Weekly Commentary: Key Conclusion From October 2023 Disaster Ignored -
Critical That Security Personnel Can Contact Political Echelon
Dr. Aaron Lerner 27 February 2025

They aren't connecting the dots!

Everyone in Israel is asking why Hamas's attack plan, codenamed "Jericho
Wall," as well as the warnings of the IDF spotters, was ignored, but the
glaringly obvious operational conclusion is missing from the conversation.

Everyone knows that the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister didn't
even know about "Jericho Wall".

We also are witness to the infantile argument that if, by some miracle, PM
Netanyahu had searched specifically for "Jericho Wall", a document he didn't
know existed, he could have found it among the hundreds of thousands of
documents in the security data base.

To be clear: I don't know if things would have played out differently if the
DM and PM had been aware of this information.

Maybe they would have also ignored it.

But it wasn't up to the security echelon to make this decision.

I am not raising this issue to defend Netanyahu from criticism. Based on
open-source information, I was crying out for years about Hamas and
Hezbollah, warning that they are "patient" rather than "deterred".

The security echelon already has a set-up which allows for anyone in the
security echelon to jump the chain of command to provide critical
information to the head of their organization.

We urgently need to extend this arrangement to its logical conclusion: a
set-up which allows for anyone in the security echelon to jump the chain of
command to provide critical information to the heads of the political
echelon, the Minister of Defense, and the Prime Minister.

The DM and PM won't be flooded with reports and warnings from low level
people in the security echelon for the simple reason that they won't benefit
from the protections of whistle blowers.

They will be literally betting their careers on the importance of the
information they are sharing.

From what we know today of the frustration of the lower echelons dealing
with "Jericho Wall" and the spotters, It made sense that these same people
didn't contact the top of their own security groups because they knew that
the security echelon was blinded by the "conception".

It is reasonable, however, to conclude that they would have reached out to
Netanyahu if there was a way to do it, knowing that if there was a record
that the information was brought to his attention that Netanyahu, ever
fearful of future commissions of enquiry, would have acted on it.

It is with a heavy heart that I note that even in the national camp there
are many who vociferously oppose making it possible for people in the
security echelon to jump the chain of command to reach the PM and DM with
critical information.

For the life of me I don't know why so many good Israelis are unable to
connect the dots.

There is legislation stuck in the Knesset addressing this issue.

Even a dog who gets hit by a car learns not to go into the street again.

We urgently need to learn our lesson.

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IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis

Since 1992 providing news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on
Arab-Israeli relations

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