With the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War—last Monday on the Jewish calendar, and next week on the Gregorian—Israelis are revisiting the inability of their intelligence agencies to predict an Arab attack. Ze’ev Begin and Yigal Carmon, meanwhile, focus on a different anniversary, and a different lapse. Why they ask, didn’t security officials see the evidence that Yasir Arafat had no intention of ending his conflict with the Jewish state following the signing of the Oslo Accords—despite the fact that he said so publicly on numerous occasions?

At the time, the majority of the Israeli public were in favor of the peace offered by the Oslo Accords, and Israel’s intelligence analysts were not immune to the spirit of the times. . . . Julius Caesar noted that “men are quick to believe that which they wish to be true,” thereby removing certain defense mechanisms. . . . The public discourse about the speeches by Arafat and other top PLO officials was limited, since raising doubts about Arafat’s true intentions was considered to be undermining the great ideal of peace that was supposedly being realized.

Indeed, the misinterpretation of Arafat’s actions and their significance was reinforced socially. Those who publicly raised the issue of the PLO leadership’s incitement against Israel were accused of being motivated only by their political disposition. In addition, a false symmetry emerged in the eyes of the Israeli public between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side: Israeli opponents of Oslo were considered opponents of peace, and the Israeli government a pursuer of peace; therefore, since Hamas was an opponent of peace, it must be that the PLO was also a pursuer of peace, like the Israeli government.

For a long time, . . . as evidence was piling up that Arafat and his group were grossly violating the Accords, the Israeli public was willing to accept the bizarre explanation that these violations were in fact necessary for the sake of peace: Israel signed an agreement with Arafat; in order to implement the agreement Arafat must politically survive among his people; to survive, he must violate the agreements [with anti-Israel incitement and the like]. In other words, the agreement between Israel and the PLO could only be implemented by being violated.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.