And, as the Free Press reported, the Biden administration’s policies may have also played a role. The White House reinstated a policy of funding Palestinian development even though the State Department’s own documents stated, “We assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza.”
But within Israel, much of the conversation about how the attack happened has turned to internal factors, and the event has sparked an enormous backlash against the country’s political leadership. Despite Israel’s advanced satellites, drones, and other surveillance tools, its government did not anticipate the threat.
“An intelligence failure is like a plane crash: it is never just one thing that goes wrong, it is instead a series of things that add up to a disaster,” explains the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
[I doubt that Israelis will be satisfied with a Biden-did-it explanation. Israel prides itself on being able to effectively protect and defend itself, as nations should, without becoming overly reliant on allies. Biden’s policies certainly didn’t help, but the real failures took place in Israel, and the Israelis will demand accountability for them. — Ed]
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