Together, they explore the difficult questions surrounding Israel’s government, the global rise of antisemitism, and the growing tensions between Israel and Diaspora Jewry.

Spotify:

The post Tamar Ish Shalom in conversation with Rabbi Sharon Brous first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

With the third anniversary of October 7, the events of that day are acquiring another layer of meaning. October 7 can become compressed into a date, and the date into a chronological marker: what happened immediately before Gaza.

But for Israelis, October 7 is not merely what came before Gaza, just as Gaza cannot be reduced to what came after October 7. I found myself thinking about this in an unexpected place: a bookstore in Braga, Portugal.

Fernando Pessoa once imagined Europe as a human body. In “The Field of the Castles,” Portugal’s great modern poet describes the continent reclining on its elbows. One elbow is Italy. The other is England. Europe looks outward through Greek eyes. But the face doing the looking is Portugal.

“Enigmatic and fateful she stares,” Pessoa writes in Richard Zenith’s translation, “Out West, to the future of the past.”

Then comes the final line: “The staring face is Portugal.”

In that Portuguese bookstore, I wondered what Europe’s staring face now sees when it looks toward Israel. Before me was a table of books about Israel, the Palestinians, and Gaza, most in Portuguese translation. Each could be judged on its own merits. Together, however, they told a story.

There was Omer Bartov asking what had gone wrong with his country, Ilan Pappé’s Israel vs Palestina (A Very Short History of the Israel–Palestine Conflict), Raja Shehadeh’s What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?, and Enzo Traverso’s Gaza Faces History. Alexandra Lucas Coelho’s Gaza Está em Toda a Parte (“Gaza Is Everywhere”) stood there in Portuguese, alongside Joe Sacco’s War on Gaza and Michael Scott-Baumann’s general history Palestinians and Israelis.

There is nothing illegitimate about these books. Palestinian accounts belong on European bookshelves. So does criticism of Israel.

What interested me was the collection. A reader encountered Israel mainly through conflict, accusation, and catastrophe. Palestinian perspectives were abundant. The two authors born in Israel, Bartov and Pappé, were deeply critical of their country. Gaza dominated the visual landscape.

What was harder to see was October 7 as an event in its own right. Where were the communities of southern Israel, the Nova music festival, the hostages, and their families? Where was Hamas? Where was the vulnerability October 7 implanted in Israeli political consciousness?

The point is not that every bookstore must achieve ideological balance. Nor is one table in Braga a verdict on Europe. But an arrangement shapes what a passerby sees first. Accumulation creates meaning. When books selected for attention point predominantly in one direction, curation becomes part of the argument.

Then, close to the center of the table, my eyes stopped on one word.

Holocaustos.

The book was Gilles Kepel’s Holocausts: Israel, Gaza and the War Against the West. Kepel is not simply equating Gaza with the Nazi Holocaust. His argument encompasses both the Hamas massacres of October 7 and the war in Gaza that followed.

October 7 was not wholly absent. Kepel’s book treats it, but under a word that reframed it before the reader met it as an event in its own right.

To the left was Bartov’s book. The American edition, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is titled Israel: What Went Wrong? Its front cover contains no reference to the Holocaust. The Portuguese edition by Ideias de Ler asks instead, O que correu mal com o meu país? (“What Went Wrong with My Country?”), with a subtitle: “Entre a memória do Holocausto e a violência do presente” (“Between the memory of the Holocaust and the violence of the present”).

BARTOV IS a historian of the Holocaust, and Holocaust memory is central to his analysis of Israel, so the subtitle reflects the book. But the Portuguese edition carries the Holocaust on its front cover, where the American edition does not. The Holocaust, therefore, surfaced twice on this table, in different books and for different reasons. Nothing placed an equal sign between Gaza and Auschwitz. Kepel and Bartov are not making the same argument.

But cultural associations rarely need an equal sign. Few words in Europe carry greater weight than Holocaust.

For decades, the Holocaust occupied a distinctive place in Europe’s relationship with Israel. Zionism preceded Auschwitz by decades. Yet the murder of six million Jews on European soil inevitably shaped that postwar relationship.

The Holocaust also became part of the vocabulary through which Europe came to understand itself. Never Again acquired a universal meaning, expressing an obligation to resist persecution, crimes against humanity, and genocide. There is something essential in that universalization. Jewish historical memory cannot demand indifference to Palestinian suffering. October 7 cannot provide Israel with immunity from moral judgment, political criticism, or international law.

But universal lessons depend on preserving the particular.

If October 7 survives chiefly as the beginning of what came afterward, something has been lost. Its victims become characters in another narrative. The same is true in reverse. Palestinian deaths and destruction in Gaza cannot be treated merely as an appendix to October 7.

The challenge is to hold both without allowing either to subsume the other.

There is a profound difference between allowing the Holocaust to sharpen our sensitivity to human anguish and making it the template through which the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is understood. The first draws a universal moral responsibility from the past. The second risks merging radically different histories.

Pessoa’s phrase, “the future of the past,” suddenly seemed less strange.

Europe’s catastrophes do not remain safely behind it. They travel forward and shape how Europeans understand wars generations later. Sometimes this produces empathy and insight. Sometimes it obscures as much as it reveals.

Israel occupies an unusual place within this inheritance. It is a Middle Eastern country deeply entangled with Europe. Europe looks at Israel and sees another state, but also Jews, Auschwitz, nationalism, colonialism, human rights, and its own unresolved arguments about power and responsibility.

The small table in Braga captured that entanglement.

As the third anniversary of October 7 approaches, the question is not which tragedy Europe should recognize. Acknowledging October 7 cannot mean blindness to Gaza. Confronting Gaza cannot make October 7 a footnote. And the Holocaust cannot make every contemporary catastrophe an echo of Auschwitz.

These histories touch one another. They do not become the same story.

Pessoa imagined Portugal as Europe’s face, staring enigmatically toward “the future of the past.” Europe still carries its past in its gaze. When it looks at Israel through its darkest chapter, it must take care that what came before illuminates what it sees rather than rearranges what it remembers.

The staring face is still Portugal.

Published in the Jerusalem Post

The post In Europe’s gaze, October 7 risks becoming a footnote first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Two years ago, I sat in a room where a decisive question was being discussed: Should Israel strike Hassan Nasrallah, a man I had spent much of my professional life studying? This fall, as Israel marks two years since his death and three years since Hamas’s October 7 attack and the war it unleashed, I keep returning to that discussion.

Hundreds of intelligence officers and analysts spent years building the intelligence case for targeting Nasrallah and minimising harm to civilians. I remember working around the clock with young analysts until the long-awaited confirmation came from Col. M., who led intelligence work on Hezbollah. One of the finest officers I have known, she told us: “We have it. If you decide to act, you can.”

What remained was the strategic decision. In the room, not one person objected. Mindful of the lessons of October 7, we sought dissenting views and contacted two people considered most likely to oppose the operation. Both supported it. The recommendation moved up the chain of command: Nasrallah blocked any cease-fire in Lebanon and would never unlink the Lebanese front from Gaza. Final approval came as Israeli Air Force jets were en route.

