Haim Ramon: The military hierarchy insists on adhering to the concept, they have learned nothing from the failure

April 4, 2024   

Brigadier General Itay Baron's appointment as acting head of research shows that the Chief of Staff and the Minister of Defense learned nothing from October 7 and forgot nothing of the dangerous illusions they held before the Hamas attack. During his tenure as head of research, between 2011 and 2015, Brigadier General Baron was the one who led the concept of 'containing Hamas' that destroyed every good part of the Intelligence Branch. For his performance in Operation Protective Edge, Baron received a remark in the State Comptroller's report for not presenting the threat of the tunnels to the cabinet members "in its full force and significance." Even after his release from the IDF, Baron, in his role as deputy head of the INSS Research Institute, continued to promote this damned concept, to see Hamas as a dialogue partner, and to spread the illusion of a 'discouraged Hamas' that helped blind the military and political echelons to the danger inherent in the Hamas devil. For example, in November 2019, Baron explained that "Hamas is tired of conflicts and wars - they probably understood that the public in Gaza would not come out against them if they stood aside." In January 2020, Baron wrote in the INSS' "Strategic Assessment of Israel 2019-2020" report that Hamas does not desire escalation, and recommended that the political echelon "mark Hamas as a temporary responsible address in the Gaza Strip and achieve a prolonged ceasefire with it, in exchange for extensive economic concessions." In May 2021, during Operation Wall Guardian, Baron estimated that Hamas deterrence had been achieved. In April 2023, in an extensive interview with the Haaretz newspaper, Baron explained that for the "old" problems of intelligence, "various biases of perception, failure of imagination, adherence to a concept," "we have found solutions. They are not hermetic, but we have reached some kind of agreement. We want the best information we can obtain to enter the room, as well as a plurality of opinions. This is actually part of the Israeli lesson after 1973. No more decisiveness, but doubts, debate, pluralism." But in reality, the intelligence, the Chief of Staff, and the Minister of Defense not only insist on adhering to the concept that led to the October 7 disaster, but they are determined to continue appointing people who are consistently and decisively wrong, who hold only one opinion, who were impervious to any different opinion, and who will lead us to further disasters in the future. The public should demand that everyone who was part of the concept at the political, military, and public levels should refrain from engaging in public affairs for the foreseeable future, and certainly the leaders of the concept should not be appointed to important positions such as research sergeant.

• From Haim Ramon's Twitter