The Oct 7th Blame Game Is Heading In To Its Most Crucial Phase

(There's More Than Enough To Go Around.)

The results of several of the piecemeal investigations into the failures which led up to October 7th massacre have been released.

The reason it’s piecemeal is because PM Netanyahu refuses to appoint a state commision of inquiry. The reason for that refusal depends who you ask. Netanyahu claims that the commission would be biased against him. The opposition claims that it’s because he knows that the results would be damning and would lay out in spectacular detail his decade and half history of trying to treat Hamas as what Obama might have referred to as a JV terror squad . Personally, I suspect there’s some truth to both sides- any state commission of inquiry is likely to include people who dislike Bibi for one reason or another. It’s also undeniably true that he’s been prime minister for most of the last 15 years. Unlike, say, Trump blaming Obama for his own messed up Covid response (which was weird in its own right for all sorts of reasons) Bibi really can’t blame ‘the previous administration.’ He is the previous administration. And the one before that. Etc. Except for a year and half from June 2021 to December 2022, it’s been Bibi, Bibi, Bibi, Bibi since 2009. That’s 1 (and change) trumps, a biden and 2 obamas ago. Meaning, Bibi’s roughly in the position that FDR would have been had he been alive during Pearl Harbor. What’s he going to do? Blame deep state holdovers from the Herbert Hoover administration?

All of which is to say, 1) Bibi is a really talented politician if he’s managed to stick around for so long¹ and 2) he needs all of those talents to manage the current turmoil with his premiership intact.

Which brings me to the actual cause of this semi-rant. As I mentioned at the outset, some piecemeal investigations have been done. And it seems that Bibi is furious that the shin bet blamed his policies in its report of what went wrong. So a few things are happening. First, his underlings are going full meme-war against shin bet chief Ronen Bar. This, from communications minister Shlomo Kari, apparently passes for a political commentary/cartoon of some sort:

Really not sure why they have Bar wearing a giant Hershey Kiss for a hat, but whatever.

Another thing which is happening is that Bibi appears to be paving the way to fire shin bet chief Bar. (As to why he needs to ‘pave the way’ and can’t just fire him, that’s a whole separate dysfunctional aspect of the Israeli political system. The attorney general is of the opinion that Bibi needs to consult her before he does so. Why should he have to consult his attorney general- who presumably is just his advisor- before firing a different political appointee? Because the attorney general says that you need to talk to the attorney general to make sure that the firing is being done for the proper reasons? Who asked her? No one. Why can’t Bibi fire her too? He can. Why doesn’t he? Because he needs to convene a panel of some sort before doing so. Who says? Not clear, but probably the attorney general.)

At any rate, Bibi has been leaking for some time his displeasure with Bar. Apparently, he blames Bar for not negotiating well enough to free the hostages. Now, Bibi has this weird shtick where he says things in the name of some ‘senior political source.’ Why does he do that? I suppose only he knows for sure, but probably it’s a way of maintaining plausible deniability in case there’s a really strong negative public reaction to what the unnamed senior source said. So here’s an article from Ynet, via google translate.

https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skwid04iyx

The previous confrontation [i.e. before the current spat over the investigation findings] between the two was only two weeks ago, and was related to the hostage deal. A senior source familiar with the details blamed the previous negotiating team and Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar in particular, and the Prime Minister's Office hinted that they were actually behind the "senior source familiar with the details," as opposition leader Lapid claimed. A source familiar with the details of the negotiations rejected the claims from the Prime Minister's entourage, saying: "The release of the hostages was achieved because the Shin Bet chief pressured Hamas, and at the same time - Witkoff pressured the Prime Minister. Everything else is an attempt to rewrite history." Security sources added that "the criticism is not clear - because at the end of the day, the summaries and the outline of Phase A were approved by the Prime Minister. He was involved in every stage and approved each of the stages in the process." Previously, security sources involved in the negotiations said in response to the "senior source's" accusations: "Everything that happens in the deal was sewn up by the original negotiating team. The team determined in advance that it was possible to reduce the phases at the end. There are two more phases anyway: live abductees on Saturday and then bodies. It's the same agreement. The one who wanted to get everything done early is Hamas, which understands that Netanyahu does not want a second phase - and wants to leverage the achievements of the first phase as soon as possible."

The mind-boggling hilarity of all this is sniping is exceeded only by the horror of the actual situation being sniped about.

More from Netanyahu’s ‘office:’

Netanyahu's office said that "the claim by 'negotiators' that Hamas is the one who brought about the early release phase is a new peak of absurdity and echoes of Hamas propaganda. About two weeks ago, the prime minister set the goal of releasing the remaining live abductees of phase one in one phase instead of two.

"The understandings were reached as a result of the prime minister's firm stance and his directive to thicken IDF forces around and inside Gaza, and from US President Trump's ultimatum. "Let us recall that Hamas announced its refusal to release our hostages and thereby violate the deal - and only Israel's resolute stance led to Hamas's collapse."

All of this would be great fun and games if there weren’t hostages rotting in Gaza and multiple security threats from all 7 different fronts. I guess we can only hope and pray that no one gets hurt…

1. Note that 2009 wasn’t even Bibi’s first go-round. Here’s an article about him titled ‘Bye Bye Bibi?’

He's one of the most skillful political salesmen alive. His mastery of media manipulation is second to none. His instinct for the jugular is unmatched.

So why is he in danger of losing his job?

You can read the article here.

Now check the date. It’s from 1999. The twin towers were still standing then. People were worrying about Y2K causing everyone to think it’s 1901 again. Republicans were still claiming that people who have extramarital affairs are unfit for public office. It was that long ago.