The Warning Benjamin Netanyahu Ignored

For Netanyahu, the timing of these revelations is especially damaging: they came seven weeks before an election that will mark the first time Israelis head to the polls since the October 7th attacks, Israel’s devastation of Gaza, and the Iran war. Naftali Bennett, a former Prime Minister and a political rival of Netanyahu’s, went on the radio and called the report “true.” He added that Netanyahu had “ignored” warnings not just from bin Zayed but also from Abbas Kamel, a former head of Egyptian intelligence (as another Israeli journalist had previously reported). Bennett did not specify how he learned of these warnings, but he is said to be on good terms with bin Zayed, and has met with him several times.

Hours later, every Jewish party leader in the opposition joined Bennett in issuing a rare joint statement. “The public has the right to know: What did Netanyahu know, when did he know, why did he not inform the security establishment, and why did he not act to protect the citizens of Israel?” the statement read. “Netanyahu and his partners in the October 7 government are unfit to continue in office,” it concluded.

When I reached Eldar, hours after his article was published, he said that, so far, Netanyahu had just issued a denial, “without attacks from the poison machine”—a reference to the Prime Minister’s P.R. operation, which is known for ruthlessly antagonizing his critics. Yinon Magal, a popular host on Channel 14, a pro-Netanyahu television network, attempted to dismiss the report as nothing but a media “festival.” But, in a video posted online, Magal mentioned early on Tuesday that he had spoken to Netanyahu about it—a suggestion that there is panic behind the scenes.

When I asked Shimon Riklin, another media personality who is close to Netanyahu, about the report on Tuesday afternoon, he at first feigned indifference, writing in a text message: “What story?” But, when I replied, he immediately unleashed a torrent of complaints and conspiracy theories. “The attempt to portray a situation in which the Prime Minister is the one who needs to convey a warning to the heads of the Army and the Shin Bet, which is precisely their job, is incredibly ridiculous,” he wrote. “There is no such thing as a direct warning from the head of another country. It simply did not happen. Full stop,” he added. “It’s a cynical and crude attempt to accuse Netanyahu of what the Army chiefs are guilty of when they didn’t wake him up.”

This is a long-standing argument from the Prime Minister’s surrogates in the media: the security establishment didn’t rouse Netanyahu in time to prevent the attacks. In fact, as records make clear, an intelligence message concerning unusual Hamas activity was transmitted to the Prime Minister’s office early that morning, roughly three hours before the attacks. A recent campaign video from Gadi Eisenkot, a former head of the military who is Netanyahu’s main challenger in the upcoming election, lampooned the idea that the Prime Minister hadn’t received an alert. “Bibi, wake up!” the video repeats, as an A.I.-generated video of a sleeping Netanyahu is overlaid with a list of the many warnings about Hamas’s growing capabilities that went unheeded in the years before October 7th.

As Haaretz readers saw in the article hard proof of Netanyahu’s disregard for warnings, Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli expert on public opinion, cautioned that Netanyahu’s supporters “will no doubt have the opposite reaction.” His base—roughly forty per cent of voters—will read about the warning from the U.A.E. and conclude that “Haaretz always wanted to take Netanyahu down and couldn’t until now, so it came out with something fantastical,” she said.

Riklin had said as much in his texts, arguing that “the Israeli public is not buying this used and false merchandise.” He predicted that “you will witness a right-wing victory in the upcoming elections.” Still, with polls in Israel so tight that every week a different outcome seems likely—from outright majority for the opposition to a stalemate that triggers another election—even a single percentage point could prove decisive.

In Scheindlin’s view, Tuesday’s news was an event “that we could in hindsight say tipped” the election in the opposition’s favor. Even if polls end up not moving much, a major story about the failings that led to the Hamas attacks appearing so close to an election has to be bad news for the government. As Scheindlin put it, “You don’t want the election to be about October 7th if you’re Netanyahu.” ♦