillage. And the people who managed to still hold on to their safe room and to the door and to prevent the infiltration were those people from the stories we tell there, which still, I, I think about them, uh, you know, they're knocking on the door and, and people are not opening it, and some of the soldiers yell out, right.

44:27 The, the universal phrase that all Jews know for them to know that we're, we're, we're the good guys, but it was too. Um, can I ask you, do you think Kamas knew about the Nova Festival or did they stumble on it? Indications are that they knew that there was something happening. They had collected intelligence.

44:52 They flew in. Remember the, the attack was launched in three different ways on the ground. They also had naval forces, if you can call them naval forces, but they had boats that took some people to the Z King Beach. Some of those ships were intercepted by just regular navy patrols, which are always there.

45:08 Others did make it to the shores and killed dozens of people there. And then they came in on the hang gliders or the paragliders, and some of them landed within the fields along Nova. Did they know exactly the scale of what that festival looked like? Probably not that There were thousands of people who were there and, and that number, because of the festival, the number was so high in terms of casualties.

45:32 There were almost 400 people who were killed just at no. And a number of hostages was, was also great from among the people who were at that party. So they had some luck. I also don't, I'm not sure that they understood that they would be so successful. And this we learned from the IDF and the aftermath with the forensic evidence and what they collected in the field.

45:55 They came to stay for a long battle. So they were surprised to some extent. I think they knew they would get across the border. They thought they would be met by fiercer resistance from Israel, and that surprised them. But they, they tried to get farther. Remember they made it to o Faki. They made it to sta.

46:14 We know they had maps that were gonna take them to Air Force bases. Who knows where else They wanted to potentially attack prisons and try to release prisoners. They, uh, came with tools, medical equipment, to do amputations in the field, not of the Israelis of themselves. If somebody were to be wounded.

46:33 They were there for a long battle and a long haul. And you know, this always comes down to the question, what did they want to achieve? Right? Which is no one really, really knows. We don't have sunir to ask, but the best theories I've heard from these Israeli intelligence folks, one was, let's remember where we were back in October 23, normalization with Saudi Arabia.

47:01 Appeared real was on the table. They definitely wanted to prevent that from happening. They wanted to bring the Palestinian cause back to the forefront of the Arabs Arab World's agenda, but of the global agenda as well. They wanted also, did they think they could destroy the state of Israel? No. I mean, they can't destroy Israel.

47:23 But did they want to pierce the hearts of Israelis and shatter the sense of security for Israel? 100%. And we know. That they had also tried to coordinate with Iran and Hezbollah, not yet talking about a date or time for the attack. And, and Sunir jumped the gun a bit with everyone. But they had been preparing this for a very long time.

47:45 And you know, now Fali, Ben and Inlaid who had been in office from the summer of 21 till January 23, they were lucky that it just didn't happen on their watch. 'cause really they had been planning it throughout that period. So they saw an opportunity, I think, in the fights that were taking place in Israel over judicial reform.

48:09 At the time when they saw Israelis fighting among themselves, they saw that vulnerability and that exposure, and they said, okay, we can now take advantage. Israel is now distracted in terms of the objectives that you just laid out. They've actually achieved all those objectives no matter how many. Fatalities and defeats that they suffer in Gaza.

48:32 From their perspective, they won. Well, I'll tell you even more than that, rabbi, if I'm Hamas and thank God I'm not, but I'm looking at this war and I'm thinking, I am winning right now. Because we have to remember, I mean, this is something that's very difficult, I think to always understand. It's very difficult for me to understand.

48:54 They might look like us. They're humans. Some of them speak English, right? They, they look like we do, but they're not like us. We have to understand they do not value life at all. The lives of the people of Gaza are a weapon in the war against Israel. They want them to be killed. They want Israel to kill people, innocent men, women, and children.

49:21 It is for this reason. They fight, the way they fight, that they dig these tunnels and embed themselves in civilian infrastructure. They have hundreds of miles of tunnels. Why? Ask yourself a simple question. Why not let they don't have bomb shelters, but these are bomb shelters. Why not let the people of Gaza into the bomb shelters, into the tunnels?

49:39 'cause it's not for them. It's for Hamas, because those people above ground are meant to be killed because that serves the greater cause, the delegitimization, the isolation, the turning of Israel into pariah state. One of the most perverse things that has come out of this war is how the icc, the International Criminal court, right, issued four arrest warrants against people involved in the war between Israel and Hammas.

