By Daniel Frost
Political survival has always been about knowing how to keep people looking the other way. In Middle Eastern politics especially, you do not get security panics by accident. When news broke of that bizarre flydubai incident and the world’s eyes snapped to the sky, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team barely missed a beat. They went straight to work, milking the drama for all it was worth. And the timing? Let us just say it was almost too perfect. Netanyahu desperately needed to distract voters just as more and more evidence piled up showing he had received explicit, urgent warnings before the October 7, 2023 attacks and still did nothing at all.
For years, people accepted the official line: Israel’s vaunted security apparatus simply got caught off guard. It was chalked up as a failure of intelligence, a freak accident. But that story is falling apart. Every week, new leaks surface regional diplomats confirm that, right before the attacks, intelligence chiefs from both Egypt and the UAE personally flagged the danger. Egypt’s Abbas Kamel reached out directly: he warned Israel that things were about to explode in Gaza, flat out urging them to ease up on the blockade to stop a disaster. They barely got a reply. When warnings came from the Emiratis, President Mohammed bin Zayed himself taking the extraordinary step to press Netanyahu again, nothing. Netanyahu shrugged it all off, almost with studied boredom.
But the silence did not stop beyond Israel’s borders. Inside the country, domestic security officials were just as alarmed. Mediators like Sufian Abu Zaida relayed threats straight from Hamas leadership, and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar carried these warnings right to Netanyahu’s desk. The warnings were loud and clear. Yet the army kept shifting its best units out of Gaza and into the occupied West Bank, all to protect settler outposts. In their place, under trained, under equipped soldiers guarded the border, and their confused calls about strange activity went ignored by commanders up the chain.
Whistleblowers, intelligence leaks, and ignored warnings from regional allies continue to undermine official claims that leadership was merely caught off guard.
The moment the attacks happened, the government’s first move was not defense it was spin. State spokespeople rushed out unproven horror stories to Western news desks, looking to inflame public anger and buy the government some time. Many tales turned out to be exaggerated, or outright invented. But the effect was real: global audiences rallied, and Netanyahu had his pretext for massive military retaliation. Even when foreign journalists and brave investigators debunked the claims, the damage was done.
Why would any leader ignore so many explicit warnings? Well, you have to look at the bigger picture. For decades, Israeli right wing politicians have been more interested in “managing” the conflict with Gaza than actually resolving it. Keeping Gaza walled off, keeping Hamas alive as a boogeyman these moves played perfectly for anyone trying to rule without compromise. Netanyahu’s rivals, like Naftali Bennett, have accused him of standing by passively, but the reality cuts deeper. It was not just indifference; for some, letting tensions boil over created a perfect excuse to unleash unprecedented destruction on Gaza destruction hard liners had been dreaming about.
And now that campaign is seeing daylight, thanks to people breaking rank. The documentary NAZA, which shocked audiences at international film festivals, pulls no punches. “Naza” (named after the Hebrew military term for collateral damage) features testimony from dozens in intelligence and the military. They describe a chilling system: artificial intelligence programs like Lavender and Habsora spitting out kill lists, operators rubber stamping them, fully aware of the likely civilian casualties. It is mindless, automated destruction bureaucratic evil at warp speed, with barely a flicker of conscience from anybody involved.
Automation and AI systems like Lavender and Habsora transformed targeting into rapid, bureaucratic routine with full awareness of severe civilian impacts.
The result has been carnage: tens of thousands of civilians dead, cities bulldozed into oblivion, and famine looming. International law seems almost ornamental Western governments keep sending weapons and blocking UN censure no matter how damning the evidence gets. The constant finger pointing at Iran and other foreign targets never really held water; it just helped deflect blame from Netanyahu’s own occupation strategy.
Now, an exhausted Israeli public watches as Netanyahu falls back on his favorite trick stoking security scares when the polls look grim. Another crisis, another emergency protocol, another chance to pose as the nation’s ironclad protector. It is an old routine, but the cracks are showing. Whistleblowers, intelligence leaks, and pressure from longtime allies make it almost impossible to prop up the old image of innocent Israel, blindsided by events.
None of this was “just the fog of war.” The tragedy of October 7, and what followed, did not come out of nowhere or from bad luck. These were the foreseeable results of political choices a strategy of deliberate neglect and calculated escalation. By ignoring Arab allies, sidelining internal warnings, and putting land grabs ahead of basic security, leaders set the stage for disaster. Now that people around the world can see the evidence for themselves, it is getting harder to hide behind talk of defense. What is left is the grim portrait of a government willing to let destruction spiral for the sake of power and political survival while the human cost keeps climbing.
About the Author
Daniel Frost is a Foreign affairs columnist specializing in global geopolitics, European security, and strategic policy.