Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s push to overhaul the country’s judiciary created a national distraction that is largely to blame for the slaughter of more than 1,400 Israelis by the Palestinian militant group Hamas earlier this month, according to a former Israeli intelligence chief.
In a new interview with Politico, Amos Yadlin, 71, offered insight into the national tragedy, which was also an enormous intelligence failure.
As the former chief of Israeli military intelligence, Yadlin directed the destruction of Syria’s burgeoning nuclear program and the sabotage of Iran’s. He remains a respected security figure, briefing members of Israel’s war cabinet.
“There were nine months that Netanyahu pushed Israel into a domestic crisis that took all the energy of everybody,” Yadlin said. “The attention of Israel was inside and not outside. And Netanyahu got all the warnings — from his defense minister, from the chief of staff, from the head of intelligence, from the head of Shin Bet [Israeli intelligence service] and from independent writers like me, like others — that this is weakening Israel deterrence and endangering Israeli national security, that he is risking and weakening every source of Israeli power — the high-tech industry, the Air Force, the intelligence, the deterrence, the relations with the world, with the U.S.”
Yadlin told Politico that Israel’s objective in this war is not merely to retaliate for the massacre of its citizens; it is to end Hamas’ 16-year rule in the Gaza Strip.
“We are going to destroy Hamas, as Nazi Germany was destroyed,” he said, adding that Israel would launch a global operation to assassinate Hamas leaders similar to the campaign it launched in the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
As it gears up for an imminent ground invasion of Gaza, Israel has activated 300,000 reservists. Yadlin said that the Jewish state made a huge miscalculation in how it viewed Hamas that ultimately led to the terror attack.
“The paradigm that led to this catastrophic failure was the paradigm that Hamas had become moderate, that it felt accountable to 2 million people in Gaza, that it was rebuilding Gaza, caring for the welfare of the Gazans, and that it was a responsible address,” he said. “Big mistake.
"Hamas is a terror organization that is committed to the destruction of Israel, ISIS-level, even worse than ISIS — killing children in front of their parents … they even took pictures of it, posting on the social networks, very proud of their shocking war crimes. So Israel needed to change the paradigm.
“We refer to Hamas from now on as the government of ‘Hamas-stan’ in Gaza, a neighboring country that attacked Israel, and we declare war on this country,” he continued, “and we are going to destroy this state, very much like what the Allies did to Germany in 1945, very much like what the U.S. did to ISIS, to the caliphate, in Iraq and Syria, 2014 to 2019.
"We hope that after Hamas is destroyed, the [Palestinian Authority] may come back to Gaza. There are even more innovative ideas of an Arab mandate — maybe a consortium of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — that will control the place. We are not there yet.
"It took the Americans years to try and destroy al-Qaida in Afghanistan or the jihadists in Iraq and five years against ISIS. Gaza is smaller, the Israelis are fighting close to home, and we can do it maybe in months — two months, three months — but it is not going to be so quick, so we have time to think about the solution as the operation goes on.”
Yadlin also said that the United States does not need to help Israel with its military operation in Gaza, but that “the U.S. interest is to try and prevent regional war.”
“They sent two aircraft carriers to the Eastern Mediterranean, basically conveying a deterrence message to Hezbollah and Iran: ‘If you attack Israel, we are with Israel,’” he said. “And this is the reason I think Hezbollah is very careful, and Iran is very careful.
“Israel has its best military power on the northern border and I think [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah knows that, and so he will try not to start a full-scale war,” he continued. “But, if he does, Israel is ready, and the U.S. may join — shoulder to shoulder. It never happened before.
"The U.S. supported Israel with weapons, with diplomatic support, with financial support. They never fought directly for Israel. In this case, the fact that Israel is restraining itself vis-a-vis Hezbollah brought a commitment from the U.S.: If Hezbollah attacks first, don’t be surprised — the U.S. may participate in this war.”