I watched the live images as the bombs hit the compound where he was staying. When confirmation arrived, the defining moments of Nasrallah’s career came flooding back. I felt profound relief and satisfaction that a man whose organisation had killed so many Israelis and Americans was gone. I also felt the strange emptiness intelligence officers sometimes experience when a subject who has occupied their thinking for years suddenly disappears from the world.

Nasrallah was one of Israel’s most capable and dangerous enemies. He led Hezbollah from 1992 and transformed it into a force that shaped Lebanon and served Iran far beyond its borders. Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 allowed Hezbollah to claim that armed resistance had forced the Israeli military out. The 2006 Lebanon War, which Nasrallah cast as a divine victory despite the devastation in Lebanon, made him a star across much of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Afterward, Hezbollah amassed an arsenal and precision-strike capabilities that gave it firepower rivaling that of many states, deterring Israel for years from taking decisive action against it.

To generations of Israeli intelligence officers, Nasrallah combined the qualities of a statesman, military commander and leader attentive to his constituency. He remained fanatical, antisemitic and fully committed to Iran, yet could be calculating and sensitive to the price Lebanon’s Shiites would pay for his decisions. After 2006, he acknowledged that had he anticipated even a small chance of such devastation, he would not have ordered Hezbollah’s cross-border kidnapping. Israel’s intelligence community believed he had internalized one central lesson from that miscalculation – to avoid another full-scale war with Israel – and had become deeply risk-averse, almost traumatized by the prospect.

Then something changed. Decades in power dulled his instincts and bred an arrogance that distorted his judgment. Hezbollah’s arsenal and Israel’s internal crisis convinced him he could defeat Israel and bring America to its knees. In March 2023, he said of Israel:

“God willing, it will not reach its 80th birthday.”

His confidence grew as potential challengers disappeared. Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief, had been killed in a joint US-Israeli operation; his successor, Mustafa Badreddine, was later killed in Syria. As those who might test his assumptions disappeared, Nasrallah came to believe that no one understood Israel and the Jews better than he did. This fit his messianic, deterministic worldview: Iran’s Shiite revolutionary project was destined to triumph and every development seemed to confirm that history – and divine providence – favoured the Islamic Revolution.

The warning signs were unmistakable in 2023. In its first ground infiltration into Israel since 2002, Hezbollah sent an operative 37 miles south of the Lebanese border to plant a roadside bomb near Megiddo. That summer it erected an armed tent on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border and refused to remove it despite warnings. Neither move followed an Israeli action; both were unprovoked tests of Israel’s resolve. Israeli security officials urged a response, but senior decision-makers feared an escalation that could devastate cities. Israel held back to avoid such a war, and Nasrallah read that restraint as weakness.

Hamas’s October 7 attack surprised Nasrallah and forced a choice. He opened fire the next day to support Hamas while sparing Lebanon’s Shiites a full-scale war. He bound Hezbollah to a pledge: no cease-fire in Lebanon before one in Gaza. That commitment trapped him: He could neither escalate to all-out war nor stop firing altogether, while Lebanon – and especially its Shiite communities – bore the cost. He also fell into the same analytical trap that had shaped Israel’s thinking before October 7: he could not accept that the other side had changed.

Nasrallah continued to assume that Israel would not risk an all-out war in Lebanon. Even after Israel killed Hezbollah’s chief of staff, eliminated much of its elite Radwan force’s senior leadership, struck Beirut and destroyed a substantial share of the group’s firepower, he refused to believe the confrontation was no longer limited. The pager explosions exposed how deeply Hezbollah had been penetrated, but even that shock did not change his course.

Nasrallah’s killing marked a decisive turning point in Hezbollah’s decline. The organisation still exists and remains dangerous, but it is a pale shadow of the force that once possessed the capabilities of a state military and threatened Israel, American lives and the stability of the Middle East. The strike shattered the leadership model built around Nasrallah and compounded the losses Hezbollah had already suffered. Hezbollah ultimately accepted a cease-fire in Lebanon without securing one in Gaza, while its leader, Naim Qassem, has neither Nasrallah’s authority nor his charisma.

Nasrallah was a formidable enemy, but his abilities fed the hubris that caused his fall and brought Hezbollah to the lowest point in its history. He failed to grasp that Israel would no longer live with an existential threat on its borders and would take risks to remove it. His fate should warn leaders everywhere: The moment you become certain you understand your adversary may be the moment you cease to understand them at all.

Jewish Chronicle

The post I was in the room when Israel decided to kill Nasrallah. Here’s why we had to do it first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The post Newsletter 9.10.26 first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay – who chaired a UN commission that concluded Israel was committing genocide in Gaza – should be a wake-up call. Whether intended or not, the award signals how receptive the world has become to that accusation. Israel’s strategic environment is changing dramatically, and our future is at stake.

Israelis are divided into two camps. One believes the country is doing well. After recovering from the October 7 massacre, Israel’s security position is stable – even stronger than before, as the Yellow Lines in Gaza and southern Lebanon attest. The economy is thriving despite three years of war – witness the strong shekel. And despite our bitter divisions, civil society remains vibrant, enterprising, and marked by solidarity – witness Israel’s high ranking in the World Happiness Report.

The other camp sees a country in crisis. The war drags on, with no diplomatic settlement in sight to ensure lasting stability. The flawed strategic assumptions that preceded October 7 remain unexamined, as no official commission of inquiry has been established to date. This leaves us vulnerable to another disaster. The ultra-Orthodox community shirks its share of the national burden, threatening our economic and security future. Trust in state institutions is eroding, and social tensions are mounting – to the point that some fear civil war.

Yet both camps must confront a danger that transcends their differences: Israel stands on the brink of severe international isolation. That could trap us all in a harsh new reality with potentially grave consequences. This strategic warning demands a fundamental change of course at home, across political lines.

Israel is on the brink of international isolation

Europe, Israel’s largest trading partner, is moving toward sanctions that could seriously damage our economy. Britain and 11 other countries, including Canada, have announced or are considering restrictions on trade in settlement goods. But Israel’s economy does not stop at the Green Line. Almost every major Israeli company could find itself exposed to looming sanctions.

That could trigger a chain reaction. Businesses worldwide might avoid trading with Israel for fear of being branded sanctions violators. Even friends of Israel could pull back – not out of hostility but out of commercial caution. A creeping de facto boycott could transform BDS – boycott, divestment, and sanctions – from a radical fringe cause into a sweeping movement that reshapes life in Israel. We could become a pariah state alongside Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

The United States is Israel’s principal security and diplomatic anchor. Relations with American administrations have sometimes been tense, but broad bipartisan public support held firm. Today, the reverse is true – and this is the heart of the strategic warning.

Cooperation with the current administration is impressive. But it offers tactical reassurance while obscuring a troubling strategic shift: American sympathy for Israel is eroding. The decline extends beyond Democrats, reaching younger Republicans and even young Evangelical Christians.

Anti-Israel attitudes once associated with the radical Left and the fascist Right have gained a foothold in the mainstream. For the first time in decades, Americans are no more likely to sympathize with Israelis than with Palestinians. They are David; we are Goliath.

