Impartial state commission of inquiry into Oct. 7 — now

If there is a single issue that terrifies Benjamin Netanyahu, aside from the chance of his corruption trial being concluded, it is the prospect of an independent, impartial state commission of inquiry into the disastrous events of Oct. 7 and his conduct of Israel’s wars for the following two years.

In an attempt to counter this, the coalition government has made clear its ill intention of establishing its own commission of inquiry, one for which Netanyahu himself plans to chair a panel of ministers that would determine the commission’s powers, while half its members would be selected by Netanyahu’s governing coalition and half by the parliamentary opposition. Seemingly, this would create a parity between the coalition and the opposition, representing a broad national consensus; in actuality, it is aimed at politicizing the inquiry, avoiding a conclusion and failing to discover the truth.

Under the existing law, which the coalition parties are attempting to circumvent, it is obvious that once the government draws up a letter of appointment outlining the commission’s mandate, it is the prerogative of the judicial branch, specifically the president of the Supreme Court, to appoint the members of the panel of inquiry, chaired by a judge, sitting or retired.

Most significantly, once the commission is mandated and formed, it is not answerable to any government agency or authority, but the other way round. This ensures that this investigative mechanism is the most authoritative, independent and legally empowered body under Israeli law — and this is what most Israelis have expressed as their preferred option.

The Israeli government has been constantly bending the law and legal precedence to suit its members and evade the truth

Yossi Mekelberg

All past Israeli governments have respected this legal arrangement, as you would expect, but the current one has been constantly bending the law and legal precedence to suit its members and evade the truth and the justice that all victims of this awful war deserve.

Needless to say, whoever was in charge of Israel’s security on Oct. 7, 2023, failed in the most colossal manner and with the most tragic consequences in the country’s history. For this, there is no need for months to pass or for endless deliberations, hundreds of witnesses and tonnes of documents. Their manifest failures should by now have seen them removed from any public office.

Nevertheless, the commission is necessary in order that we learn from this catastrophe, prevent future ones and do justice. Moreover, the vast majority of security chiefs on that cataclysmic day have already left their positions and Yoav Galant, the minister of defense at the time, is no longer in government. But Prime Minister Netanyahu and the rest of his government continue to deny any responsibility, which is a preposterous claim, and refuse to leave their ministerial positions, as if it did not happen under their watch.

The “simple” task of the inquiry is to establish who and what was responsible for the conditions that made possible Hamas’ surprise attack on Israeli communities bordering Gaza, and with unbearable ease and consequences. The breadth of the investigation must include every aspect of political decision-making, military preparedness and civil–military relations that led to the failure to protect Israelis from being killed, taken hostage and having their houses destroyed. But it must also consider the conduct of the war that followed, which left the country’s leaders facing charges of genocide and other war crimes.

True to Netanyahu’s customary tendency to deflect from his own responsibility and to prolong any legal process, the bill tabled in the Knesset proposes that the investigation go as far back as to include his predecessor, Yitzhak Rabin, for the Oslo Accords, and Ariel Sharon, for his unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. This is laughable and infuriating in equal measure.

Since these two events, Netanyahu has been in office for a combined 20 years and he could have rectified their consequences if anything was wrong with either of them. What should be investigated in relation to Oslo is Netanyahu’s contribution to the lethally toxic atmosphere that ended in the assassination of Rabin and probably to the inability of the Oslo Accords to reach their ultimate conclusion of peace based on a two-state solution.

Israeli society will not be able to begin the process of healing unless it understands its failures, from the most tactical to the most strategic. The investigation must explain how Netanyahu masterminded the transfer of vast amounts of money into the hands of Hamas and how this was part of his grand strategy to prevent a peace between Israel and the Palestinians based on a two-state solution from ever becoming a reality.

The public would like to know how one of the most well-equipped and well-trained armies in the world missed so many pieces of information about Hamas’ preparations to attack. And when it happened, why the military was unable to react quickly and adequately to prevent this massacre. Instead, it fell to more personal initiatives and acts of heroism to avert an even worse disaster.

Israel will not be able to begin the process of healing unless it understands its failures, from the most tactical to the most strategic

Yossi Mekelberg

The Israeli people are also entitled to know whether there was a conscious decision to sacrifice many of the hostages, as many suspect is the case, to appease the most extreme elements in this government, in a complete distortion of the will of the people and of the ethos of not abandoning any civilian or soldier in captivity.

But the investigation should not stop there. Israeli society also needs to know the truth about why the objective of the war to eliminate Hamas and Islamic Jihad led to the killing of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, among them, intolerably, many thousands of children, while far more innocent people were killed than militants.

In addition, on behalf of Israel, most of the more than 2 million Palestinians were displaced several times, their cities, towns and villages systematically razed to the ground, and they were deprived of humanitarian aid, leading to mass hunger and the spread of disease, while hospitals and schools were bombed. With all the anger over the Hamas attack, is this what Israel would like to be associated with in generations to come?

There was hardly anyone in the international community that did not empathize with Israel immediately after Oct. 7 or did not support its right to go after the perpetrators. Nevertheless, such support should have never been a license to avenge and deter by killing innocent people en masse — and there is more than enough evidence from statements by senior Israeli officials that this was the case. It was also never a license to advance the cause of occupying Gaza in the long term and suggesting the rebuilding of the Israeli settlements there, or even suggesting the forced transfer of the Gazan people out of the Gaza Strip.

An impartial commission of enquiry could and must address all these issues and submit at least an interim report before the next general election, so the electorate will be able to cast their vote in full awareness of what has brought this country to the worst two years of its history and international isolation.

• Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. X: @YMekelberg