The real arrogance of October 7
First investigative report leaves us with more questions
After nine months, following the October 7 massacre, the first of many investigative reports has focused primarily on what prevented the military from defending the members of Kibbutz Be’eri in the Western Negev, attacked by some 300 terrorists, including 100-120 of their elite, called the Nukhba fighters, 50-70 Hamas regular fighters and an estimated 100-150 Islamic Jihad terrorists and criminals.
Left to defend themselves by the heroic members who comprised the kibbutz civilian rapid response team, they were outnumbered and ill-prepared to take on the likes of these fearsome, well-trained terrorists, who went from house to house, indiscriminately killing members in cold blood, burning down their houses and taking over 30 hostages, 11 of whom still remain in Gaza.
Between 13-26 brave souls kept up the fight, over the course of some 7 ½ hours, against an estimated 80-200 terrorists spread out in the kibbutz which housed around 1,000 members, where, in the end, 101 residents lost their lives that day. The fact that the death toll was only 10%, given the overwhelming numbers of terrorists and massive scale of the attack, is a bit of a miracle and a real testament to the resolve of those kibbutz defenders, who fought against all odds, but lived to tell what happened.
Now, they are demanding answers to their biggest question. How is it possible that the invasion, which began at 7 a.m. on that fateful Saturday morning only came to a complete end on the evening of the next night? What happened to the military, the police, Shin Bet security forces? And most importantly, why didn’t IDF forces, stationed at the kibbutz front gates enter, to stop a massacre in progress, despite not having received orders to do so?
Zvika Klein, editor of the Jerusalem Post, has a theory about every single one of these unanswered questions. To hear it from him, all of the failures were due to “arrogance.” He says, “As Israelis, humility isn’t always our strong suit. We pride ourselves on having the best army in the world, boasting superior technology, highly committed soldiers and an air force renowned for its precision. Our intense security situation grands us unparalleled experience. But on the morning of October 7, we learned a harsh lesson: our confidence was misplaced. This same spirit reveals a critical flaw: arrogance. Our leaders – whether in the Knesset, the IDF or other security agencies – lacked the humility to acknowledge their failures. Many still refuse to utter the simple yet crucial phrase: ‘We have failed.’”
Klein’s explanation, however, misses a very crucial element. It is not our well-placed confidence in our military, army or technical advances, all rightly worthy of praise, which is what caused the disaster and failures of October 7th. It is rather the years of wishful thinking, by our leadership, which then morphed into policy, duping ourselves into believing that an avowed terrorist group, such as Hamas, whose goal is, first and foremost to eradicate world Jewry, followed by all others who don’t bend the knee to radical Islam, were suitable peace partners who would play nice.
It was that type of naïve and foolish self-deception, which led us, once again, as lambs to the slaughter – something which defied our ethnic motto of “Never again.” But when you believe that a leopard can change its spots or that drinking poison won’t result in one’s immediate death, you risk everything, on the false presumption that, this time, something that has never worked, will!
October 7th has taught us that we must never abandon our God-given instincts, which are a shield and a protection when coupled with common sense and reliable intelligence, which was not only ignored but scorned when brought to the attention of our leaders - to the point where observers were being threatened with losing their jobs or being disciplined for continuing to further an unwanted warning, which they were certain was correct, based on what they were witnessing and hearing, rather than falling in line and dismissing it as speculative, not worthy of careful consideration.
That is where real arrogance comes in. The very idea that a politically preferred “take” could trump actual overheard conversations and viewed Hamas training, right in our own backyard, is the real scandal in this story. In fact, it is the antithesis of leadership, exposing the misplaced faith and obstinate determination to force a square peg into a round hole.
It is for this reason that those same leaders, who led us into this morass must resign in shame, because the one job, with which they were tasked, keeping Israelis safe from this kind of monstrous attack, was the very thing they were unable and actually unwilling to do – not for lack of a superior army or weapons, and not because the intelligence was missing – but rather, because despite our possession of both, their glaring ineptitude as sharp, cunning and discerning people of vision, disqualify them as our leaders.
More than ever, the Jewish nation, given all those who are bent on destroying us, must be led by men and women who understand the times in which we live, the dangers which face us and the incoming threats, which long for our swift demise. We can, never again, be the gullible and trusting neighbors, whose extension of the olive branch resulted in the brutal and savage atrocities which began at a forest event and ended with the slaughter of whole Western Negev communities, killing, not only Jews, but also Druze, Bedouins, foreign nationals and tourists who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Zvika Klein rightly says that, “Many (leaders) still refuse to utter the simple yet crucial phrase: “We have failed.” And while Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesperson began his Thursday evening address, to the Israeli public, which was televised on the major news channels, it somehow didn’t go far enough to relieve the still traumatizing open wound, from which we are still gasping in pain. Perhaps, these admissions never will, but addressing the real arrogance which was responsible for our injury must, nonetheless, be done.
Sadly, for me, this first investigative report fell very short of doing just that!
A former Jerusalem elementary and middle-school principal and the granddaughter of European Jews who arrived in the US before the Holocaust. Making Aliyah in 1993, she became a member of Kibbutz Reim but now lives in the center of the country with her husband.
