Category: Michael Novakhov’s favorite articles

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Thursday acknowledged a string of errors in its response to the deadly Hamas attacks last Oct. 7, including slow response times and disorganization, as it released the results of its first investigation into failures during the assault that triggered the war in Gaza.

The report focused on the border community of Be’eri, where over 100 people were killed and more than 30 others taken hostage by Hamas. It was among the hardest-hit communities in the early morning attack, and it was the scene of one of the highest-profile confrontations of Oct. 7 – a standoff in which militants held a group of hostages inside a home.

“The army failed in its mission to protect the residents of Kibbutz Be’eri,” the military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a televised address. “It is painful and difficult for me to say that.”

During the standoff, a tank fired at the home, raising concerns that the 13 hostages inside were killed by friendly fire. The military concluded that they were likely killed by Hamas militants, not Israeli shelling, though it was unclear how it reached that conclusion, and the report called for additional tests. The army said the kibbutz was overrun by about 340 Hamas fighters.

Investigators “determined that, based on the information reviewed and to the best of their understanding, no civilians inside the building were harmed by tank shell fire,” the report said, though it said two Israeli civilians were hit by shrapnel outside the building. One of those civilians died, according to the man’s wife.

It also said commanders on the scene made “professional and responsible decisions” in ordering the tank strike. It said there had been a joint decision by various commanders after hearing gunshots within the house and militants saying they planned to kill the hostages and commit suicide.

“The team determined that most of the hostages were likely murdered by the terrorists,” the report said.

The report also pointed to delays of several hours in the arrival of military forces and said forces waited outside the kibbutz into the afternoon as residents were being killed, not understanding the severity of the situation.

“This situation is extremely grave and cannot occur,” it said.

The report praised “the bravery of the Be’eri residents and the members of the kibbutz’s civilian rapid response team,” saying it was “crucial in stabilizing the defensive line during the first hours of combat.”

The Israeli army has come under heavy criticism from Palestinians and human rights groups, who say its investigations rarely result in punishment.

Kibbutz residents gave the report a mixed reception, expressing anger over the army’s failures that day but also appreciation that it took responsibility.

Meir Zarbiv, a resident whose brother and sister were both killed on Oct. 7, called the report a “deception” by the army. “I don’t believe the report, and I don’t believe anything about it,” he said.

He said he still cannot understand the delays in arriving and entering the kibbutz. “I just don’t believe what happened here. I have no explanation,” he said. “Where was the army?”

In a statement, the community called the investigation “thorough” and said it helped them understand the complexity of the fighting that day.

“We see great importance in the army accepting the blame and responsibility for its complete failure to protect us and in asking for forgiveness for abandoning us for many hours during an attack of unmatched evil,” it said.

The kibbutz also called for an official state commission of inquiry into the broader failures of Oct. 7 “so the unimaginable loss we experienced will never against be experienced by any other citizen.”

The surprise cross-border raid killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 250 others hostage, in the deadliest attack in Israel’s 76-year history. The attack, in which several thousand militants stormed across the border without resistance, revealed grave shortcomings in the army’s readiness, its intelligence assessments and policies set by political leaders toward Gaza.

An Israeli offensive launched in response to the attack has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, displaced over 80% of the territory’s people and triggered a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Israel is now facing war crimes and genocide allegations in international courts.

The army has launched multiple investigations into the failures of Oct. 7, and the head of military intelligence has resigned. Several other commanders have apologized and taken responsibility for their failures.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected repeated calls for an official state investigation, even as the war enters its 10th month.

Netanyahu has said an investigation cannot be conducted while the country is focused on its war against Hamas and says all questions will be answered at the appropriate time. But critics accuse the Israeli leader of dragging his feet to avoid what will almost certainly be harsh criticism of his policies and leadership.

At a military ceremony Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the time has come to launch a state commission of inquiry to look into the country’s leadership. “It needs to check me, the minister of defense. It needs to check the prime minister.”

