“We scorned them,” Zvi Zamir as soon as acknowledged. He was the chief of the Israeli overseas intelligence service, Mossad, from 1968 to 1974 and was explaining the mindset that contributed to the main intelligence failure that allowed for the shock assault that started the October 1973 struggle between Arab states and Israel.
On the time, Zamir wasn’t alone in “scorning” Arabs. Main Basic Eli Zeira, the top of Israel’s Army Intelligence Directorate (AMAN) throughout the 1973 struggle, reportedly additionally had “utter contempt for the combating qualities of the Arab armies”.
This “scorn” and “contempt” and the resultant intelligence failures value Israel 2,656 useless, greater than 7,250 wounded and, finally, the Sinai Peninsula. In addition they value Zeira his job.
Historical past doesn’t all the time repeat itself. However on this case, it did – each the tragedy and the farce that led to it.
“We failed in our most essential mission, and because the head of the Army Intelligence Directorate, I bear full accountability for the failure,” Zeira’s successor Main Basic Aharon Haliva mentioned on April 22, about 50 years after the October struggle, as he introduced his resignation.
AMAN’s spymaster – who beforehand argued for the stabilisation of the Palestinian authorities, the enhancement of Gaza’s financial prospects and the intensification of surgical strikes in opposition to Palestinian resistance – admitted that he had underestimated the capabilities of the Qassam Brigades (QB), the armed wing of Hamas.
Regardless of having detailed details about QB’s battle plans, operational preparations and early warning alerts, Haliva ordered his subordinates “to attend for the morning” on the night time of October 6.
What was missed?
On October 7, the armed wing of Hamas executed an unprecedented, multidomain, combined-arms offensive manoeuvre adopted by a sequence of atrocities within the “Gaza Envelope”, the Israeli areas close to the border with Gaza.
QB and its allies executed a textbook breaching operation, storming Israel’s “iron wall”. The organisation managed to suppress and overwhelm Israeli air defences with unguided rocket artillery. Concurrently, QB blinded Israeli surveillance and reconnaissance property and obscured its fighters’ breach factors and advance routes with a mix of armed industrial drones and sniper hearth. QB didn’t safe its breaching factors within the Israeli barrier. Therefore, different organisations and armed civilians adopted the QB items into Israel, multiplying the scale of the attacking drive.
AMAN underneath Haliva had missed the early warning indicators of that simultaneous, five-domain, brigade-sized assault performed from the land by a QB regiment-sized gentle and motorised infantry formation; from the ocean by two platoon-sized naval infantry forces; and by way of air by a company-sized unit of paragliders. The assaults concerned electromagnetic and intelligence/data operations as properly. The dimensions of coordination, spanning a number of platoon- and company-sized items, highlighted a classy degree of operability throughout numerous domains of warfare. Such complexity in synchronization is arduous, demanding in depth coaching in command, management and each intra- and interunit communications. These preparations are more likely to have taken greater than two years.
Why was it missed?
To be truthful, damaged intelligence cycles – that’s the cycle of route, assortment, processing, evaluation, dissemination, suggestions and determination – are extra widespread than nonspecialists would imagine.
Intelligence failures are seldom as a result of an absence of knowledge. They don’t typically happen within the assortment and the processing a part of the cycle. For instance, United States naval and air property noticed, struck and sank a Japanese submarine on the morning of December 7, 1941, 90 minutes earlier than the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii was bombed by air.
Equally, in October 1973, days earlier than the shock assault, Israeli intelligence obtained exact particulars about an impending Egyptian offensive from a high-value supply. But Israel was nonetheless blindsided on October 6.
This sample of intelligence cycle breakdowns was additionally evident throughout the 9/11 assaults when, regardless of having detailed intelligence on al-Qaeda’s intentions, US safety establishments failed within the efficient dissemination and decision-making elements of the cycle.
Earlier than Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US and United Kingdom intelligence communities not solely shared with governments but in addition publicly disclosed data on imminent Russian motion and mobilisation in Belarus. Regardless of this, Ukrainian analysts and decision-makers maintained a perception that the Russian army build-up on the Belarusian border was merely a feint, designed to anchor and repair Ukrainian forces within the north and the centre whereas anticipating the primary thrust to originate from the east and south. This miscalculation left Kyiv perilously unprepared.
In Israel final 12 months, the lapses within the intelligence cycle had been starkly evident because the summer season. In July, analysts from Unit 8200, Israel’s elite alerts intelligence unit, recognized and reported vital indicators of an impending large-scale operation by QB. The evaluation highlighted that QB had engaged in in depth coaching workouts that carefully mirrored the ways detailed in a 40-page battle plan that AMAN had intercepted greater than a 12 months earlier than the October assaults. Regardless of the readability of those findings, the evaluation and subsequent suggestions had been dismissed as “imaginative” by senior officers inside the army intelligence hierarchy.
Army and political implications
Intelligence failures typically precipitate dire penalties, prompting a rigorous scrutiny of accountability measures. Politically, the Israeli prime minister holds the final word govt authority and is answerable for the general nationwide safety coverage. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is commonly briefed by Haliva together with Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, and Herzi Halevi, the chief of the Basic Employees. The resignation of Haliva serves as a poignant admonition, suggesting that Netanyahu too ought to assume accountability for the oversight and think about stepping down. Nonetheless, such a prospect stays uncertain.
Israeli political dynamics are more and more mirroring these of Arab regimes, the place authoritarian rulers seldom resign after catastrophic failures, as a substitute clinging tougher to energy. In such contexts, elimination, revolution or “suicide” are far more widespread exits than resignations.
Militarily, Haliva’s resignation is unlikely to have an effect on, as some have urged, the seemingly imminent floor offensive on Rafah. Each the drive deployment and statements of the army are signalling that the launch of that offensive is a matter of time. Preparations for an offensive are clearly underneath method with at the least six mechanised infantry and armoured common brigades poised for motion in Rafah, supported by air, naval and artillery items.
AMAN has indicated that QB has at the least 4 battalion-sized formations in Rafah. Allegedly, that is along with the remaining captives held in Gaza and the management of Hamas in addition to in depth tunnel networks close to and underneath the Philadelphi Hall, the Gaza-Egypt border space.
Ought to AMAN’s assessments show inaccurate as soon as once more, the results may very well be catastrophic for greater than 1,000,000 internally displaced Palestinians sheltering in Rafah in addition to Israel and its leaders.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
