“Netanyahu knew” – that was the verdict of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as it reported allegations that Benjamin Netanyahu was warned about the 7 October attacks.
A string of claims that Arab officials warned the longtime Israeli PM about the plot have put him on the defensive less than 30 days before the nation’s crucial elections.
What are the claims?
The claims “began to trickle out” last month in a book by two Israeli journalists, “Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment”, said The Washington Post. The book details an encrypted call reportedly made by the Emirati president, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also known as MBZ, less than two weeks before 7 October 2023, to warn Netanyahu about the planned attack. Netanyahu did not pass on the warnings to his security aides, according to the authors, Shlomi Eldar and Ruth Yuval.
The PM was also warned of the attack by Egypt’s intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, according to The Wall Street Journal. Kamel allegedly phoned Netanyahu just days before the attack, adding to warnings from the previous month, when he is said to have flown to Israel to inform security officials in person that Hamas was planning a major assault.
“We know that Egypt’s chief of intelligence flew to Israel on 26 September and warned Israel of a…Hamas attack,” Ahron Bregman, an Israeli security analyst and senior teaching fellow at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera. “We also know that similar messages came from MBZ.”
How might they affect the election?
According to polling, events surrounding the attacks and “questions over responsibility for security failures that preceded them” are “important issues” for voters in the parliamentary elections to be held later this month, said the outlet.
But the polls have “held relatively steady in recent weeks”, said The Washington Post. Jonathan Rynhold, a political scientist at Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv, said Netanyahu’s loyal base and Israel’s mainly right-leaning electorate may not move their votes to the “centrist bloc led by Eisenkot without a ‘clear smoking gun’”.
Naftali Bennett, the leader of the Beyachad (Together) alliance, said that if the allegations were proven true, Netanyahu “cannot continue to serve in his position for another minute”, while the former military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who leads Netanyahu’s Likud party in the polls by the “slenderest of margins”, said, “Netanyahu received dozens of warnings for 7 October and ignored them all. He is unfit.”
Many of Netanyahu’s electoral rivals, including Eisenkot, have promised to immediately establish an independent commission of inquiry if elected.
What does Netanyahu say?
Netanyahu has strongly denied ever receiving any warning of an attack. The Israeli PM said the report that he was warned by bin Zayed was an “absolute lie” and denied he even spoke to the Emirati leader at that time.
The Israeli PM has tried to “shift the blame” for not being warned of the attack to the former head of Israel’s internal security service, Ronen Bar, said Al Jazeera. Bar announced last month that he would sue the prime minister, a “longtime political nemesis”, for defamation over the claims.