Cassandra of Gaza: Why Israel Failed to Anticipate the 10/7 Attacks

The war in Gaza is far from over, yet the events that ignited it are still under more scrutiny. The attacks launched by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip, led by Hamas and their allies, on October 7th were a spectacular failure on Israel’s part, its intelligence, and the entire security system it has imposed on the strip since 2007. The Israeli political and security apparatus will be a subject of investigation for its failure to keep Hamas at bay, and its poor intelligence, media, and poor military performance during the ongoing war. Such investigation will reveal more mishaps and cracks in the techno-military structure of surveillance of Gaza and the suffocating policy of besiege. Waiting for such findings and more, let us discuss this failure as a perfect Cassandra event, which is a failure to anticipate a looming catastrophe despite the unmistakable signals.

What is a Cassandra Event?

In Hellenic mythology, Cassandra was a gifted and damned priestess of Apollo. She had the ability to predict the future, yet she would not be heard or believed. She correctly warned the Trojans, her people, against the looming invasion of the Greeks but was never believed. Based on this legend, detailed in Homer’s Iliad, scholars of strategic foresight and futurists coined the term “Cassandra Event.” It is best detailed in the 2017 book Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes by Richard Clarke and R. P. Eddy.

Drawing on several catastrophes that took place because of dismissed warnings, Clarke and Eddy proposed the “Cassandra Coefficient” model to improve policymakers’ and analysts’ ability to develop systems of early warnings. In doing so, they highlighted the complex system in which predictions are made, ignored, and turned into catastrophes. Their answer to anticipate political, technological, environmental, social, and economic disasters is to detect “Cassandras” or develop a technique of Casandra Coefficient that involves four components:

(1)?? Warning against a threat or a risk in question.

(2)?? Policymakers who need, or require, to respond to the threat.

(3)?? Cassandras who warn against the threat.

(4)?? Critics who dismiss the warning because of their biases or political interests.

A Cassandra event, therefore, is a complex phenomenon that juxtaposes the personal, perceptual, and political structures of the system. It has often taken place as a result of the political failure to anticipate the threats, to perceive them correctly, and act accordingly. Applying this technique proposed by Clarke and Eddy on the 10/7 Hamas attacks, we may grasp a better picture of the question of what went wrong with the Israeli system of control over Gaza. But let’s reconfigure the model starting with Cassandras, policymakers, and critics since the catastrophe had already taken place.

Multiple Cassandras for Israel

Since day one of the war, a video dated to 2019 went viral on social media. It featured a reservist IDF major general, Itzhak Brik, speaking of Hamas fighters attacking southern Israel, killing and looting while the IDF was not ready for them. It seemed prophetic or delusional for some, given the tight system of control and surveillance imposed on Gaza that can anticipate any attack and neutralize any civilian or fighter trying to breach the $2 billion wall surrounding Gaza.

Brik’s warnings were not prophetic in nature, regardless of his language and tone; they were based on his assessment of the IDF and its ground capabilities. In August 2023, a few weeks before the attacks, Brik, who served before as the IDF ombudsman, had an interview with an Israeli radio channel in which he reiterated his warnings referring to the declining competence of the IDF, the over-dependence on airpower and technological spyware capabilities, and the disregard of the “political echelon... to the IDF disintegration”.

As hostilities broke out in a manner mimicking (or mostly similar to) what Brik claimed (or predicted), he gained credibility and asked for a council by Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the plans for a ground invasion in Northern Gaza. Once again, Brik’s advice of postponing the attack went against the desire of Netanyahu’s warmongering cabinet.

The precision of Brik’s prediction is controversial, provided the polarization of Israeli politics. Nevertheless, the Israeli intelligence community, the Mossad, and military intelligence “AMAN” consider much more valuable and tangible evidence of an imminent catastrophe.?? ???

Recent reports of a Financial Times (FT) and BBC investigation found that the Israeli intelligence dismissed detailed warnings against the attacks that had been in preparation in the last two years. Videos of Hamas fighters training to invade and capture settlements and destroy Merkavas and other heavy artillery were scattered across telegram channels. The writings were on social media walls. Nevertheless, they were not taken seriously. Another shocking report by Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman of the New York Times asserted that Israel obtained detailed plans of Hamas attacks in a document dubbed “Jericho Wall.” According to the former White House Chief of Staff, Ben Rhodes, such a spy treasure is a rare hunt in the spy world. Yet, it was also dismissed as inspirational.

Delusions of Policy Makers

In the FT’s account, it was low-ranking soldiers monitoring the borders that warned against the possible move by Hamas, and the high-ranking general in AMAN refused their judgment deeming it imaginary. Thus, not only are Netanyahu and his security ultra-right-wing ministers to blame, but military commanders also share the responsibility for such an intelligence and security fiasco.

They were delusional about any initiative taken by the Palestinian side, as they were 50 years ago about the possibility of the Egyptians and Syrians taking initiative in the Yom Kippur War. This collective state of denial was grounded in several reasons. We can refer here to the distraction caused by Netanyahu’s scheme of Judicial reforms and its impact on the military, the inadequacy of Netanyahu’s ministers, above all Itmar bin Gavir, their clashes with military commanders, and of course the overconfidence in the Israeli techno-military capabilities that gained the reputation of lethality and precision across the region and the world.

Indeed, like previous and upcoming Cassandra events, Hubris explains it all. The Trojans and their King Priam dismissed Cassandra’s prophecy saying that no man had been able to breach his walls for decades. So did believe the Israelis. Their data-driven electronic and cyber systems, in which they invest a lot, did not pay off.

If it is Hubris that explains why Israeli decision-makers dismissed their Cassandras, Hamas military planners recognized their adversary’s psyche. They were too obvious in their moves. For them it was nearly impossible to conceal their training, so they fed Israeli intelligence with what Clarke and Eddy call “invisible obvious”, which can blind the enemy as much as the visible. They used human intelligence on the ground in Gaza to feed Israel’s ears and eyes with false information.

The Hamas attacks on October 7th and the ensuing war in Gaza will be a matter of debate and analysis for the years coming, as they change as Netanyahu promised the Middle East, but not in the best interest of Israel. The far-reaching consequences of the war have not played out yet. But if we are to draw an initial lesion of the Israeli intelligence fiasco, it is Hubris, in both mythology and reality, that is the Achilles heel of any power.

#futures #earlywarning #foresight #strategy #Israel #gazawar #Hamas

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