Israel is on a slippery slope toward a dangerous defeat – economic and diplomatic, and perhaps even in the security arena when a new US administration takes office in just over two years. No one can know how likely each part of this scenario is to materialize.

Shifts in public opinion, national interests, and governments abroad could still work in our favor. But we cannot cling to the complacent belief that “everything will be okay,” or to the illusion that an isolated, self-sufficient “Sparta” could survive. A sudden diplomatic collapse – a “6:29 a.m.” moment echoing the shock of October 7 – is a real possibility.

The forces driving these developments are complex, and not all are within Israel’s control. Still, coalition and opposition alike have a duty to weigh every action, every statement, and every failure to act in light of the long-term implications for Israel’s diplomatic standing, national security, and economy.

This is not a call for Israel to sacrifice its vital interests to appease world opinion. But there is ample room for constructive action. We can take steps most Israelis support – such as stamping out Jewish terrorism – and refrain from rhetoric most Israelis reject, including calls to flatten Gaza or force its residents to emigrate. Israelis in both camps share an overriding interest in preventing this strategic warning from becoming a tragic reality.

Published in The Jerusalem Post

The post Israel risks winning the war while losing the world first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

Additional Findings

• Three years after the war began, four in ten Israelis feel Israel has won – slightly fewer than a year ago.
• “The October 7 War” remains the most commonly used name for the war. On the right, “War of Revival” has become the leading choice.
• Eight in ten Israelis regard the elections at month’s end as either especially important or the most important in the country’s history.
• Security is gaining ground as the decisive election issue, while unity and relations between the government and judiciary are losing ground.
• After the elections, majorities want prime ministerial term limits, an attempt to adopt a constitution, and a state commission of inquiry into October 7.
• A majority of Israelis oppose a government bringing together Likud and the largest party in the change bloc.
• About half of Jewish Israelis favor broad judicial reform; nearly two-thirds of Israelis oppose restoring military-service exemptions for Haredi Torah students.
• About half of Israelis are satisfied with the parties and prospective candidates for prime minister.
• Respondents on the right prioritize reform of the Ministry of Justice, while those in the center and on the left prioritize reform of the Ministry of Education.
• More than half favor abolishing both the Ministry of Jerusalem and Jewish Tradition and the Ministry of Heritage; nearly half favor abolishing the Ministry of Settlements and National Missions.
• Seven in ten Israelis say Trump is “the friendliest president Israel has ever had.”
• Fewer Israelis than last year report increased religious observance since the war began.

Click here to download the PDF version.

Three Years Since October 7

Three years after the war began, four in ten Israelis (41%) rate their sense of victory at 4 or 5 on a five-point scale – almost unchanged from October 2025 (43%), when the fighting in Gaza ended. By contrast, roughly one-third (36%) choose the two lowest ratings, 1 or 2. Among Jewish Israelis, 46% give one of the two highest ratings, compared with 24% of Arab Israelis. Nearly half of Arab Israelis (46%) give one of the two lowest ratings. The ideological pattern is clear and consistent: 76% of those who identify with the right rate their sense of victory at 4 or 5, compared with 53% in the center-right, 16% in the center, 7% in the center-left, and 3% on the left.

Comparisons across the three years of war require some caution. During the first two years, respondents were asked about the future – “How confident are you that Israel will win the war?” Since October 2025, we have asked whether Israel “is winning and/or has won.” Although the wording has changed, the overall trend is clear. Among Jewish Israelis, the share choosing the two highest ratings has fallen from 74% in the war’s opening weeks to 63% one year later, 49% after two years, and 46% today. Over the same period, the share of Jewish respondents choosing the lowest rating has risen from 6% to 20%.

Has the War Ended?

One year after the fighting stopped, we repeated the November 2025 question about whether the war had ended for an extended period. In November 2025, nearly four in ten Israelis (37%) expected the calm to last at least a year: 18% said “several years” and 19% said “one or two years.” Today, only one in five (21%) expect the calm to last that long – 10% for several years and 11% for one or two years. Instead, one-third (32%) expect it to last “another few months,” up from 20% in November 2025, and another 30% say “no more than another few weeks,” compared with 32% a year ago. In other words, six in ten Israelis expect the calm to last no longer than a few months, compared with about half of Israelis a year ago. The pattern is similar among Jewish and Arab Israelis.

This change has not been evenly distributed across the political spectrum. In November 2025, the right was the most pessimistic camp: 44% of respondents identifying with the right expected the calm to last only a few weeks, compared with about one-quarter in the center and center-left. Today, those differences have all but disappeared. In every ideological camp, roughly one-third expect only a few weeks of calm, and between one-quarter and one-third expect a few months. The shift has come mainly from the center and left. The share anticipating at least a year of calm has fallen from 44% to 15% in the center-left, from 43% to 15% on the left, from 38% to 18% in the center, and from 38% to 19% in the center-right. The decline on the right is much smaller, from 32% to 25%. Put differently, a year ago the center and left hoped the agreement would mark the end of the war, while the right was skeptical. Today, respondents across the ideological spectrum are less confident that the agreement marked the end of the war. In July 2026, when asked what Israel should do in Gaza, 35% of Israelis and 41% of Jewish Israelis chose “resume the fighting until the objectives are achieved.” For some Israelis, then, the expectation that the calm is temporary is not merely a forecast – it also reflects a preference.

What Should the War Be Called?

After the fighting ended, the government changed the war’s official name from “Swords of Iron” to “War of Revival.” In November 2025, we asked what the war should be called; this month, using slightly different wording, we asked what respondents actually call it. The overall picture is stable. “The October 7 War” remains the most widely used name, chosen by 43% of Israelis, compared with 42% a year ago. The government’s preferred name, “War of Revival,” is still used by about one in six respondents (18%, up from 16%), while 16% use the original military name, “Swords of Iron” (13% last year). The only substantial shift is the declining use of “Simchat Torah War”: 12% chose it in November 2025, compared with just 6% today. Another 11% say none of the proposed names is suitable.

Among Jewish Israelis, what people call the war depends heavily on their political orientation. Majorities of those identifying with the left, center-left, and center (72%, 77%, and 68%, respectively) use “The October 7 War.” It is also the most popular name in the center-right. On the right, by contrast, “War of Revival” has become the leading choice over the past year: 43% use it, compared with 32% in November 2025, while only 17% call it “The October 7 War.” “Simchat Torah War,” chosen a year ago by 23% on the right and 45% of religious Jews, has fallen to 8% and 12%, respectively. Only among secular Jews does a single name command majority support: 66% use “The October 7 War.” Among religious and Haredi Jews, preferences are divided among “War of Revival” (30% and 32%), “Swords of Iron” (31% and 17%), and “Simchat Torah War” (12% and 20%). Among Arab Israelis, 32% say none of the names is suitable, while 37% use “The October 7 War.”

The Importance of the Elections and the Decisive Issue

With the elections imminent, the sense that the vote is fateful remains as strong as last month. Four in ten Israelis (39%) believe these will be “the most important elections in the country’s history,” compared with 40% in September and 33% in February. Another 40% consider them “especially important.” Only 17% consider them no more important than other elections. This sense of importance grows stronger moving leftward along the political spectrum: 69% on the left and 59% in the center-left call them the most important elections in Israel’s history, compared with 45% in the center, 32% in the center-right, and 33% on the right.

