Why Netanyahu didn’t ‘allow’ the attacks

There have been rumors and arguments that Netanyahu intentionally allowed Hamas to commit their atrocities so he could finally deal with them. While I am not a fan of Netanyahu, this is a ridiculous conspiracy theory. Here are the reasons why:

1. Israel is a very small country with a tightly related population. This isn’t New York where people come from around the country and may know somebody from back in Omaha – the Jewish people are highly connected to one another and even more so in Israel. We fight like family because we are. There is no way you would sacrifice so many members of your family just to go after Hamas.
2. Hamas was being managed. They posed little threat (we thought) to Israel. If these attacks had been anticipated, that would have remained true. They were contained. It was certainly not worth 1400+ lives to ‘deal with them.’
3. Iran is not contained, Iran is the enemy Netanyahu is fixated on and this has done nothing for our need to deal with that issue.
4. Netanyahu is a massive loser from the whole affair – and it was totally predictable that he would be. Calls for his resignation have spread far beyond the leftists who didn’t like him before. According to one poll, “Only 20.5% of Jewish Israelis and 7.5% of Arab Israelis polled say they have trust in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, when polled in the aftermath of Hamas’s brutal October 7 terror attack.” According to another: “48% of respondents thought Gantz would make a better prime minister, compared with only 28% for Netanyahu.” Unlike the US where nobody lost their jobs over the attacks and President Bush’s approval rating soared above 80% the opposite happens here. Everybody in the senior political and military will lose their jobs over this. Israel is not about process, but people – and the people who were responsible for stopping this sort of thing failed. The reaction is entirely predictable.
5. If you were Egypt and you wanted to mess with Israel without actually be antagonistic, what would be more effective than saying you warned the Prime Minister? People in the West have to learn to take what Arab and Iranian leaders with more than a grain of salt.
6. The Shin Bet apparently thought something was up. They sent a special team down but had no idea of the scale of the coming assault. They lost 10 men from a special team. You don’t send your best guys down just to be speedbumps in a massive assault.
7. Israel lost senior officers, including three Colonels and four Lieutenant Colonels. Israel has 10 brigades. One of their commanders was killed, specifically the commander of the Nahal brigade which is in charge of the South. He would have to have been in on a ‘plot’ to not be ready for such a plot to work – but he died while rushing to the scene.
8. Finally, Netanyahu has no history of pulling the trigger on anything. The country would have backed an invasion of Gaza in 2014, he didn’t do it. The country would have backed an attack on Iran any time in the last 15 years. He didn’t do it. He *never* makes the hard calls, so he wouldn’t have made this one. Heck, he seems reluctant to order an invasion even now. Hardly the actions of a man looking for an excuse.