50:10 One against Muhamad def the military commander Hammas one against the leader of Hammas against Benjamin Etan and against Yu of Galand, the former defense minister. Sin noir is dead. Deaf is dead. So think for a moment how the ICC, the two arrest warrants that remain, that have been issued since this war are against the people who are the victims of the Hamas assault.

50:38 They look at what the world has done in the ways turning on Israel, and they see what might be happening here at the UN in just a couple of weeks where France and Britain and Belgium and Australia and so many other countries, Spain are saying, we're going to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state.

50:57 So they have 48 hostages. Israel is isolated, and a pariah states around the world, its leaders have arrest warrants against them by the ICC. Are they losing the war? No. To some extent, they might be winning, and I think here is where we all come into play. Because in my view, at least, it's about moral clarity.

51:24 It's about making it clear to the world who is the right side and who is the wrong side, who is the victim and who is the aggressor who started this war and who never wanted this war. The whole book is about how we didn't want the war, right? How for 30 years we go back in time for 30 years. We did everything, every manipulation, every somersault and gymnastics to try to avoid October 7th from happening.

51:52 'cause we knew to some extent what would happen. 'cause we knew what this would be, look and look like. And therefore I think you're a hundred percent right. Hamas, to some extent is winning right now. Does that frustrate you Greatly, deeply, because I am scared what this means. You know, I have a lot of criticism of the government.

52:18 Plenty. My biggest criticism will be that, uh, we don't articulate what the plant is for the day after Gaza. Right now, as Israel is preparing a potential large offensive against Gaza City. Okay? We go into Gaza City, we clear it out, we kill Hamas members. Hopefully we're able to move out almost all the civilians.

52:39 We destroy infrastructure. And then what, who do we give it to? So either the, the options, what are they? It's either military rule by Israel, which is not something I wanna see, or some sort of militia or, or what is that entity going to look like? We need an entity that will govern Gaza by not articulating it.

52:56 I think we cause ourselves just damage by making it seem as if all we wanna do is just kill and destroy, which is not true. We know we need an entity, we just don't wanna talk about what it is. This has to do with politics. But I am concerned that if we don't have a decisive victory here in this war.

53:14 And I, I don't like slogans. The Prime Minister talks about total victory, and they printed baseball hats that say that those are just fake, empty slogans. But we do need a victory because we need to teach our enemies not to mess with us. And that if you do, there is a price to be paid, you will no longer exist.

53:30 And we also need the moral clarity of the Western world because terrorist groups look at all of us. They look at what these countries do. Listen, this is beyond the scope of your book, but you're an analyst. You, you talk to the western media all the time. You're an expert on the answer to these questions that you're raising.

53:48 What, why do you think the world turned on? And the Western media in particular took two weeks for the story to be one of Israel's under assault to the suffering of Gaza. That's been the story of the western media and much of the western elite cultural institutions for two years, minus the first two weeks.

54:08 You had protests on the streets of New York before sundown, the evening before sundown on October 7th itself. That's right. But you know, the, there are protesters who are just incontrovertibly, right. And against Israel, and that's their job, and that's what they're gonna do. But that's not really where the universities are.

54:27 That's not where the media is. That's not where even the UN is, let alone climate activists, uh, activists that worry about, uh, feminist rights and women's rights, and why don't they see this? What is going on? Do you think there's something about war that western civilization at this point in history just simply doesn't understand or doesn't accept?

54:56 I think people don't like war. People don't like conflict. They don't wanna see people killed. But I, but I think there's something deeper here. I mean, you mentioned media. I've done a lot of media. Since October 7th, I spoke at BBC just last week, and I was always the guy who, as a journalist, for a long time, 25 years now almost.

55:17 It was always whenever I was told by people, you know, it's antisemitism, they're just against us. I would say, no, we need to do better. We need to explain ourselves better. They're ignorant. They need to be informed better. I can say pretty confidently today that it is antisemitism. It is a strong foundation of antisemitism.

55:37 I think that there are, unfortunately, large parts of the world and of western civilization and society, they do not want to see a strong Jewish state of Israel. They don't wanna see that the Jewish people have the ability to defend themselves and to fight for themselves. They want to see us weak and beaten down.

55:58 That is the Jew. That they want to see in front of them. Why was all this unleashed? By October 7th? Israel's been around for 75 years. What was unique about October 7th? In this period of time, it all kind of erupted. All this bubbling hate, this lava underneath the surface just erupted and was unleashed on October 7th and the aftermath.

