Netanyahu Is Still Following the Same Failed Gaza Strategy

Exactly what the Netanyahu government’s inquiry into Oct. 7 will find and how independent it will be are open questions. But Israel’s security agencies have already offered damning indictments in their own internal inquiries. Notably, they have condemned the country’s prewar “conflict management” strategy in Gaza. Israel’s policies toward Hamas, they concluded, were “paradoxical” in that the group was deemed “illegitimate, yet there was no effort to develop an alternative.” The result was a strategy that over-relied on military force at the expense of a long-term political vision, or what is now called a “day after” plan.

After two years of foot-dragging, Israel’s government recently voted to establish a commission of inquiry into the causes of Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Detractors were quick to argue that this would be a whitewashing exercise, given that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long refused to accept any blame. Implicitly, however, Netanyahu has acknowledged his responsibility by repeatedly ruling out any return to Gaza’s prewar status quo—one that he himself designed and perpetuated.

After two years of foot-dragging, Israel’s government recently voted to establish a commission of inquiry into the causes of Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Detractors were quick to argue that this would be a whitewashing exercise, given that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long refused to accept any blame.