In the face of fierce international criticism, Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until destroying Hamas’ military and governing capabilities and the roughly 120 hostages remaining in Gaza return home. Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in weekly protests calling on Netanyahu to reach an immediate cease-fire, saying time is running out to bring the hostages home safely.

International mediators have launched renewed efforts to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Netanyahu announced Thursday that he would send a team of negotiators to Cairo to continue cease-fire talks, but he reiterated his stance that he will not halt the war until Israel achieves its war objectives.

He was interrupted by hecklers at the same military ceremony when he vowed to continue the war “until victory, even if it takes time.”

As he spoke, a small crowd began to chant “shame.”

___

Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg and Isaac Scharf contributed to this report.

ראש אמ”ן, אלוף אהרון חליוה. ארכיון | צילום: דובר צה”ל

תחקירי אסון 7 באוקטובר: לאחר תחקיר הקרב בבארי, אמש (רביעי) פרסמנו לראשונה ב”מהדורה המרכזית” את התחקיר הפנימי באגף המודיעין, שמכונה “הדרך אל המלחמה”, על השאלה המרכזית: כיצד כל הסימנים המעידים חמקו מתחת לרדאר וההתרעות שהיו לא טופלו. 

תחקירי 7 באוקטובר – סיקור N12

התחקיר של אגף המודיעין בצה”ל מנסה לברר כיצד התרחש המחדל המודיעיני הגדול בתולדות מדינת ישראל – וכיצד החוקרים ואנשי קהיליית המודיעין לא ראו את המתקפה שחמאס מתכנן. בחיל התקיימו דיונים נוקבים, שאף לעיתים לוו בהרמת קול, על הפרשנות של ממצאי התחקיר. 

לפי ממצאי התחקיר, תכנון המתקפה של חמאס החל לפני 7 או 8 שנים על ידי חמאס, אך אגף המודיעין פספס את הסימנים המקדימים. באמ”ן הניחו שחמאס מורתע מישראל ופניו של מנהיג הארגון, יחיא סינוואר, להסדרה – שיפור המצב הכלכלי של תושבי הרצועה תוך ביסוס מעמדו הריבוני ברצועה.למעשה, חוקרי המודיעין היו שקועים בקונספציה שחמאס “לא רוצה ולא יכול” לצאת למלחמה נגד ישראל.

עיקרי ממצאי התחקיר

• גורמי המודיעין פספסו את הסימנים המקדימים, הניחו שחמאס מורתע ופניו של סינוואר להסדרה.
• פער במשך שנים בין הידיעות שנאספו לניתוח שלהן על ידי חוקרי אגף המודיעין.
• הפרשנות שלפיה חמאס נמנע מלהשתתף בשני העימותים שקדמו ל-7 באוקטובר כי הוא מתכנן מלחמה – נזנחה באגף המודיעין.

בנוסף, בתחקיר הפנימי עלה כי הפרשנות לכך שחמאס נמנע מלהשתתף בשני העימותים שקדמו ל-7 באוקטובר כי הוא מתכנן מלחמה – נזנחה לחלוטין על ידי חוקרי המודיעין. למרות שהיו חוקרים שחשבו כך, ואף טענו שחמאס צריך את הכסף הקטארי לתכנון המתקפה, הם הצטרפו לבסוף לקונספציה ולדעה הרווחת בחיל. 

ראש אמ”ן, אהרון חליוה, קיבל את הקביעות שעלו בתחקיר. עם זאת, גם עכשיו אגף המודיעין לא יודע לקבוע בוודאות כיצד ניתן למנוע מקרים כאלו בעתיד ובחיל מקיימים בימים אלו דיונים כדי להבין את המשמעויות העמוקות שצריך להסיק כדי שאירוע כזה לא יתרחש בעתיד.

דובר צה”ל: “כשיסתיימו התחקירים, הם יוצגו בצורה שקופה לציבור”.

מצאתם טעות לשון?

“The FBI and DHS remain concerned about the potential for follow-on or retaliatory acts of violence following this attack, particularly given that individuals in some online communities have threatened, encouraged, or referenced acts of violence in response to the attempted assassination,” the bulletin said.

