{"id":289356,"date":"2026-02-13T13:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/289356\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T13:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:23:07","slug":"netanyahus-scarlet-letter-cannot-rewrite-october-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/289356\/","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu’s scarlet letter cannot rewrite October 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Truth springs up from the earth,\u201d this column warned Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> last fall (\u201cThe truth about denial,\u201d 21 November 2025), and \u201cjustice looks down from the heaven\u201d (Psalms 85:12).<\/p>\n

The prime minister, as his latest attempt to distort the truth makes plain, was unconvinced.<\/p>\n

Deluding himself he can manipulate public opinion no matter what the people saw, felt, and endured, Netanyahu this week released a 55-page booklet containing his responses to State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman\u2019s questions about the October 7 fiasco\u2019s events.<\/p>\n

Sifting through its pages, a Martian might think it represents a sincere effort to expose the military thinking and political decisions that preceded Hamas\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n

For instance, replying to the comptroller\u2019s question about his Gaza<\/a> strategy, Netanyahu sprinkles quotes from a cabinet meeting in 2014 in which the IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), and the day\u2019s ministers of defense, economics and justice all opposed conquering the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Similarly, concerning the days immediately before the massacre, the quotes include one from a representative of Military Intelligence that \u201cwe should preserve [in Gaza] the situation that is convenient to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

And concerning the funneling of Qatari cash<\/a> into the Strip, Netanyahu declares that \u201call the security agencies presented the funding as an indispensable component in preventing escalation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee meeting at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, February 5, 2026 (credit: YONATAN SINDEL\/FLASH90)Netanyahu’s attempt to evade responsibility<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Netanyahu, the readers of this archival hodgepodge are not Martians but the people who have been here throughout the events it is designed to redraw as part of his ongoing effort to evade responsibility and flee the truth.<\/p>\n

The tactic of this publication is as obvious as the strategy behind it.<\/p>\n

The tactic is to cherry-pick quotes from protocols<\/a> which the rest of us can\u2019t access, and thus avoid the full, systematic, and impartial scrutiny that this war\u2019s documentation demands. The strategy is also obvious: torpedo the emergence of a judicial commission of inquiry.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu knows that a judicial panel\u2019s creation after the Yom Kippur War resulted in Golda Meir\u2019s departure, and another\u2019s creation in the wake of the First Lebanon War ended Menachem Begin\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

Like David after learning of Bath-sheba\u2019s pregnancy, Netanyahu fears the truth; the truth about the war that has his name written all over it.<\/p>\n

This surfaced forcefully already in summer 2024, when he assigned Transportation Minister Miri Regev with planning the ceremonies of October 7\u2019s first anniversary.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, the site Regev chose for the commemoration\u2019s main event was not one of the five kibbutzim where 245 Israelis were murdered, and from which most of the hostages were abducted. Instead, she \u2013 meaning Netanyahu \u2013 chose Ofakim, which was also victimized but much less than the kibbutzim.<\/p>\n

The rationale was clear: kibbutznikim don\u2019t vote Likud. They might use the opportunity to scream the truth. Ofakim votes Likud. Its people might swallow our lies.<\/p>\n

Like the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell\u2019s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Netanyahu set out, then and there, to rewrite the past, in this case by diminishing the kibbutzim\u2019s dominant share among the Hamas invasion\u2019s victims.<\/p>\n

The same fear made the prime minister fail to attend even one of the kibbutznikim\u2019s funerals, or visit any of the hundreds of shiva houses where the slain kibbutznikim were mourned.<\/p>\n

Fearing the truth and its most natural and potent vehicle, a judicial commission of inquiry, Netanyahu then had his people launch an all-out attack on Supreme Court President Isaac Amit. The same fear then made him reject President Isaac Herzog\u2019s suggestion that the commission be headed by Amit\u2019s deputy, Justice Noam Sohlberg, even though he is a conservative jurist appointed, for that reason, by Netanyahu\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

And last fall that same fear made Netanyahu pass a cabinet decision that the war would be probed by a panel selected not by judges but by politicians, a cowardly choice that even in its manipulative format has yet to be executed.<\/p>\n

Now that same fear produced this week\u2019s clumsy attempt to hoodwink any seeker of truth. The truth, alas, will not play by Netanyahu\u2019s script.<\/p>\n

The truth that Netanyahu has resolved to bury rests on three foundations, all of which don\u2019t even need an investigation, because they are glaring.<\/p>\n

The first is a televised vow outside Ashkelon on February 3, 2009, following a rocket attack from Gaza, in which a grandstanding Netanyahu said: \u201cWe can\u2019t rely on miracles. We need action, action that will remove the threat. There is only one act that will do this, and it is to collapse Hamas\u2019s rule in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, who was leader of the opposition at the time, won the following week\u2019s general election, and then served as prime minister for 12 straight years. He had all the time in the world to do as he promised. In fact, he did the exact opposite.<\/p>\n

The second truth is that the policy of cultivating Hamas, despite his booklet\u2019s quotes, was Netanyahu\u2019s idea. He had two reasons, which he refuses to admit: strategically, he thought Gaza was marginal, and ideologically, he thought cultivating Hamas would weaken the Palestinian Authority and thus strengthen Israel\u2019s grip on the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Lastly, and most crucially, no matter what any other official said or did, Netanyahu was in charge. That is what he fears a judicial commission will rule, and that is why he is out to besmirch the judges, twist the facts, and sabotage any panel that would unveil them.<\/p>\n

It is a strategy second in its immorality only to its futility.<\/p>\n

Like Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s character Arthur Dimmesdale \u2013 the church minister whose cowardice makes him join the investigation of the married woman he himself got pregnant \u2013 Netanyahu is trying to glue to others the scarlet letter he should wear himself. It failed for that tormented priest, and it will fail for this godless enemy of truth.<\/p>\n

www.MiddleIsrael.net
The writer, a Hartman Institute fellow, is author of Ha\u2019Sfar Ha\u2019Yehudi Ha\u2019Aharon (The Last Jewish Frontier), Yediot Sfarim 2025, a sequel to Theodor Herzl\u2019s The Old New Land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Truth springs up from the earth,\u201d this column warned Benjamin Netanyahu last fall (\u201cThe truth about denial,\u201d 21…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,1031,85,46,43,112344,73,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-289356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-hamas","11":"tag-idf","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-october-7-commission-of-inquiry","16":"tag-shin-bet","17":"tag-the-october-7-massacre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}