Former head of the Israeli Defense Forces Tamir Hayman: “Israel’s basic security situation has changed, and we missed it”

“October 7 must not be seen as a car accident,” said Tamir Heyman, chairman of the INSS (Institute for National Security Studies) at a conference entitled ‘The Methodology of Intelligence Assessment’, which was held today (Tuesday) at Tel Aviv University with the participation of the heads of the National Security Agency and senior members of the community The intelligence in the past. “One must not think – if only there was another UAV, if only the news would arrive on time. If you interpret it that way, you miss Israel’s biggest learning engine since its founding, which requires a reexamination of the basic concept of national security.”

The Shia axis, the Palestinian division and the division in Israel

Heyman, who was the head of AMN until 2021, commented on his role in relation to the difficult events. “I am as angry as some of the others. I have an additional burden – I bear full responsibility, and there is not a night that I do not ask myself these questions.”

According to him, there has been a change in Israel’s basic security situation in recent years, which was not picked up by the intelligence and political parties. He listed several factors for change, at the strategic and tactical level.

“The Shiite axis has reached, according to its consciousness, strategic superiority over the State of Israel. They have completed the building of Hezbollah’s power, exactly according to their plan at the end of the Second Lebanon War. They have created immunity for themselves through a network of proxies all around – in Iraq, Syria and other countries – and from their point of view they have obtained for themselves the The superiority required by their basic strategy,” Hyman listed the first factor.

According to him, the division in the Palestinian system also creates a strategic change: “The Palestinian system is experiencing tremendous fragmentation, a total disintegration. This has an advantage for those interested in separation, and it has a disadvantage because it is getting out of control. Each of the parts of the Palestinians has its own logic, and it is difficult to make a coherent assessment of it , although it is impossible to avoid, and then not accurate.”

To these factors, Heyman added internal reasons for the strategic change: “We are in the process of transitioning between the so-called State of Israel, between the covenant of destiny and the covenant of destiny of where it is going. This struggle is very difficult, and the war came at the peak of the process. It did not make anything common, the things that are there, and they returned In the last period before the surface”.

In terms of Hamas’s motivation to launch an attack, Heyman estimates that the defeat of Qassem Soleimani was a turning point in terms of the Shiite axis and the place of the Palestinians within it. “At the center of Soleimani’s perception was Iran and its fortification through activity in the Middle East. The one who replaces his perception is Nasrallah, who has a much more Middle Eastern orientation. You can say that he is pulling Tehran to Gaza, while Soleimani pulled Gaza to Tehran. It is not certain that Soleimani knew Where is Nusirat? Nasrallah knows. It changed the front of the resistance to something more accurate against Israel.”

so was caught The ‘Wall of Jericho’ attack plan in Israel

According to Hyman, Operation Wall Guard created a strategic change for Sinwar, after he realized that he did not have a good tool for the war against Israel: the missiles are no longer effective, and the raids during the campaign are not successful. “Abu Mazen will never give him a place, he was almost never elected in Gaza and activity began against Hamas. The public wants a fighter and not a statesman. He realized that taking over the Palestinian Authority through anesthesia and silence will no longer work.”

He also referred to the specific context of the war, which, according to him, was sharpened due to looting documents that reached the IDF following the operational activity. “There was also a concrete context,” Heyman said, “there was a sense of threat that an Israeli attack would come after the holidays. There was the desire to disrupt the regional process of normalization with Saudi Arabia, and the consciousness that he would never be able to release prisoners from prisons, that he needed something else.

“The crisis within the Israeli arena also played a role. The Shiite axis sees Israel’s internal disintegration as a goal. The Temple Mount was also there – there was a perception that Israel was going to make the prayer arrangements on the Temple Mount communal, similar to Hebron.”

According to him, Sinwar was wrong in his ability to harness all the axis elements to his plan, and in his perception of the centrality of the Palestinian struggle, and it was due to the fact that he was lied to and told that he was a “core component” of the resistance axis.

However, Hyman criticizes Israeli intelligence for not taking into account the possibility that it was wrong. “We had to understand that his mistake is irrelevant. If he perceives himself as part of the resistance, for him he enters the consciousness of a tremendous power that affects the rationality of decision-making. We did not refine it to the depth that makes us understand that we are in a danger zone.”

Heiman also noted that, despite the good intelligence, the Jericho Wall plan for an attack was perceived incorrectly in Israel. “It is seen as an operative plan – in Israeli terms it is a compass for the building of power, and something that does not happen. If we understood it as a plan for special operations, we would treat it differently.”

“We had two strategic commanders who gave a good story. Faced with the intensification of the axis, we have an anti-aircraft missile system – a system between the systems – we are wearing them out. And the second thing was that we have good intelligence.”

Hyman concluded by saying that the basic assumptions need to be undermined – the undermining of self-confidence. “We are in a period of post-trauma. This is the most unpleasant time to challenge the basic assumptions. Right now we need to get out of the basic assumptions.”

Along with this, he added that populist learning should be avoided: “For example, that now there are no more intentions, only capabilities. There is no such thing really, it is saying goodbye to the Israeli economy. And the second thing – there is no such thing as living with threats. You cannot live without threats, and there will always be risk management “.