The warning comes amid what authorities had already determined was a “heightened threat” environment, with the country deeply polarized as the Republicans gather for their nominating convention in Milwaukee and the Democrats prepare for theirs in Chicago.

“This attack reinforces our assessment that election-related targets are under a heightened threat of attack or other types of disruptive incidents,” the bulletin said.

The agencies said that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year–old shooter in Saturday’s attack at the rally, had improvised explosive devices in his car as well as his home and ordered packages potentially containing hazardous material over the last several months.

Law enforcement officers survey the scene after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
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Scott Goldsmith for POLITICO

Authorities have not yet determined what motivated Crooks, who was shot and killed by the Secret Service after he opened fire on the rally, killing one spectator and critically wounding two others.

In the lead-up to the November election, federal and state law enforcement agencies have stepped up efforts to prevent political violence and lone-wolf attacks against elected officials, government officials, candidates, law enforcement and the media. The Justice Department has vowed to relentlessly crack down on threats against election workers and elections facilities.

Threats across the political spectrum have proliferated. Supporters of Trump sent death threats and envelopes full of white powder to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office led the hush money prosecution against the former president. Others “swatted” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after she found Trump to be ineligible to appear on the state’s 2024 primary ballot.

Russia took advantage of the assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump to attack American liberal values, describing what it called a suicide of democracy, and predicting a civil war and the dissolution of the United States.

Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said U.S. President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have put Trump’s life in “obvious” danger and provoked his assassination attempt by trying but failing to remove him from the presidential race, “using first legal tools, the courts, prosecutors, attempts to politically discredit and compromise the candidate.”

The FBI said Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, a resident of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was the suspect in the attempted assassination of Trump. Biden said Sunday, the shooting was “contrary to everything we stand for as a nation, everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not American. And we cannot allow this to happen.”

Contrary to the Kremlin’s claims, the separation of powers concept is not merely a paragraph in the U.S. Constitution but a working system, and President Biden has no control over the judiciary or the legislative branch of the government.

An array of top Russian lawmakers, diplomats and newsmakers pushed a narrative that the attempt on Trump’s life “confirmed” the “American type of democracy” is wrong, and “deeply corroded.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the attempt on Trump’s life was all about the American democracy, which “the liberals brought to the verge of suicide.” The “dissolution of the United States does not look like such an impossible prophesy any longer,” Zakharova said.

FILE – Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova speaks to the media in Moscow, Russia, Nov. 2, 2022.

Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti, featured the analysis from its top propagandist, Piotr Akopov.

Akopov played around Trump’s 2016 election promise to “drain the Washington swamp” to claim that the “swampers” have been “biting at their elbows” and regretting they “did not kill him before November 2016.”

The Democratic Party did not plot to kill Trump, but the attack was the result of an atmosphere of hatred they have been nurturing for the last eight years, Akopov wrote.

He then speculated that it came as “no surprise” that the Secret Service “only saw the shooter after he made eight shots,” because with Trump’s rising popularity, “killing him has become a scenario with no alternative for the deep state Washington swamp.”

Akopov repeated the conspiracy theory about “killing Trump” being the “only option” five times in his 600-word piece.

While Akopov’s “analysis” is merely a hybrid of propaganda, disinformation and conspiracy theories, he is an essential player in the Kremlin’s domestic messaging. Thousands of local news agencies and websites republish RIA Novosti publications across Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union in Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

For foreign audiences, Russia utilizes the social media platforms like X, formerly Twitter, and a network of 270+ accounts of the Russian embassies and consulates worldwide, all boosting the Kremlin’s narratives in many different languages.

The Russia Embassy in South Africa is one of the most prominent propaganda superspreaders on X.

To a photograph of Trump’s bloodied face, the diplomatic mission added a commentary accusing the “Democrats” of being incapable of tolerance but capable of perpetrating “any crime… for the sake of their ‘ultimate goal.’”

X users reminded the embassy in South Africa of the death of Alexey Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest opponent, in prison earlier this year.

Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and numerous international institutions and governments accused Putin of ordering Navalny’s assassination. Germany and the United Nations Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said the Russian FSB poisoned Navalny with military-grade nerve agent Novichok in 2020.

Rights watchdogs say that during the two decades of Putin’s rule, Russia has seen a systematic oppression of political and civil liberties and the erosion of human rights and press freedom.

SUBSCRIBER+ EXCLUSIVE REPORTING — On a Russian TV program recently, Dmitry Novikov, a Russian lawmaker, said that political chaos and divisions in the U.S. were “good for us,” meaning his country and its people. “Destabilization inside an adversary is always a good thing.”

That was before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

Kremlin propagandists have seized on Saturday’s shooting in Pennsylvania as the latest example of political dysfunction in the U.S. – themes that Russian media influencers have hammered for years, especially since the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After Trump was shot, the Russian Foreign Ministry said American democracy was “on the verge of suicide.”

Within hours of the attempt on Trump’s life, the spigots of Russian media disinformation were turned up to full blast – with three basic story lines: The Biden Administration had enabled or inspired the shooting; the U.S. had actually carried out the attack; or – in a variant that cast blame on two of Russia’s enemies – Ukrainians had conspired to kill Trump, with the help of U.S. intelligence agencies. 

It was all baseless, but these theories have reached a nationwide audience in a country where fact-based news about the West is in short supply. While similar false narratives have flowered on American social media platforms, the Russian versions were propagated by government officials and some of the most popular media personalities and influencers in the country. 

The Kremlin version of events  

For years, Russian propagandists have warned – with no evidence – that members of the Democratic Party were conspiring to kill Trump. At one point they suggested the Russian security services should “start protecting our Donald.”

On Sunday night, Vladimir Solovyov, among the most influential Kremlin-backed media figures, opened his Sunday Evening With Solovyov television show with a reminder that he had predicted that Trump would be assassinated. He then said that unless the U.S. Secret Service was “unprofessional and stupid,” its agents had to have been in on the plot. 

Earlier Sunday, in the Kremlin’s first official statement about the attack, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov echoed those sentiments.

“After numerous attempts to eliminate candidate Trump from the political arena,” Peskov said, “it was obvious to all outside observers that his life was in danger.” 

The Kremlin then adopted the line of many Trump supporters, accusing the Biden Administration of creating an atmosphere that had “provoked an attack on (Trump).”

Peskov said Biden and the Democratic Party had provoked the assassination attempt via their failed attempts to oust him from the race, “using first legal tools, the courts, prosecutors, attempts to politically discredit and compromise the candidate.”

Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, picked up the theme and took it further. 

“Exactly 2 months ago I noticed that in the United States they are literally encouraging incitement of hatred towards political opponents,” Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel. She suggested that the U.S. divert the money it has pledged for Ukraine to fund the “American police…and other services that should ensure law and order within the United States.”

Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian officials – and the state media apparatus – have used every opportunity to criticize the U.S. and the West, and some prominent commentators appeared to gloat in the aftermath of the Trump attack, calling it evidence that the “American type of democracy” was “deeply corroded,” and warning that the end of that democracy was near.

Beyond her obviously influential Foreign Ministry position, Zakharova has a following on the Telegram and Vkontakte platforms of more than 1.5 million. In a subsequent post, she wrote that “All American media and commentators, commenting on the assassination attempt on Trump, are saying in one voice that this is a ‘threat to American democracy.’ I would just clarify that this IS American democracy, which has been driven to a suicidal state by liberalism.”

She added that “the dissolution of the United States does not look like such an impossible prophecy any longer.”

An American on Russian TV

Outside the halls of government, things got weirder.

Margarita Simonyan is one of Russia’s most influential voices – and not coincidentally, one of Putin’s favorite mouthpieces for propaganda. She is head of the RT media empire and her audience on various social networks is estimated to run to the tens of millions. Simonyan said that the attack on Trump bore similarities to the assassination of John F. Kennedy – who she suggested had been killed by elements in his own administration.

“When other ways to get rid of an inconvenient president have been exhausted,” Simonyan wrote on her Telegram channel, “good old Lee Harvey Oswald comes into play.” 

