“We scorned them,” Zvi Zamir once stated. He was the chief of the Israeli foreign intelligence service, Mossad, from 1968 to 1974 and was explaining the mindset that contributed to the major intelligence failure that allowed for the surprise attack that began the October 1973 war between Arab states and Israel.
At the time, Zamir wasn’t alone in “scorning” Arabs. Major General Eli Zeira, the head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (AMAN) during the 1973 war, reportedly also had “utter contempt for the fighting qualities of the Arab armies”.
This “scorn” and “contempt” and the consequent intelligence failures cost Israel 2,656 dead, more than 7,250 wounded and, ultimately, the Sinai Peninsula. They also cost Zeira his job.
History doesn’t always repeat itself. But in this case, it did – both the tragedy and the farce that led to it.
“We failed in our most important mission, and as the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, I bear full responsibility for the failure,” Zeira’s successor Major General Aharon Haliva said on April 22, about 50 years after the October war, as he announced his resignation.
AMAN’s spymaster – who previously argued for the stabilisation of the Palestinian authorities, the enhancement of Gaza’s economic prospects and the intensification of surgical strikes against Palestinian resistance – admitted that he had underestimated the capabilities of the Qassam Brigades (QB), the armed wing of Hamas.
Despite having detailed information about QB’s battle plans, operational preparations and early warning signals, Haliva ordered his subordinates “to wait for the morning” on the night of October 6.
On October 7, the armed wing of Hamas executed an unprecedented, multidomain, combined-arms offensive manoeuvre followed by a series of atrocities in the........