One-third of Israelis (34%) say their decisive consideration in the elections will be “who will contribute most effectively to maintaining security,” slightly more than in September and August (31%) or July (28%). Meanwhile, the two issues previously ranked second and third – relations between the government and the judiciary, and “more unity and fewer disputes” – have lost ground. The share choosing “a more liberal state” remains at 13%, and the economy at 9%. Among Arab Israelis, security (37%) and the economy (20%) are the leading considerations. Security’s growing importance spans ideological camps, though it has displaced different priorities in each. On the right, its share rose from 40% to 46%, primarily at the expense of relations between the government and the judiciary. In the center, security increased from 24% to 25%, and in the center-right from 30% to 36%, largely at the expense of unity. On the left and center-left, “a more liberal state” remains the leading issue (46% and 30%, respectively).

After the Elections

This month, we presented respondents with six possible initiatives for the post-election period, all of which have figured in political debate over the past year, and asked whether they wanted each one to be implemented. Three enjoy majority support: a law limiting the prime minister’s tenure (63%); an attempt to adopt a constitution for Israel (59%); and the establishment, by the Supreme Court, of a state commission of inquiry into October 7 (58%). A broad judicial reform that would reduce some of the Supreme Court’s powers divides the public almost evenly, with 46% in favor and 42% opposed, although a majority of Jewish Israelis (52%) support it. Two initiatives face majority opposition: reinstating the military-service exemption for Haredi men studying Torah (64% opposed) and forming a government that includes both Likud and the largest party in the change bloc, with the prime minister chosen by mutual agreement (60% opposed).

Several of these proposals have been tested in earlier JPPI surveys, using different wording, and this month’s results are broadly consistent with previous findings. In May 2026, nearly two-thirds of Israelis (63%) said some form of inquiry should be established “as soon as possible.” But when asked to choose between types of commissions, only 46% preferred a state commission headed by a Supreme Court justice, while 40% preferred a “national” commission without Supreme Court involvement. In November 2025, the respective figures were 46% and 42%. When the question simply asks whether respondents want a state commission of inquiry, without offering an alternative, support rises to 58%. One reason is that some center-right supporters of a national commission had also supported the state-commission option in earlier surveys. As for a constitution, only 46% believed in February 2026 that “agreements can be reached that would make a constitution possible.” Today, 59% want an attempt to be made. In other words, more Israelis may want a constitution than believe one is attainable.

The ideological divisions on most of these questions are sharp. Support for a state commission of inquiry stands at 97% on the left, 87% in the center, and 18% on the right. Support for term limits is 95%, 90%, and 27%, respectively. Support for judicial reform runs in the opposite direction: 90% on the right, 17% in the center, and 0% on the left. The gap over a constitution is narrower, partly because opinions on the right are divided: 39% want an attempt, 30% do not, and 30% are undecided. The outlier is a proposed government bringing together Likud and the largest party in the change bloc – the only initiative opposed in every ideological camp. Opposition is overwhelming on the left (87%) and center-left (80%), and stands at 74% in the center. But even on the right a majority (54%) do not want such a government; only the center-right is relatively evenly divided (41% in favor, 48% opposed).

Opposition to a joint government of Likud and the change bloc is neither new nor evidence that Israelis do not value unity. In June 2026, respondents gave the importance of unity in Israeli society an average rating of 7.9 on a scale of 0 to 10. Yet the same survey also found declining willingness to compromise on policy for the sake of social cohesion. The following month, in July 2026, when we asked what coalition Israelis wanted after the elections, only 28% selected one of three versions of a “broad coalition with parties from both blocs”: 16% without Haredi and Arab parties, 8% without Haredi parties, and 5% without Arab parties. Another 30% wanted a coalition led by the right-wing bloc and 35% one led by the change bloc. Israelis want unity, but they want their own political camp to form the next coalition even more.

All Israelis, weighted. The six items were presented as separate questions, each beginning: “Do you want or not want the following to happen after the elections…?”

Satisfaction with the Political Choices

How satisfied are Israelis with their choices in the elections? The picture is mixed. A slim majority (53%) say they are “generally satisfied” with the parties competing, while 37% are dissatisfied. When asked about the prospective candidates for prime minister, about half (49%) are satisfied and 42% dissatisfied. Satisfaction is higher among Jewish Israelis (57% for the parties and 54% for the candidates) and much lower among Arab Israelis, of whom only 38% are satisfied with the parties and 31% with the candidates. Among Jewish Israelis, satisfaction with the parties is similar across ideological camps, apart from the relatively small left-wing camp, where it is lower. The divide is more apparent when it comes to prime-ministerial candidates: majorities are satisfied in all camps from the right through the center-left, while a majority on the left are dissatisfied. In February 2026, we asked a related question, worded differently and with three response options. At that time, 24% said they were “satisfied with the available choices,” 34% said “there are enough reasonable options,” and 34% were dissatisfied. The questions cannot be compared directly, but the share of dissatisfied voters was similar earlier in the election year and on the eve of the vote.

Government Ministries

Ahead of the elections, we asked respondents which of six ministries most urgently needs a minister who will undertake substantial reform. Two ministries are virtually tied: the Ministry of Justice (31%) and the Ministry of Education (30%). Some distance behind were the Ministry of Public Security (18%) and the Ministry of Finance (9%). The Ministry of Defense (4%) and the Ministry of Health (2%) were seldom selected. The near tie between Justice and Education reflects sharply different priorities among ideological camps. On the right, 62% choose the Ministry of Justice and 17% Education. In the center, 50% choose Education, 23% Public Security, and just 9% Justice. About half of respondents in both the center and center-left prioritize Education. The pattern is equally clear by religiosity: 58% of Haredi Jews and 50% of religious Jews choose Justice, while 42% of secular Jews choose Education. Among Arab Israelis, the Ministry of Public Security ranks first, at 37%.

*Respondents could select more than one ministry. The six ministries chosen most often are shown.

In a separate question, respondents were asked which ministries, from a list of 14, should be abolished after the elections. The number of ministries has grown substantially under recent governments, reaching 31. This expansion has prompted public debate and criticism, with critics arguing that additional ministries waste public funds to reward coalition partners. Three ministries top the list of those Israelis would abolish: Jerusalem and Jewish Tradition (55%), Heritage (54%), and Settlements and National Missions (49%). Next come Social Equality (41%), Intelligence (41%), and the Negev, Galilee, and National Resilience (34%). Only one in eight Israelis (12%) say none of the ministries should be abolished. Support for closures is greater among Jewish Israelis: nearly two-thirds would abolish Jerusalem and Jewish Tradition (64%) and Heritage (63%). Support is much lower among Arab Israelis, 22% of whom would abolish none of the ministries. Here too, priorities differ substantially across ideological camps. On the left, center-left, and center, respondents most often favor abolishing the current coalition’s “identity ministries”: Jerusalem and Jewish Tradition (97%, 91%, and 78%, respectively), Settlements and National Missions (87%, 86%, and 73%), and Heritage (87%, 82%, and 80%). On the right, by contrast, the most frequently chosen ministry for abolition is Social Equality (54%). Only about 40% would abolish Jerusalem and Jewish Tradition or Heritage, and about one-third would abolish Settlements and National Missions.

