Netanyahu vs Bar: Who called who is fascinating, but both ignored writing on the wall - analysis

The article analyzes the blame-shifting between PM Netanyahu and former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar over the October 7 failures, arguing the focus on who called whom the night before is a sideshow. The real failures, it contends, span a decade of political and defense establishment misjudgments about Hamas containment.

The article, an analysis by Yonah Jeremy Bob, examines the ongoing blame-shifting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Shin Bet director Ronen Bar regarding responsibility for the October 7, 2023, attack. It characterizes the public dispute over whether Bar had Netanyahu's phone number and who called whom on the night of the invasion as a fascinating but ultimately irrelevant sideshow. The piece argues that Netanyahu wants the debate to focus on the night before the invasion, which it calls a straw man. Instead, the article contends that the October 7 disaster was a decade or more in the making, with contributions of failures by both the political leadership and the entire defense establishment, particularly after the 2021 war with Hamas and during the internal fight over the judicial overhaul. The article reports that a Shin Bet official, under Bar's orders, called Netanyahu's wake-up staff at 6:13 a.m., 16 minutes before the invasion started, but Netanyahu's personally selected military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, decided not to wake him. The piece concludes that all officials over the past 10-15 years are responsible for propagating the idea that Hamas was contained and deterred, and for failing to take stronger military or diplomatic action.