Two-and-a-half years on from October 7, it has become clear that Israelis can accept, or at the very least understand, failure. What they cannot accept, however, is evasion of responsibility and the truth.
That is what made Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar’s remarks on Sunday morning so jarring.
Speaking in an interview with 103FM, Zohar attempted to shift responsibility for October 7 onto the government led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, arguing that then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar interpreted that coalition as weak and formulated the attack during its tenure.
“[October 7] might have happened on our watch, but [the plan] was formed during the Bennett-Lapid government,” Zohar lamented. “Sinwar planned it out once he saw the weakness of that government.”
Furthermore, Zohar warned that “if tomorrow morning a similar government were formed which relies on the Arab factions, the next October 7 would be on its way.”
The Israeli public doesn’t judge their government's response to attacks from the moment the enemy begins to plan, but rather they judge if the government in power at the time of the attack can recognize the threat and avoid catastrophe – something which this government failed to do.
Every enemy Israel has ever faced spent years planning attacks, often across multiple governments and election cycles – especially in the years leading up to October 7, when Israel underwent five rounds of elections in just two years.
Playing the blame game
But what rings especially hollow for many Israelis is that, nearly three years after the worst massacre in Israel’s history, senior ministers are still searching for anyone else to blame.
If the mere existence of Hamas planning under a previous government is proof of failure, what does the successful execution of the massacre under the current government say?
This question cannot be answered with political slogans and election posturing about governments “relying on Arab parties.” It requires leadership capable of confronting uncomfortable truths and launching investigations into the conceptzia (key assumptions) that fueled years of complacency across Israel’s political and security establishments.
That said, one thing cannot be denied: responsibility does not belong to one camp alone.
The infamous conceptzia did not emerge overnight in October 2023. It did not begin during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government, nor during its predecessor’s tenure.
The notion that Hamas was not interested in a full-fledged war was reinforced for years not just by government officials but also by military and intelligence sources, policymakers, think tanks, and experts who were convinced that Hamas preferred economic incentives and limited confrontation over all-out war.
That illusion proved deadly, and Israel’s military leadership has undergone a reckoning as a result.
In the two-and-a-half years since October 7, much of Israel’s senior military echelon has either stepped aside or been replaced. Leaders such as Shin Bet head Ronen Bar and IDF chief Herzi Halevi resigned, with the former unceremoniously pushed out by the prime minister.
Commanders throughout Halevi’s general staff also made way for new leadership unburdened by direct responsibility for the failures of October 7, including Israeli Air Force chief Tomer Bar, who concluded his term last week.
While the question of responsibility and how it should be distributed across Israel’s institutions remains up for debate, Israel’s security establishment understood a basic principle: Leadership carries responsibility, even absent malicious intent. Israel’s elected officials have thus far refused to apply that same standard to themselves.
The Israeli public does not expect perfection from its leaders; however, they do expect honesty, and that means acknowledging that the government in power on the day of the October 7 massacre bears responsibility for failing to stop the attack.
More importantly, it means understanding that Israelis are exhausted by endless searches for scapegoats.
Bereaved families are not interested in hearing which coalition first saw Hamas draft a plan – they are looking for answers that will prevent the next family from being torn apart. Freed hostages and the families of soldiers killed in Gaza are not measuring blame according to Zohar’s political configurations.
IDF reservists returning from hundreds of days of combat are not satisfied watching their leaders play the blame game while they risk their lives in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank.
In Israel’s next elections, voters will not reward the politicians who provide the most sophisticated excuses for October 7. They will choose whoever convinces them that the lessons of the massacre have truly been learned.