Yesterday, it was revealed that all Israeli governments, without exception, have known for the past four years about the giant sabotage tunnel at the very edge of the Gaza Strip, very close to the Nativ a'Asara settlement and the Erez crossing, as well as other tunnels dug toward the fence around the Strip, but have done nothing to destroy or mine them.
Unlike the October 7 disaster, when the military leadership simply hid the situation from the political leaders, the existence of the tunnels was long known in the government. Unfortunately, all the defense ministers of recent years, along with the army leadership, without exception, have not decided to take any action against these numerous tunnels! In fact, as it turned out, discussions were held in the Knesset Security Committee, but in the end, the final decision came from the highest authorities who decided "not to deal" with this problem.
It should be emphasized that this refers to the defense ministers not only in the Netanyahu governments, but in all the governments of the last four years, i.e., these decisions were made by Gantz, Bennett and Lapid.
In other words, the October 7 catastrophe happened not so much because of a specific failure of the leadership of Army Intelligence, but because of a systemic failure - the "concept of pacifying the enemy" established over the last quarter century in the country's highest military and political circles.
The architects of the horrific failure, which two months ago could have resulted in bringing the country to its destruction, were first and foremost Rabin, Peres and their many followers - those who, contrary to common sense, pushed forward the Oslo Accords and consistently eradicated from the army all officers who did not share the insane ideas behind them. This line was then continued by Ehud Barak and his team, who organized the disgraceful escape from Lebanon. And then Sharon and his entourage, who forced the country into "Disengagement" - deporting Jewish communities and withdrawing the army from the Gaza Strip.
In other words, the three retired generals who came into politics - Rabin, Barak and Sharon - caused terrible damage to the country's security with their decisions, and even worse, completely eradicated proactive and politically unengaged military leaders above the rank of colonel in the army leadership. Since then, only supporters of the "concept" could make a career in the army and were allowed to be promoted to the General Staff....
Unfortunately, the Netanyahu governments ( in which the defense ministers and leaders of the security agencies were still the same "concept") also turned a blind eye to the consistent and monstrous strengthening of Hamas, only partially containing it, but not suppressing it at a time when it was much easier to do so than it is now. During military operations in the Gaza Strip, such as the Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge, Israel had opportunities to destroy the tunnel network, as it was at that time much less extensive, but the generals seem to have convinced the politicians to "leave it intact."
As a result, rather than preemptively crushing Hamas in advance, the Netanyahu government also convinced us that deterrence was effective - "we respond to silence with silence," as they said. In the meantime, Hamas has been building, developing and strengthening a huge terrorist army - a highly selected special operations force, the Nukhba, as well as air and naval forces, and increasing the stockpile of rockets, the system of launchers and the network of sabotage tunnels.
In addition, we should mention Barak's escape from Lebanon, which turned Hizbullah from a tactical problem into a strategic threat and thus fundamentally worsened the situation, not only on the northern border, but in general.
Let me remind you of a sad fact - before the disgraceful escape of our army from Lebanon, the Iranian regime did not supply Hizbullah with medium-range missiles, and even less with long-range missiles. To be precise, the Iranians at that time had only an extremely small stockpile of such missiles in Lebanon, and all of them were under the full control of the IRGC. "Hizbullah" had no access to them.
However, emboldened by the "unbelievable victory", this is how Hizbullah bosses portrayed the Israeli army's escape from southern Lebanon by Ehud Barak, the thrilled Iranians began to supply the terrorists with medium- and long-range missiles. Very soon after escaping from Lebanon, the Iranian regime supplied "Hizbullah" with Fajr missiles: the Fajr-3 with a range of 43 kilometers and the Fajr-5 with a range of 75 kilometers. Now all these missiles were transferred to Hizbullah in huge quantities and under its full control. Later, the Iranian regime also began to supply Hizbullah with even heavier missiles that had even greater range.
In a nutshell, the main reason for the catastrophic strengthening of "Hizbullah", which, in fact, made it the master of the entire country, was Barak's withdrawal of the IDF from South Lebanon!
Furthermore, the PA terrorist commanders who were arrested and interrogated during the Operation Protective Edge in the early 2000s clearly and unequivocally admitted that it was the IDF's escape from Lebanon that triggered Arafat to launch a terrorist war against Israel. Arafat, may the memory of this evil man's name be erased, interpreted the escape from South Lebanon as a defeat and a colossal weakness of Israel under Barak's leadership, and decided to exploit the situation and therefore initiated the PA's war against our country!
In simple words - the generals who became political leaders made concessions over and over again and as a result, have brought down on Israel one catastrophe after another.
We have had enough of the concessions, escapes and retreats offered to us by our generals!
We see clearly that any surrender of our land, and even talking about such surrenders, is a danger and a threat to life.