Israel cannot heal from October 7 without confronting its failures - opinion

The songs playing were the same ones Israelis are used to hearing on Remembrance Day for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars and on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Songs of grief, sadness, and tragedy. Songs that capture the nation’s pain and the weight of its collective memory.

It was Israel’s way of marking October 7.

And what we learned on Wednesday is that a new day has been added to Israel’s calendar of remembrance. Not just another date to commemorate, but a day that represents a raw and open wound, one that continues to haunt us and will likely do so for generations.

What made this third anniversary significant was how different it was from the previous two. On the first anniversary in 2024, Israel was still in the midst of the war. The IDF was fighting in Gaza and Lebanon, negotiations over the hostages were dragging on, soldiers were being killed, and there was not yet an end in sight

The second anniversary, in 2025, came as Israel was approaching a breakthrough in the hostage negotiations. Just days later, the remaining living hostages returned home, accompanied by a celebratory visit by US President Donald Trump.

This year was different since it was the first time that people could look back. All of the hostages are home, and while the IDF remains in control of most of the Gaza Strip and occasional airstrikes continue, the high-intensity stage of the war is, for now, behind us.

Yes, Hamas has yet to disarm. It remains in control of roughly one-third of Gaza, where it has been replenishing its ranks and rearming itself. But a full-scale Israeli offensive does not currently appear to be in the cards. And with elections just weeks away, this created something Israel has not really had until now: an opportunity for a deeper and more genuine national reckoning.

The question, though, is what will we do with it.

When we think about October 7 and how it will be remembered, one of the most important questions is how we ensure that this moment in our history does not dissipate over time. How do we make sure it does not simply become another date on the calendar, gradually fading from our consciousness as the years pass?

The closest parallel in Israeli history is, of course, the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a war that shares many of the same characteristics as October 7: an extraordinary intelligence failure, a devastating operational failure, and a failure of political leadership.

I think that what made the Yom Kippur War such a seminal moment in Israeli history was not just the failure itself or the terrible price in lives that Israel paid. It was what happened afterward: Israel established a state commission of inquiry to investigate the failures, and its findings led to resignations, the dismissal of senior military officers, and fundamental changes in Israel’s defense and intelligence establishments.

The commission was far from perfect, but its work forced the country to confront what had happened. Lessons were learned, books were written, and investigations were conducted. The country began the difficult process of not just understanding what went wrong but also reckoning with that knowledge.

We will never be able to put October 7 behind us, nor should we. The murder of 1,200 people, the kidnapping of 251 hostages, the destruction of entire communities, and the heroism and sacrifice of so many Israelis will forever be part of our national ethos.

But as long as there is no comprehensive investigation, Israel will struggle to close this chapter in a way that allows it to heal and, just as importantly, to learn.

This is why a state commission of inquiry into October 7 is existential for Israel. It is existential because we need to heal, and because we need to learn the lessons necessary to ensure the mistakes are never repeated.

Confronting the faliures of October 7

And here is the hard truth: three years after the massacre, Israel has already fallen into two new “conceptziyot” – dangerous paradigms of thinking that, if left unchallenged, could cause immense harm in the years ahead.

The first is the belief that we can somehow move forward without a full investigation. Three years have passed, and Israel has still not established a state commission of inquiry. Yes, the IDF has conducted internal investigations, but those have focused on tactical and operational failures and are far from being enough.

They do not provide the comprehensive examination needed of the government, the cabinet, the National Security Council, the intelligence agencies, and the political decisions that shaped Israel’s policies toward Hamas and Gaza in the years leading up to the attack.

The refusal to establish such a commission illustrates a dangerous belief among the politicians preventing it: that Israel does not really need this reckoning, that it can somehow continue without confronting the full extent of what went wrong. They are mistaken.

But there is a second “conceptziya,” one that is no less dangerous. It is the belief that every problem Israel faces is a nail and every solution is a hammer.

There is a problem in the West Bank? Send in the IDF. There is a problem in Gaza? Expand military control. Negotiations with Lebanon are stalling? Increase the IDF presence. There are security concerns in Syria? Continue holding territory.

Every challenge is increasingly met with the same response: more military force, more control, and more operations.

There is no question that Israel needs a strong military and that we need a doctrine of preemptive action. October 7 taught us the catastrophic consequences of containment and failing to maintain the readiness needed to defend our borders.

But as essential as it is, military power cannot alone solve the challenges Israel faces.

It was commendable that Avigdor Liberman, the head of Yisrael Beytenu, published a plan this week for dealing with the conflict with the Palestinians.

His proposal calls for dismantling the Palestinian Authority and transferring responsibility for the West Bank to Jordan through some form of security arrangement.

Is it realistic? I don’t think so. Jordan has no interest in assuming such responsibility, most Israelis are unlikely to support the idea, and the Americans as well as the Europeans are unlikely to endorse it.

But that is beside the point, since at least Liberman is talking about the issue. At least he is putting forward a plan, and at least he recognizes that the conflict requires more than deploying another infantry battalion.

That is more than can be said for his partners in the opposition. Does anyone know what Naftali Bennett’s plan is for the West Bank? What does Gadi Eisenkot believe should happen beyond saying a few weeks ago that a two-state solution is delusional? What is not delusional, Gadi? What is the alternative?

And then, of course, there is Benjamin Netanyahu, widely viewed as Israel’s most prominent opponent of a two-state solution. Yet when you look back at his political career, he has repeatedly taken steps that kept the possibility of such an outcome alive.

In the 1990s, he met repeatedly with Yasser Arafat, signed the Hebron Agreement, and continued implementing parts of the Oslo process initiated by Yitzhak Rabin.

In 2009, after returning as prime minister, he gave his famous Bar-Ilan speech, explicitly endorsed a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel, and continued to support that possibility during his dealings with US president Barack Obama. Even during Trump’s first term, he endorsed the American peace plan, which envisioned a pathway to Palestinian statehood.

Even more recently, Netanyahu accepted Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, whose final clauses explicitly recognize the possibility of a credible pathway toward Palestinian self-determination and eventual statehood.

This does not mean Netanyahu wants a Palestinian state today, and the steps he has taken in recent years in Judea and Samaria make that quite clear.

But it does demonstrate something important: even a leader so strongly identified with opposition to Palestinian statehood has for the last 20 years recognized the need to keep a political horizon on the table.

The problem today is that almost nobody in Israeli politics seems willing to have an honest conversation about what that horizon should look like.

Not Netanyahu. Not Bennett. Not Eisenkot. And, with the exception of Liberman’s proposal, hardly anyone else.

This is the second dangerous conception Israel must confront: the belief that we can continue indefinitely without a political strategy, that military superiority alone will resolve our challenges, and that the absence of an immediate solution justifies the absence of any plan.

Israel today is militarily stronger than it was on October 7, 2023. Hamas has been weakened, Hezbollah has been hit with devastating blows, and Iran’s nuclear program remains mostly under rubble. The regional balance of power has shifted dramatically in Israel’s favor.

These are extraordinary achievements. But military achievements are not an end in themselves. They are supposed to create the conditions for something else, and if we do not translate them into diplomatic and political opportunities, we risk finding ourselves back where we started.

The writer is a co-founder of the MEAD policy forum, a senior fellow at JPPI, and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. His newest book is While Israel Slept.