Trump and the United States

*“Very true” and “fairly true” combined, October 2026.

In November 2025, after President Trump visited Israel and addressed the Knesset, we asked whether Israelis agreed with the claim, made by the prime minister and others, that Trump is “the friendliest president Israel has ever had.” We repeated the question this month. Agreement remains widespread: seven in ten Israelis (69%) consider the statement “very true” (34%) or “fairly true” (35%), compared with 72% in November 2025. Agreement among Jewish Israelis has slipped from 76% to 72%; among Arab Israelis, it remains at about six in ten (58%). It is worth noting that, in a separate question asked every few months, the share of Israelis expressing “a great deal of trust” in Trump fell during 2026 from 34% in March to 10% in August. In February 2026, nearly half (49%) called Trump “one of the best presidents in U.S. history.” In July 2026, when asked whether the United States is a “true friend” of Israel, 27% said it was a true friend “more than in recent years” and 26% said “less than in recent years.” Israelis still see Trump as a great friend of Israel, but their trust in him has eroded. The modest erosion in Trump’s standing has not occurred on the right, where agreement that he is Israel’s friendliest president remains almost universal (94%), or on the left, where it remains low (18%). Rather, it is concentrated in the center-left, where agreement has fallen from 52% to 32%, and, to a lesser degree, the center-right (from 85% to 80%).

The War, Religious Tradition, and Faith

In November 2025, when the fighting in Gaza ended, we published a special report on how the war had affected Israelis’ religious observance, faith, and self-identification. Nearly a year later, we repeated the same battery of questions, using identical wording. The broad picture is similar: most report no change in religious practice, and among those reporting a change, increases in observance outnumber declines. But the shift toward greater observance is less pronounced than a year ago. One in five Jewish Israelis (20%) say they observe more Jewish traditions than before the war, down from 27% in November 2025. One in ten (10%) say they observe fewer traditions (8% last year), and nearly seven in ten (69%) report no change (62% last year). The pattern is similar for belief in God: 22% of Jewish Israelis say they believe more strongly than before, 12% less strongly, and 65% about the same. Among Arab Israelis, too, the share reporting a strengthening has declined slightly – from 23% to 20% for religious practice and from 37% to 32% for faith – although the share reporting weaker faith remains very low (3%).

The central finding of the previous report still holds: increases in religious observance are concentrated among those who were already traditionalist or religious, while secular Jews – the largest group among Jewish Israelis – show the opposite tendency. Among secular respondents, 9% say they observe more traditions than before the war, compared with 17% who observe fewer; 6% say their faith has strengthened, compared with 21% who say it has weakened. In all other religiosity groups, the balance tilts toward stronger observance, increasingly so as religiosity rises. Among traditionalist (Masorti), nonreligious Jews, 25% observe more traditions and 22% report stronger faith; among religious (Dati) Jews, the figures are 26% and 41%; among Haredim, 38% and 52%. Not a single Haredi respondent reports a decline in religious observance. The ideological breakdown follows a similar pattern: on the right, 35% observe more traditions and 40% report stronger faith, while in the center-left, 21% observe fewer traditions and 26% report weaker faith.

Among Jewish Israelis, fewer respondents reported an increase in every religious practice listed than in November 2025. Prayer remains the most common, but the share of Jewish Israelis who say they pray more often since the war began has fallen from nearly one-third to about one-fifth. The share reading more of the Bible or Psalms has fallen from one-fifth to roughly one-eighth. Fewer respondents also report attending synagogue more often, lighting Shabbat candles, putting on tefillin, wearing tzitzit, or dressing more modestly. Correspondingly, the share of Jewish Israelis who have not increased any of these practices has risen from 55% to 65%. Among Arab Israelis, 24% say they pray more, down from 32% a year ago. Nearly half of Haredim (48%), about one-third of religious Jews (35%), and 28% of traditionalist, nonreligious Jews report praying more often.

In another question, we asked respondents to place themselves on a seven-point scale, with the midpoint representing the strength of their faith before the war. Here too, the reported change is more modest than a year ago: a majority of Jewish Israelis (53%) say their faith remains at its prewar level, up from 43% in November 2025; 32% place themselves higher on the scale, down from 43%; and 15% place themselves lower, up from 12%. Among Arab Israelis, 44% report no change, 46% stronger faith, and 4% weaker faith. Once again, secular Jews stand apart from the other religiosity groups: 25% report a downward shift and 11% an upward shift, compared with 56% of religious Jews and 57% of Haredim who report stronger faith.

Asked about the faith of their “relatives and friends,” respondents perceived more widespread strengthening than they reported for themselves. This echoes a pattern found in earlier JPPI studies of religious strengthening among young adults and adolescents. Among Jewish Israelis, 41% believe people around them have grown stronger in faith, down from 49% last year, while only 10% believe they have grown weaker. The gap between perceptions of oneself and of one’s social circle is especially striking among secular Jews: 11% report stronger faith themselves, while 20% believe faith has strengthened among people around them. As we noted in the previous report, this perception may reflect public discussion of growing religiosity – or simply the fact that increasing observance is more visible than declining observance.

Religiosity and Political Orientation

As in November 2025, we asked Jewish respondents to place themselves on a detailed nine-category religiosity scale, first as they recall their religious identity on the eve of the war and then as they identify today. The overall distribution has barely changed: roughly one-third (32%) describe themselves as “completely secular” both before and after the war, one-fifth as “secular with some traditional practices,” and 15% as “traditionalist.” About one in ten Jewish Israelis (10%) now place themselves in a more religious category than before the war, while half as many (5%) place themselves in a less religious one. The principal shifts are among those formerly “secular with some traditional practices” who now identify as “traditionalist” (12% of that group), and among “liberal religious” and “religious” respondents who have moved one category toward greater religiosity (16% of each group). Among the completely secular, 92% remain in the same category.

On the political scale, respondents report much greater movement – toward the right, particularly its outer edge, as we also found a year ago. The share of Jewish Israelis who now identify as “strong right” is 24%, nearly double the 13% who recall identifying that way before the war. The share placing themselves in one of the four right-wing categories is nearly unchanged between respondents’ recalled prewar positions and their positions today. What has changed is the distribution within the bloc. Looking at individual movements, 33% of Jewish respondents who placed themselves on the scale say they have shifted rightward since the war began, 14% say they have shifted leftward, and 54% report no change. Among Arab Israelis, as a year ago, there is little movement: about one-quarter place themselves “exactly in the center,” three in ten on the left, and one-quarter do not know how to respond. One qualification is important: every July, we measure political orientation directly on this nine-point scale, without reference to the war. In July 2025, 13% of Jewish Israelis placed themselves on the strong right; in July 2026, 14% did so. Thus, the figure respondents give for “before the war” (13%) is consistent with the direct measurement, whereas their figure for “today” (24%) is substantially higher. The discrepancy may stem from wording that invites respondents to report a change. If so, some Israelis may feel they have moved further to the right than they actually have.

