How Hamas fooled Israel – and the West

How to explain Israel’s intelligence and military failure? The obvious comparison – one Israelis themselves are making – is with the 1973 October War, when the country was sucker-punched by Egyptian and Syrian forces on Yom Kippur, the Day of Repentance. That became known as a failing of the konzeptzia, the Hebrew term for the way we frame the world with all its attendant risks. It seems to have happened again.

In the West, Israel is generally seen as either admirably or reprehensibly tough-minded, taking the hardest line against its enemies whatever the circumstances and punching back twice as hard. The trouble is, it’s not at all clear that this is true – now at least. 

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks tough. But if you look at the way he has handled the Iran file, for example, he has been extremely cautious, authorising air strikes against IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) positions in Syria and Lebanon, but taking care not to provoke Hezbollah – and relying on clandestine rather than overt activity inside Iran itself.

Israel’s recent domestic turmoil, over the coalition government’s approach to judicial and legal reform, has, of course, taken up much of the available political oxygen for months.