Posted on 10/08/2023 7:45:02 PM PDT by lasereye
In recent months Hamas refused to join the much smaller Islamic Jihad in launching rockets against Israel, which seems to have convinced Israeli leaders that, at long last, the leading terror group in Gaza had decided to prioritize the welfare of its subjects over more futile rocket attacks.
Israel promptly reciprocated the de facto Hamas ceasefire by allowing thousands of Gazans to work in Israel—first 17,000, then 20,000, with the potential for many more. Their earnings were changing the lives of 100,000 family members with the possibility of even wider benefits. What was happening on the ground seemed to open a path toward tranquility for Israel and a degree of prosperity for Gaza.
Evidently it was all a delusion. Hamas, just like Arafat’s PLO, is willing to do everything for Palestine—and nothing at all for Palestinians.
Israel’s political misjudgments about Hamas’ intentions, especially in the context of recent hopeful movements toward further peace agreements with Arab countries including a deal with Saudi Arabia, may well have played a background role in lowering the country’s vigilance. But it is no excuse for the massive intelligence failure that allowed Hamas to pull off its deadly surprise offensive. Indeed, Israeli wishful thinking is not even relevant to Saturday’s disaster, because the 24/7 scrutiny of enemy doings and undoings to detect “threat indicators” is not supposed to be switched off for any reason, ever.
In theory one may have to wait for years to find out what happened. But in reality there is only one way Hamas could have pulled off Saturday’s massive surprise: by feeding valuable, indeed “actionable” information to individuals who were Israeli intelligence sources, even though that information allowed the Israelis to destroy rockets before they could be launched against them and achieve other such successes. Because the destroyed rockets belonged to Islamic Jihad, which is the chief competitor for Hamas and Shia-leaning to boot (Iran pays the bills), Hamas itself paid no price to thus fill the “espionage horizon” below which yesterday’s attacks were planned.
There are techniques that with much skill and patience can uncover double agents, but no tricks can detect agents who are reporting as best they can what they actually know—and who report enough good intelligence to keep everybody too busy to look for what they do not know.
Evidently years of war with Israel and its intelligence services have taught Hamas how to fight them effectively.
Caught by surprise, because of errors that allowed Hamas to take the initiative, it is now Israel’s turn to act—and not just by bombing Hamas headquarters. A new approach altogether is needed, with nothing off the table.
US would have known. We just didn’t share with Israel.
Convinced them to follow the wrong trail of breadcrumbs.
In a number of videos, I have seen what appear to be East Africans; Sudanese or Somali wearing Hamas uniforms.
You think? Maybe it was a failure on our part too, or maybe our current priorities are involved.
bkmk
Israeli intelligence ignored their responsibility, instead dedicated themselves to overthrowing Israel’s elected government. Leadership should be permanently imprisoned and underlings fired and lose government pensions.
I wonder how surprised we will be in the USA when sleeper cells start killing Americans by the thousands across the country. Sleeper cells of illegal immigrants.
The Arab that murder the policeman in Fargo a short time ago was heading for the street fair with tens of thousands in attendance. He had at least two portable propane tanks ready to explode. We have not hear too much about him. We do know he was from Syria-the home ISIS.
Sudanese
I don’t think I will be too hard on Israel. After all, our own intelligence community did not stop 911.
“US would have known. We just didn’t share with Israel.”
Why would the Neocons who control the US Government do anything to keep Israelis from being killed? After all, they hate Netanyahu only slightly less than Putin, and the more Israelis that die, the more of a political problem that Netanyahu has.
This may be a political failure more than a intelligence failure. Politicians would make the decision to believe that Hamas was helping the Palestinian population and holding off attacking Israel, not the military. It is hard to believe that Israeli intelligence did not notice the potential threat Hamas was building up over time, or that they missed there were holes in information they were getting.
Authoritarians welcome crises as excuses to curtail civil liberties, increase surveillance, and hold political prisoners without trial indefinitely.
How did they train with all those para gliders without being detected. I suspect all the training took place in Iran.
Isn’t half [or more] of Israel against Netanyahu?
Our “Intelligence” Agencies didn’t stop BiXiden.
Just sayin’
Israel Hamas attack - bump for later....
Another question: did the Biden administration know and refuse to do anything or was it a massive intelligence failure by Biden’s CIA and NSA to give Iran 6 billion dollars and to give Hamas 65 million dollars just before these acts?
Bingo. Our Deep State was involved too. EATH TO THE US AND ISRAEL DEEP STATES!
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