Totals may not equal 100% because “None of these” and “Don’t know” responses are omitted and percentages have been rounded.

Data for the JPPI Israeli Society Index survey was collected in October 2026 through Madad.com (618 Jewish respondents) and Afkar Research (203 Arab respondents, approximately half online and half by telephone). The data was analyzed and weighted by voting patterns and religiosity to represent Israel’s adult population. Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepokov compile the JPPI Israeli Society Index with research, production, and writing assistance by Yael Levinovsky. Prof. David Steinberg provides statistical supervision.

The post JPPI Israeli Society Index – October 2026: Security Becomes a More Decisive Factor in Elections first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

There is a number in the latest Palestinian public-opinion poll that sounds wonderfully encouraging: 56%.

That is the share of Palestinians who, according to one increasingly common reading, support a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.

Wonderful. Someone alert the Nobel Committee.

There is only one small problem: that is not actually what the poll says.

The August 2026 survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) is an unusually valuable window into Palestinian opinion after the Gaza war. Taken as a whole, it tells a fascinating story. Palestinians have changed their minds substantially about how to pursue their national goals. What is far less clear is whether they have changed their minds about what those goals ultimately are.

Start with those two states.

PSR first asks the straightforward question: Do you support or oppose the two-state solution? No details, no embellishment.

The result: 44% support it and 50% oppose it.

Then PSR asks a different question. Respondents are presented with three possible arrangements: “the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders,” “a confederation between the two states,” and “a single state with equal rights for both sides.” Given those three choices, 56% prefer the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, compared with 14% for a confederation and 10% for a single state with equal rights. Another 20% choose none of them.

That is an interesting result.

It just is not the same result.

If I ask whether you want chicken for dinner and you say no, and then ask whether you would prefer chicken, sardines, or boiled cabbage, your selection of chicken does not retroactively become an enthusiastic endorsement of chicken.

More importantly, neither question asks what Israelis actually need to know:

Would Palestinians accept two states as the permanent end of the conflict?

That is where things get more complicated.

Means and ends

The most dramatic development in the August poll has little to do with two states.

It is the collapse in Palestinian confidence in armed struggle.

In September 2023, just weeks before October 7, 53% of Palestinians said armed struggle was the most effective way to end the Israeli occupation and establish a Palestinian state. Only 20% chose negotiations. Today the numbers have almost reversed. Forty-four percent choose negotiations and only 27% armed struggle.

That is a remarkable transformation.

But there is a problem with interpreting it as evidence that Palestinians have embraced peace.

Negotiations are a method. So is armed struggle.

Neither tells us what the negotiator or the fighter hopes to achieve.

And on that question, Palestinian attitudes have been remarkably durable.

For years, PSR has asked Palestinians to rank four “vital national goals.” One option is “Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

Another is “Obtain the right of return to refugees to their 1948 towns and villages.”

This is not a vague question about sympathy for refugees or compensation. It says their 1948 towns and villages – places overwhelmingly located inside Israel. And roughly three in ten Palestinians have consistently chosen that as their first national priority. Since 2012, the figure has remained remarkably stable, ranging from 28% to 33%.

In the August 2026 poll, PSR reports that 43% identify Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders and establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital as the highest priority, while 28% prioritize the right of return.

Think about what that means.

The question does not allow respondents to say that ending the occupation and returning refugees are equally important. They have to rank them.

In 2022, 40% said the highest national goal should be ending the Israeli occupation in the territories occupied in 1967 and building a Palestinian state. But 32% chose return to the refugees’ 1948 towns and villages instead. In other words, nearly a third of Palestinians were explicitly saying that return to homes inside what is now Israel was a higher national priority than ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state.

And when respondents were asked for their second goal, another 37% chose return.

That is not a footnote to this conflict.

It may be the conflict.

The refugee question that supposedly is not a question anymore

There is a comforting argument one hears frequently in discussions of the peace process.

Yes, Palestinians continue to speak about a right of return. But everyone serious understands that millions of Palestinian refugees are not actually going to move into Israel. Palestinian negotiators understand this. American negotiators understand this. Arab governments understand this. Various negotiating rounds contemplated compensation, resettlement in a Palestinian state and third countries, and some limited number entering Israel with Israeli consent.

Perhaps Palestinian negotiators do understand all of that.

But there is an enormous difference between saying Palestinian negotiators understand what a final agreement would require and saying the Palestinian public has accepted it.

Fortunately, PSR has asked Palestinians something quite close to the real thing.

In 2013, respondents were presented with a detailed refugee compromise modeled on the Clinton Parameters and Geneva Initiative. Refugees would have unrestricted residence in the Palestinian state and territory transferred to it. Residence in Israel, third countries, and existing host countries would depend on those states’ decisions. Israel would determine how many refugees it admitted. All refugees would receive compensation.

The result?

Forty-six percent supported the compromise. Fifty-two percent opposed it.

The previous year, 41% supported it and 56% opposed it. PSR’s longer historical series is more revealing still. Between 2003 and 2013, this sort of refugee compromise never received majority support in the surveys reported there.

That does not prove Palestinians will never compromise.

It does mean we should stop treating the compromise as something the Palestinian public has already made.

Do Gazans want Gaza to be home?

Which brings us to the Board of Peace.

The Board’s ambition extends considerably beyond arranging a ceasefire. Its roadmap talks about Israeli withdrawal, Palestinian governance, reconstruction, economic development, demilitarization, and eventually a credible path toward Palestinian self-determination and statehood.

This is an admirable objective.

But there is a conspicuous issue missing from the agenda: the refugees.

Not the Gazans displaced during this war. I mean the descendants of the refugees from 1948 and their claim to return to towns and villages inside Israel. That omission is puzzling because the whole project depends, at some level, on a simple assumption:

Not merely a place where they live until the next war. Not a territory whose political future remains subordinated to an unresolved claim over Jaffa, Ashkelon, or the communities from which their families came.

The territory in which Palestinian national aspirations can be realized while Israel remains Israel on the other side of the border.

If that is what most Palestinians want, then we have the foundation for something enormously important. But if a large portion of the population believes that Palestinian statehood in Gaza and the West Bank is only one stage of a continuing claim to territory and homes inside Israel, then we have solved a very different problem.

We may have figured out how to rebuild Gaza without figuring out how to end the conflict.

And that matters because the Board of Peace is not merely trying to stop the shooting. It is trying to build a sustainable future for the people of Gaza. There is little point in spending billions of dollars building permanent homes without knowing whether the people who will live in them regard Gaza as their permanent home.

What did the war actually change?

The latest polling does contain reasons for cautious optimism.

Only 20% now say Hamas won the Gaza war; 60% say neither side won. Half of Palestinians agree that armed resistance failed to protect Palestinians or end the occupation and instead brought destruction. Among Gazans, 65% agree with that assessment. And negotiations have gone from the preference of one Palestinian in five before October 7 to the preferred strategy of more than two in five today.

That matters.

