Netanyahu faces pressure after report alleges he brushed off warnings ahead of Oct. 7

Geoff Bennett:

New reporting in Israel alleges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received an explicit warning that Hamas was planning a major attack just days before October 7, but did not act on the warning. Netanyahu strongly denies the report and says he will sue the newspaper and the journalists behind the story.

Here's Ali Rogin.

Ali Rogin:

Yesterday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the president and Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates Sheik Mohammed Bin Zayed, known as MBZ, called Netanyahu to warn him of a coming Hamas onslaught just a week-and-a-half before the attacks on October 7 in 2023.

MBZ reportedly advised Netanyahu that the Hamas military chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, told an intermediary that he was planning a terrifying operation. In the lead-up to this reported call, Hamas and the Israeli government had been negotiating the lifting of Israel's blockade of Gaza, increasing food shipments there, and a prisoner exchange.

But, according to Haaretz, Sinwar cut off contacts because Netanyahu kept delaying a decision. That was just before October 7. The UAE refused to comment on the report, but did not deny it, and underscored that the Emirati and Israeli governments maintained open and direct communication since establishing relations more than five years ago.

For his part, Netanyahu wrote on social media that no such call took place between September and October 7, and called the story a malicious fabrication with a clear political timing.

For more on this story and how the actions of Netanyahu before the October 7 attack are impacting the current election campaign in Israel, we turn to David Makovsky, distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

David, welcome back to the "News Hour."

David Makovsky, Senior Fellow, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Delighted to be with you.

Ali Rogin:

Thanks for being with us.

David Makovsky:

Always.

Ali Rogin:

The big headline is in this story is that there was a call between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Mohammed bin Zayed saying, there's going to be an attack, and reportedly Netanyahu dismissed that.

You know well, you are very familiar with the sort of back-channel negotiations and communications that were happening during this time. So what do you make of this report and what do you think was going on around this time?

David Makovsky:

Look, it's clear -- delighted to be with you, Ali.

I think it's -- the whole media focuses on, was there a phone call or there wasn't a phone call between Mohammed bin Zayed, the head of the UAE, and Prime Minister Netanyahu? I tend -- from what I have been hearing, there -- I do not find support for a call itself.

But from -- I do find some indications that there were some back-channel communications between Yahya Sinwar through an intermediary, a Palestinian intermediary, that made its way back to Israel, which was limited at least to the issue of prisoner exchanges.

I actually think there was a broader thing going on. I think that was limited. I don't know if that was a distraction from the broader macro that was going on at that time. But I do think those broader developments in October -- September-October, 2023, are worthy of note.

Ali Rogin:

Right.

And what you're talking about here in terms of those broader dynamics, you're saying that that could have extended beyond any conversations about a possible truce and really had more to do with some of the broader context of what was happening in Israel at the time.

David Makovsky:

Right. Right. Right.

Ali Rogin:

Remind us of that broader context.

David Makovsky:

Right. Right.

There were two critical things, mega-stories that were going on at that time in 2023. One was the judicial overhaul of this government of Israel, which was very controversial, about changing the role of the courts and perhaps diluting Israel's liberal character, which prompted a backlash among Israeli pilots, saying that they were not going to fly in reserve duty.

In return, senior security officials were saying after October 7 on the record -- I happen to hear it before the October 7 -- saying, David, the Arabs think Israel is weak because the pilots won't fly in reserve duty. And they are plotting. They are meeting. Something big is about to happen.

And Aharon Haliva, the head of military intelligence, has gone public and said, I warned the government in writing three times, saying, this is dangerous. They're drawing the wrong conclusions.

Now, he didn't connect the dots, saying, therefore, on October 7, on the Gaza fence, this -- when this would happen, this horrible massacre, the worst since the Holocaust. But they were -- their hair was on fire. That was one mega-event.

The other mega-event was Saudi normalization. There was an interview of MBS, Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, saying, every day, we're getting closer to Saudi normalization. And I think, for Yahya Sinwar -- and I think President Biden has said he believes this, President Trump has said he believed this, one -- may be one of the few things they agree on.

But they said they both believe that Yahya Sinwar did October 7 to derail Saudi normalization with Israel, because if the biggest and most powerful Saudi Arab state made peace with Israel, Hamas would be a footnote.

Ali Rogin:

And all of this is happening as we prepare for an election in Israel on October 27.

David Makovsky:

Right.

Ali Rogin:

Opposition parties are using this report as a call for a -- renewed calls for an independent state commission of inquiry. What would that look like?

David Makovsky:

Right.

Ali Rogin:

And do you -- how does this change the election?

David Makovsky:

By the way, you have had 70 percent of Israelis, not just the opposition parties, saying that, after every fiasco, debacle, whatever word you want to use, in Israeli history, Israel has gone through a cleansing inward, I would say brutal self-reflection, a self-reckoning. What went wrong?

And I always talk to Arab leaders who said, hey, that's part of Israel's strength. They go through that self-reckoning exercise to investigate, what happened here? And the prime minister, though, is convinced that because the rules of the game, that the commission of inquiry is led by the chief of the justice Supreme Court, who is liberal, and therefore he thinks he won't get a fair shake.

And he's resisted these calls. And for the opposition, which, by the way, includes two right-wing parties, by the way, not just centrist or center-left parties, their view is, this is central. The first day of the government after the elections, there has to be an announcement of a commission of inquiry into what actually happened October 7, and hopefully many of these details will become unearthed.

Ali Rogin:

And Netanyahu doesn't want this commission to happen. Do you think that affects ultimately his election chances here, in 20 seconds?

David Makovsky:

All I could say is, two-thirds of Israeli Jews, which are 80 percent of the country, have just said in a poll this week, and a credible poll, that October 7 is going to be a big factor on how they vote.

So I think...

Ali Rogin:

David Makovsky, thank you so much for your insights.

David Makovsky:

Thank you very much.