What if Benjamin Netanyahu had been personally warned of the imminence of the October 7 attack, the bloodiest in Israeli history? This is the explosive revelation made Tuesday September 8, in the middle of the legislative campaign, by Haaretz, taken from a new book by journalists Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval, “Kidnapped: 843 Days of Abandonment”.
According to their investigation, the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, alerted the Israeli Prime Minister around ten days before the Hamas terrorist attack, during a 45-minute telephone interview.
Revelations to which Benjamin Netanyahu reacted on Wednesday by announcing his intention to file a defamation complaint against the left-wing newspaper.
A “refocusing of the campaign” on October 7
These new revelations undermine the version defended by the Prime Minister which is largely based on the failures of the security chain and on the idea that officials of the army and the Shin Bet would have deliberately chosen not to wake him up despite corroborating information.
David Khalfa, co-director of the North Africa and Middle East Observatory of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, recalls that Benjamin Netanyahu “continued to discredit himself when he did not allow the conspiracy theories that were propagated by his son Yaïr, and by his wife just three or four days ago, Sara Netanyahu, to flourish.”
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During an interview broadcast on August 31 on Channel 14, the wife of the head of government insinuated that General Yaïr Golan, current leader of the left-wing Democrats party, was “already dressed and ready” at dawn on October 7, “while others knew nothing, including the Prime Minister.” An allusion to alleged prior knowledge of the Hamas attack, immediately denounced as a conspiracy theory by Yaïr Golan’s party, when the latter had taken his weapon, on October 7, 2023, to join the response against Hamas.
“The specter of October 7 imposes itself a bit like the dividing line between the pro-Netanyahu majority and the opposition,” observes David Khalfa. “We are witnessing a refocusing of the campaign on the question of October 7, the responsibilities inherent in this collective bankruptcy and, obviously, the responsibility of the primus inter pares that is the Israeli Prime Minister.”
“Defectors”, key to the vote?
As the vote draws closer, pressure for an independent state commission of inquiry is only growing. A perspective refused by Benjamin Netanyahu, who believes that responsibilities cannot be established as long as the country is at war on several fronts.
Like his most serious rival Gadi Eisenkotformer Israeli chief of staff, who lost a son in Gaza, two former Prime Ministers also in opposition, Naftali Bennett and Yaïr Lapid, are committed to creating it after the elections, as demanded by the families of the victims, those close to the hostages and the majority of Israeli society.
“There was a very clear desire on Netanyahu’s part to ensure that this new electoral deadline was not dictated by the question of his responsibility for this bankruptcy, which is a traumatic event for Israeli society as a whole,” underlines David Khalfa. “But all the information that has filtered out, all the scoops that have been distilled in recent weeks, in reality only bring the question of responsibility back to the heart of the game.”
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From this point of view, “it’s a failure”, he believes, with Benjamin Netanyahu failing to impose the themes of the campaign.
“These new revelations are yet another piece of evidence that may encourage ‘defectors’, those right-wing voters who believe that it is time to turn the page on Netanyahu, to take the plunge,” he notes. “According to a survey, nearly 40% of Likud voters say they are ready not to vote for him, in particular because of the questions about October 7.”
The “bibistes”, always faithful
However, for David Khalfa, the campaign’s focus on October 7 is not likely to upset the electoral balance of power, the “bibists” – the unconditional fans of the Prime Minister – being “totally impervious to the scandal that the revelations constitute”.
“They believe that they are eminently political and only reflect a desire of the Israeli ‘deep state’ to weaken Netanyahu or weaken him, sometimes with a prism that goes as far as conspiracy theories,” he specifies. “Her electoral base will remain loyal to her because she believes she is in an existential fight against what she considers to be the left, a very elastic concept in which she includes the media, the Supreme Court, intellectuals and academics.”
According to a poll carried out for Channel 13 in August, 63% of voters in the current coalition believe that internal betrayal led to the October 7 massacre, which left 1,221 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli figures.
“This campaign, ultimately, shows that Israelis have not emerged from the trauma of October 7, an earthquake which shook the very foundations of society and redistributed the political cards in Israel,” concludes David Khalfa. “The renewal of the political landscape, with 70% of the candidates being neophytes, reflects a desire of the population to change political personnel ‘from floor to ceiling’.”