Taken together with the historical polling, it suggests something important about Palestinian attitudes toward violence:

Support for armed struggle appears to be highly instrumental.

When Palestinians believe violence works, support for it tends to rise. When they conclude that it has failed, support falls.

That is good news.

But it is not necessarily the news we think it is.

The Palestinian public may have reconsidered the road without reconsidering the destination.

And that distinction should matter enormously to Israelis deciding how much risk to take for peace.

The question we should actually ask

I am not arguing that Palestinians do not want peace.

I am arguing something simultaneously more modest and more important:

We don’t know.

At least not from the statistics normally invoked to prove it. We know how many Palestinians support the vaguely defined “two-state solution.”

We know how many, when given three choices, prefer “the two-state solution based on the 1967 borders” to “a confederation between the two states” or “a single state with equal rights for both sides.” We know whether they currently think negotiations or armed struggle is more effective.

But those are not quite the questions on which the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict turns.

The question is something like this:

Would you accept a sovereign Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank alongside Israel as the permanent end of the conflict; relinquish any general right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to Israel; and agree that neither side would thereafter have further territorial or national claims against the other?

Ask that question.

Ask it in Gaza.

Ask it in the West Bank.

Ask it repeatedly.

If a clear Palestinian majority says yes, Israelis should know that. It would be one of the most consequential findings in the history of the conflict.

And if a clear majority says no, Israelis should know that too.

Because “Do you support two states?” and “Are you prepared to end the conflict with Israel?” sound like the same question.

After a century of conflict, it might be worth checking.

Published in TOI

The post Two States – and Then What? first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

The post Sanctions and Other Measures Against Israel – An Interactive Map first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.

I, too, was caught by surprise when rockets began flying from the Gaza Strip toward Israel at 6:29 a.m. on Oct. 7, even though I was then serving as a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces’ Military Intelligence Directorate and commanding the branch responsible for strategic analysis of Hezbollah and Lebanon. Only hours later did the scale of the catastrophe inside Israel become clear: 1,200 people had been murdered, more than 250 abducted, and scenes of unimaginable destruction had unfolded in communities across southern Israel. Hamas had launched a brutal surprise attack, and Israel had not seen it coming. The IDF and the entire Israeli security establishment had failed in their most basic mission: protecting the country’s citizens.

Hamas inflicted on Israel the greatest disaster the Jewish people had suffered since the Holocaust. And the State of Israel—the start-up nation, home to the strongest military in the Middle East and one of the world’s most highly regarded intelligence communities—had neglected to prevent it. The gulf between Israel’s perceived strength and the magnitude of its failure was incomprehensible to me. Yet I devoted the first hours, days and months of the war to understanding Hezbollah—making sure that a strategic surprise would not come from that front as well—stabilizing our analytical work, and restoring confidence among the intelligence officers after the failure in Gaza had shaken the entire system.

Only months later was I able to turn to the causes of the failure. After I retired from military service in early 2026, the subject became an obsession: I needed to understand what had happened to Israeli intelligence and explain it to the Israeli public. I believed then, as I do today, that this was my responsibility as someone who had served for 18 years in the Military Intelligence Directorate and witnessed its inner workings firsthand.

To confront the challenge, I returned to two lessons from aviation. The first came from the commission that investigated Israel’s 1997 helicopter disaster, which stressed that “accidents do not simply happen; they are caused.” The second came from the study of aviation accidents, which shows that disasters usually result not from a single failure but from a chain of failures that compound one another until they produce a catastrophe. The parallel to Oct. 7 was unmistakable: This was the result of a preventable chain of failures.

At the heart of the disaster were three cumulative failures—intelligence, military and political—that reinforced one another. The military and political failures will be discussed elsewhere, one hopes by an independent state commission of inquiry. Here, I will focus on the realm in which I worked for years: intelligence.

The Military Intelligence Directorate, Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Mossad all failed to grasp Hamas’s strategy; the concrete preparations that preceded the attack; the organization’s military capacity to carry out a large-scale ground assault; its perception of its own strength relative to Israel; and the lessons it had drawn from previous rounds of fighting—foremost among them, that a deliberately initiated surprise attack was a prerequisite for any future campaign.

How did the intelligence community come to understand events in Gaza so differently from reality itself?

First, it refused to learn from the past in the way Hamas had. Had it done so, it would have learned that surprise attacks can happen to anyone, even great powers, and can confound even the brightest and most capable people. It would have learned that no defensive line is impenetrable, along with a lesson or two in humility about the imbalance of power between Israel and its enemies. History, as the saying often attributed to Mark Twain goes, does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Israeli intelligence, however, looked only forward, never backward.

The failure also reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of Hamas’s nature. Over the years, the intelligence community convinced itself that Hamas, while a despicable terrorist organization, cared above all about preserving its rule and was prepared to make significant compromises to maintain its standing in Palestinian society. It later became clear that governing the Gaza Strip was secondary to the ideological, murderous and antisemitic worldview that shaped the organization—and its leader, Yahya Sinwar, in particular.

To realize his messianic vision, Sinwar was prepared to sacrifice tens of thousands of Palestinians and even Hamas’s own rule in Gaza. Intelligence analysts struggled to understand a leader and a movement operating according to a radically different set of values and priorities. Within the prevailing framework, increasing the number of Gazans allowed to work in Israel was therefore seen as a restraining influence, while Hamas’s decision to sit out rounds of fighting between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad was treated as evidence that it had been deterred.

At the same time, a collective attitude of contempt took hold in Israel, leading officials to underestimate Hamas’s capabilities in a way they did not underestimate Hezbollah’s or Iran’s. On several occasions, I personally heard Hamas dismissed as “stupid Palestinians” distracting Israel from what truly mattered—the Shi’ite axis. Sinwar recognized this perception and worked hard to reinforce Israel’s belief that Gaza posed no real threat.

Even the security establishment, which warned the prime minister several times before Oct. 7 of the growing potential for war, believed that trouble would come from the north—from Hezbollah or Iran—and did not view the Palestinian arena as an immediate danger.

This contempt also affected the security and intelligence resources Israel devoted to Gaza before Oct. 7. The Lebanon arena was covered by a stable and sophisticated network of analysts and collection specialists who challenged one another’s assessments. The Gaza arena was entrusted to a small group of people on whom Israel depended for its understanding of Hamas and its intentions.

The system was also dominated by a deeply rooted strategic assumption: that Israel’s enemies were highly unlikely to launch a deliberate attack because they understood both the vast imbalance of power and the strength of Israeli deterrence. Across every arena, the prevailing belief was that war could erupt because of a miscalculation, an escalatory dynamic or even greater risk-taking by an adversary; however, not as the result of a large-scale offensive resembling the Yom Kippur War or, in a very different context, the attack on Pearl Harbor.

That helps explain why Hamas’s plan to seize the communities surrounding Gaza was dismissed as fantastical. What enemy would dare attempt such an operation against mighty Israel?

Meanwhile, the intelligence community turned inward. It refused to allow outside voices to influence its thinking. In a closed system with little room for unconventional thought, challenging an entrenched conception becomes exceedingly difficult. When everyone thinks alike, no one thinks as they should.

