You have to feel for George Orwell.
Here was the office of the prime minister of Israel making Orwell’s Newspeak, the language of Oceania, pale in comparison. Mr. Netanyahu’s office, reacting to the publication of the Shin Bet security service’s internal inquiry on the causes behind the October 7 debacle, lashed out at the agency’s director, Ronen Bar. He accused him of “misreading the intelligence picture on 7 October 2023 and being transfixed by ‘the concept'” — a term used in Israel, conceptzia, since the 1973 Yom Kippur War fiasco.
Orwell was undoubtedly cringing in jealous agony at that moment, thinking: How was my “1984” dystopian book bested so easily? The spectacular audacity of this pure fabrication retroactively put every mendacious leader in history to shame.
Mr. Netanyahu, the self-proclaimed world-renowned, consummate warrior on terrorism and the ultimate protector of Israel, invented this malignant “concept.” He recklessly concocted a sweeping concept according to which Hamas could be deterred and its non-belligerency could be bought with money, so Israel would persuade, encourage and vet Qatari funds being funneled into the Gaza Strip.
A strong Hamas in Gaza would, by extension, weaken the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, providing Netanyahu with a pretext for never entering negotiations on a final settlement with the Palestinians, because “there’s no credible partner on the other side.”
This from a man who had hugged Yasser Arafat as early as 1998. Not only did Netanyahu invent, develop and polish this strategy, but his devotion to “the concept” warrants an eponymous doctrine: “The Netanyahu Doctrine”: Strengthen Hamas, then blame the entire world if it proved to be fundamentally wrong — which, tragically, it was.
The Shin Bet report is self-flagellating. Bar not only took full responsibility for the agency’s failure to provide timely, accurate intelligence on Hamas’ intentions. He also shouldered the blame for failing to anticipate Hamas well before October 2023. He has previously said he intends to resign over this abject failure.
Bar’s mea culpa was resounding not because it was right and pertinent, but because responsibility is an alien concept for Netanyahu. Five hundred and sixteen days after the calamitous attack, not once has he admitted that he is responsible for what happened on his watch as a direct result of his policy.
Yes, the Shin Bet and the army bore the brunt of the intelligence failure and the tactical and operational response that day, but “the concept” is 100 percent made in Netanyahu. Even the Shin Bet’s claim that it objected to Qatari money being transferred to Hamas cannot conceal the fact that everything Qatar did was at Netanyahu’s request and approval. He even secured U.S. support for this policy from the Trump administration in 2019.
Presumably, Netanyahu and his parroting minions wanted a more contrite report with an understated, elegant prologue beginning with: “I, Ronen Bar, as head of the organization and on behalf of all Shin Bet workers, wish to apologize from the bottom of my heart for failing, misleading and betraying the trust of the great, the glorious and the magnificent leader, our Sun King, the savior of Israel, the lord protector of the West, the custodian of Jewish civilization, the love child of Joshua Bin Nun and Winston Churchill, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu.
“What I callously caused Mr. Netanyahu in my abject performance will forever be an indelible stain on my reputation. I cannot ever repent enough nor expect to be absolved of these atrocious sins, and, therefore, I hereby tender my resignation with profound shame.”
Surely Netanyahu would have added a few points, but that’s the gist of what he believes he is owed. Instead, the Shin Bet report was harshly self-critical and dared to point a finger at the government, with Netanyahu being the prime minister for 13 of the last 15 years.
The Netanyahu versus Israel’s defense establishment story does not begin after October 7. In fact, it is a defining theme in his career.
It began in the late 1990s as fervent anti-elite animosity, a belief that he is persecuted by Israel’s elites — jealous ingrates who do not fully appreciate his historical qualities.
His incendiary rhetoric before the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 was embellished as anti-secular-liberal Israel rhetoric when he was prime minister from 1996 to 1999.
Then, in 2017, a police investigation began, culminating in 2019 with Netanyahu being indicted on three counts of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
Around that time, he adopted Donald Trump’s rich lexicon of Newspeak: deep state, fake news, liberal elites, woke, vast security service conspiracies against him. In January 2023, he launched his constitutional coup, essentially declaring war on his own country: the judiciary, checks and balances, the civil service, civic society, “the left,” and the democratic system.
Peel off the anti-elitist and you get just another wannabe quasi-dictator. He evolved, like many of his MAGA friends in Washington, into an anti-elite elitist. Here is a privileged, successful elitist who invents enemies, manufactures demons and concocts conspiracies that are supposedly directed against him.
The Mossad and the Shin Bet were always part of the elite, and he saw them as imaginary nemeses. In October 2023, all hell broke loose. Now the army was part of the cabal out to get him.
After a few days, Netanyahu instigated a campaign underlined by a clear narrative: he was deliberately duped. Duped by the military, the Shin Bet and they all, out of nowhere, think that the prime minister is responsible for Israel’s day of infamy.
Therefore, he cannot risk a state commission of inquiry or an election. To avoid those, he needs the war to continue and gradually purge the defense establishment. This is where Ronen Bar fits in the story, and the question is where it is going.
First published in Haaretz, 05.03.2025