56:20 They smelled Jewish blood and they saw an opportunity. We were beaten, we were weakened, we were vulnerable. I've spoken to so many ministers, of course, in the Israeli government, in the war cabinet, and I ask all of them what most surprised you? It was how vulnerable we really were. How Hamas was able to really penetrate the state of Israel, how our security could not be taken for granted.

56:48 I think that all these people who were there, who were silent for decades, and they came outta the woodwork in the masses. You experienced it here with antisemite. You have to have police outside your synagogue now. Right. You know, with the people in France and England where they hide the shoals because they don't want people to know where they are.

57:07 Right. Nowadays, you have to barricade yourselves. I can only imagine what's gonna happen here on Rosh Kippur. The security's gonna be probably triple layered. It shouldn't be like that. But this is, I think they smelled the Jewish blood. They saw the opportunity and they want to make us weak and vulnerable, and they want us to be that way without the ability to defend for ourselves and fight for ourselves and be what the Jewish state of Israel was meant to be.

57:34 The dependent state for the Jewish people to have self-determination, to stand up for themselves and to be able to create a society where you don't have to bow your head as a Jew. I have one more question for you. Uh, for many people, including in the Jewish community and certainly the case in the Western media, very quickly this war became.

57:59 Benjamin Netanyahu's war, the opposition and the animosity was focused on Prime Minister Netanya, and it still is to a large extent. How much of what has transpired over the last two years do you think was specifically connected to decisions that Prime Minister Netanyahu has made that other Israeli prime ministers, if they were in power, would have made differently?

58:29 In other words, how much of this war is really Bebe's war, and how much of it would any Israeli prime minister have made the same decisions? I think it is Bebe's war, but I think Israel today is Bebe's Israel, and I think that the policies that he enacted and set into effect, and I mentioned for example, the Qatari Cash, just one quick story.

58:52 Netanyahu started it when Ben, it became Prime Minister in the summer of 21. He promised to stop the suitcases of cash, but they had to transfer the money first. He thought he could do direct deposits in bank accounts of people in Gaza. Then recognize they don't have bank accounts, right? Because they're a cash Muhammad, Mustafa and Iram don't have bank accounts.

59:13 So they came up with a scheme. They gave the money to the un, which deposited in the Arab Bank, which basically printed gift cards like small debit cards. 'cause the money was meant to go to poor Palestinians, although it opened up other money for Hamas to be able to use for terrorist activities. So Bennett went like this, but he did the same thing.

59:28 It was the same policy. So I don't think it would've been different under any other Prime Minister for that matter of any of the viable candidates. I think that ultimately he is the head, he is responsible and should be held accountable. But I also have to say something else. October 7th is a coin with two sides.

59:48 One side is the utter failure, what we have been talking about for pretty much the last hour, but the other side of that coin. The re-engineering of the Middle East. We have pushed back and defeated to an extent Hezbollah. It's still there. But look at the decision that was just made a few days ago by the government of Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah.

1:00:10 That is a brave, courageous decision by this government. Let's see what happens. Assad has fallen, yes, HTS and led by Hams and led by Ed Shara. They were Al-Qaeda just yesterday. Pretty much. Now they wear suits, so they don't look Al-Qaeda, will they be our friends? Will they not? Who knows, but there is an opportunity.

1:00:33 But Assad was a bad guy. He's gone. Iran, we took them on. I never believed that would've happened and it's not over. Trust me, it's not over with Iran. There will be another round 'cause they will try to rebuild and we will have to maintain the success. Or they will attack us. Who knows how that's gonna play out.

1:00:52 But we have set back and delayed their nuclear program. They were at the threshold. They have been set back and their ballistic missiles have been set back, and Hamas itself has been degraded. The Houthis leadership, we decimated the leadership of the Houthis government a week and a half ago. That is also Netanyahu.

1:01:13 So he deserves the blame, but he also deserves the credit. My question really was, in the aftermath of October 7th, if there was another Israeli Prime Minister, any of the opposition figures, would they also have made the decision to invade Gaza and to try and, you know, uh, decimate Hamas? Or is this uniquely Netanyahu?

1:01:36 I think that they would've done the initial stages, but I think that a different, Benny GaN Lapid and Natali Bennett, the war probably would be over by now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm glad you're, uh, wrote such a fantastic investigation. Keep up the great work if we can give it up for Yako Katz, thank you very much.

1:02:02 I just want to, uh, on our behalf, uh, wish you and your family and all of the people of Israel and all of the Jewish people, a better year, a more tranquil year. We pray that the active hostilities will end and we'll see better days. Shava. Thank you.