The Military Intelligence Directorate—and with it the broader intelligence community—excelled at recruiting outstanding people, but of a very particular kind. The door was thus closed to those who thought differently, and on the eve of Oct. 7, the intelligence community had become hierarchical, formulaic and one-dimensional.

Too often, voices that challenged the dominant view were immediately dismissed as irrelevant, tedious, unprofessional or insufficiently experienced. The intelligence community also openly discounted dissenting views from outside the system, whether they came from government ministers, academics or foreign intelligence services. The unspoken message was clear: What could they possibly understand? They’re not experts like us.

Information overload

This problem was compounded by a distinctly modern challenge: information overload. Before the Yom Kippur War, the intelligence community received a limited number of warning indicators pointing to an intention to go to war.

Today, the volume of information flowing into the Military Intelligence Directorate is almost unimaginable. This offers many advantages, but its most serious drawback is that anyone already captive to a false conception can easily find information that confirms it. In a world in which billions of pieces of information enter the intelligence community’s systems every day, how can analysts filter out the noise, determine what is credible, and decide what is more or less alarming?

So it was in the period before Oct. 7: The warning signs were swallowed by a mass of other information that appeared to contradict them. Confronted by such a powerful conception, those signals struggled to command enough attention to influence decision-makers, especially when other indicators seemed to reinforce the prevailing view.

Professional safeguards were supposed to address precisely this problem, but they, too, had eroded across the intelligence community over the years. In a gradual process, the fundamentals of the profession—the insurance policy meant to protect against catastrophes such as Oct. 7—were neglected. The system elevated speed and efficiency over professional rigor and thoroughness, and basic principles of intelligence work fell away because they were deemed “too time-consuming.” The essential mechanisms for preserving institutional knowledge and learning lessons also deteriorated. As long as there was no unmistakable and glaring failure, there was little incentive to “return to basics.”

The relentless pursuit of efficiency also displaced efforts to look beyond the horizon and identify potential dangers. The Military Intelligence Directorate was so confident in its assessments that it saw too little need to adhere to practices that had served intelligence professionals for generations. The intelligence community should have operated like the aviation industry, with multiple layers of redundancy reflecting the severity of the risk.

Instead, it operated like a publicly traded company determined to cut costs. The Military Intelligence Directorate behaved as if the danger were a bad quarterly report, not a strategic catastrophe.

The entire intelligence community also depended to an astonishing degree on a very small number of intelligence sources in the Gaza Strip. As a result, it viewed the arena through a narrow lens that produced the false conviction that Hamas was restrained and did not want war.

This was partly connected to the dominant status of Unit 8200 and the belief that Israel’s technological superiority allowed it to understand every move its enemies made. These technological capabilities have made an enormous contribution to Israel’s security, but they are not sufficient on their own.

Diversify your investments

The Military Intelligence Directorate failed to follow the most basic rule taught in any introductory lesson on financial markets: Diversify your investments. Instead of combining a broad range of collection capabilities, the intelligence community became addicted to a particular kind of source and assumed it offered a complete picture of reality. This helps explain why the reports of the female surveillance soldiers stationed along the Gaza border were given so little weight: Why take them seriously when Israel possessed extraordinary technological capabilities that appeared to contradict them?

The failure was especially conspicuous in the realm of open-source intelligence.

On Sept. 12, 2023, Hamas itself released a propaganda video showing a large-scale exercise in Gaza, including a seaborne raid toward the coast, militants breaching the border fence in white pickup trucks and simulated abductions. I first encountered the video only a few months ago and quickly skipped past it because I assumed it was yet another clip from Oct. 7. It is difficult to convey my shock when I realized it had been published less than a month before the massacre.

Hamas had handed Israel a gift—a glimpse of how it would attack just weeks later—and Israel had buried its head in the sand. The intelligence community had no systematic mechanism for monitoring publicly available information and integrating it into intelligence assessments.

Hatzav, the unit responsible for open-source intelligence, had been shut down in 2021, reflecting the attitude then prevalent in the Military Intelligence Directorate: If it isn’t Unit 8200, then it isn’t interesting.

The role of intelligence in national decision-making also demands examination. In a properly functioning system, intelligence is not supposed to predict the future or give senior leaders a false sense of certainty. Its role—ironically displayed in enormous letters at the Military Intelligence Directorate’s headquarters in Tel Aviv—is to help decision-makers think about the future.

Yet over the years, and because of its immense power and prestige, intelligence became a kind of crystal ball that instilled confidence in policymakers. The political leadership demanded answers, and intelligence supplied them: confident judgments, complete certainty and categorical assertions, both about what was happening and what would happen next—the very opposite of the humility required of every intelligence analyst.

This created an informal bargain between intelligence professionals and decision-makers: reality was whatever the intelligence community presented, and anything absent from its assessments did not exist. Under this unwritten agreement, intelligence could not be wrong about the fundamental questions.

And perhaps this was the gravest weakness of all: the fervent belief that Israel’s intelligence community was the best in the world and that its people were the most talented. I remember well the slogan of Havatzalot, the flagship program for training intelligence officers where I trained: “Making the best even better.” Intelligence officers learned to operate much like their counterparts in Israel’s start-up community: to believe in their ability to succeed beyond all imagination.

That quality is immensely valuable in many fields. But in intelligence analysis, excessive self-confidence impairs the ability to listen to other views and adopt them when warranted. The Military Intelligence Directorate should instead have sanctified humility, doubt and the asking of difficult questions—and promoted people who embodied those qualities. It did precisely the opposite.

During my visits to schools and pre-military academies, I often hear the word “conspiracy.” But there was no conspiracy. Many people also point, with justification, to negligence by some military intelligence officers on that night, and during the weeks and months that preceded it.

Expression of the system

Yet neither conspiracy nor negligence can explain the depth of this systemic failure. The disaster resulted from fundamental shortcomings that accumulated over years until they reached a breaking point.

It would be comforting if the gulf between perception and reality could be explained by a conspiracy or the negligence of a few individuals. The truth is far more disturbing: The failure was embedded deep in the culture, structure and working methods of Israel’s intelligence community. It was the direct result of profound problems left unaddressed for years. This was not an isolated bug in the system; it was an expression of the system itself, and of the way it had learned to think and operate.

Still, Israel must not throw out the baby with the bathwater. It has no other intelligence community, and these are the same organizations that achieved extraordinary intelligence successes against Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Israel’s intelligence community is a national asset, but it must undergo fundamental change if it is to become more resilient to future surprises.

That is a responsibility it owes to itself, but above all, to Israel’s citizens and to those who sacrificed everything in this war. The path forward must include an independent state commission of inquiry that examines the full range of failures—intelligence, military and political—and formulates the necessary recommendations.

Israel has no alternative, and its enemies will not wait. Now is the time to ensure that the lessons of Oct. 7 are learned and that the risk of the next strategic surprise is reduced as much as possible. Our enemies are already learning the lessons of Oct. 7. The question is whether we are, too.

Posted in jns

The post I was caught by surprise on Oct. 7 first appeared on The Jewish People Policy Institute.