Then she added, for good measure, “Watching America is like watching a TV series where the writers have run out of imagination long ago and now repeat themselves from episode to episode, but you already got used to the characters, like you get used to your house slippers, so you continue to watch.”

Solovyov also runs a network – “Solovyov Live” – and this week its Sunday morning program At Dawn hosted an American guest. John Varoli, a former Russia-based journalist who now works in public relations, has often toed a Kremlin line, and he did so on Sunday. 

“The Democratic party is behind this attempted assassination,” Varoli said. “The Democratic party is doing everything to destroy Donald Trump. They have been threatening to exterminate him for many years”.

Russia and Putin have been sanctioned and charged in international criminal courts with extrajudicial killings around the world – but now another Kremlin propagandist, the political scientist Sergey Markov, said the attempt on Trump’s life was an example of U.S.-backed “political murder” that might be coming to Moscow. 

“The new technology of political murder is creating an atmosphere of total hatred towards some politicians and pushing activists to murder them,” Markov said. “And so they are preparing assassination attempts on Putin, (Hungarian President Viktor) Orban, and (French opposition figure Marine) Le Pen.”

Beyond the absence of evidence in any of these statements, it’s worth emphasizing that all these people and their platforms are hardly on the Russian fringes; they have huge audiences and followings, and little competition from any legitimate unbiased sources of information.

To take another example, Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti, is carried by thousands of local media outlets all across Russia. One of its most-featured “analysts,” Piotr Akopov, wrote after the Pennsylvania shooting that Trump’s political enemies regretted that they “did not kill him before November 2016.” 

It was “no surprise” that the Secret Service had failed to neutralize the assassin, Akopov said, as their agents had to have been in on the job. Given Trump’s popularity, he wrote, “killing him has become a scenario with no alternative for the deep state Washington swamp.”

Let’s blame the Ukrainians 

It didn’t take long for Russian politicians to find another theory, an example of what is often referred to as “the Ukrainian trace” – the “evidence” of a Ukrainian connection to a crime.

Sergi Tsekov, a member of the international committee of the Council of Federation (the Russian Senate), told RIA Novosti, “Given that the Kyiv regime has repeatedly made very unflattering statements about Trump, who promised to end the military conflict in Ukraine if elected U.S. President, I urge the U.S. authorities to consider the version of the involvement of the Ukrainian special services in the assassination attempt.” 

The possible reduction in aid to Ukraine in a second Trump administration, Tsekov added, gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky an obvious motive to remove Trump.

Varoli, the American, added his voice to this theory. “In all seriousness, I believe that the Ukrainian special services may be behind this—on orders from the White House.” 

Among Russian analysts, the only voices dissenting from the conspiracy theories were those heard outside the country. Vladimir Pastukhov, a prominent Russian political scientist who now lives in London, said Monday that when he heard the news from Pennsylvania, he had wondered immediately whether the Russian media would blame the Ukrainians.

“I just said in the morning that the search for a Ukrainian trace in the assassination attempt on Trump would soon fill all the media space in Russia. Even before this idea came into my head, at least two (Russian) senators…had already expressed it.”

He added that the likely next shoe to drop would be reports in the Russian media of Ukrainian connections to the would-be assassin.

“I think that in the near future, Moscow will fill the social media with installations on the Ukrainian background of the assassination attempt,” Pastukhov said. “They will find Ukrainian relatives, neighbors, girlfriends (of the shooter), they will discover connections with (Ukrainian Military Intelligence Chief Kyrylo) Budanov, they will get secret personal correspondence with Zelensky.”

Another voice outside Russia suggested the political drama in the U.S. was a gift to America’s adversaries. 

“This election is doing more to discredit American democracy than Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping could ever hope to,” Sergey Radchenko, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, wrote on X. “I am worried about the image projected to the outside world.”

Radchenko – like the Russian lawmaker Dmitri Novikov quoted in the first line of this piece – wrote those words before the shots were fired in Pennsylvania.

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