They do not believe that which they cannot grasp”. – Quran 10:39
October 07, 2023, the attack of Hamas on Israel surprised foes and friends of both Hamas and Israel. This event qualifies as a ‘strategic surprise’ defined here as a single event that changes the trajectory of history and measured not by the intentions of the perpetrator but the impact upon the victim. The three essential elements of strategic surprise are challenge to assumptions of decision makers forcing them to make hard choices that have significant impact on the future events.It is convenient for the public and specialists to blame it on ‘intelligence failure’ but intelligence is only one part of the equation, and this issue needs to be analyzed holistically. There could be several causes for errors of judgment, failure to anticipate a strategic surprise or failure on the part of policy makers to act on the warning provided by the intelligence community. It may take years or even decades before a complete picture emerges from thorough investigations of the October 07 attack.
The processes discussed in this article will be rigorously evaluated by future investigations. In a protracted conflict like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel is strong in military, economic and diplomatic arenas. Israel as a hierarchal model is satisfied with status quo that prevents the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Palestinians are no match, and Hamas is an example of a network model that tries to blunt the strength of the hierarchy. Hamas was aware that a strategic surprise would not likely achieve the goal but it was willing to gamble everything on even short-term success of a strategic surprise attack against a vastly more powerful adversary.
Threat perception is based on the analysis of adversary’s intentions and capabilities. Israeli political and security leadership was not ignorant of dangers to national security, but they viewed that the principal danger lay elsewhere (Hezbollah, Iran), or in the future (increased numbers, payload, accuracy and range of Hamas and Hezbollah rockets).
Resources were allocated according to this assessment where intelligence assets were focused on Iran and rocket capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah and the army was prepared for a ground assault by Hezbollah’s special force Radhwan that had the intention and capability to attack northern Israeli settlements. The political and ideological factors of expansion and protection of Israeli settlements in West Bank became the priority when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a coalition government with religious-Zionist parties in December 2022. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) order of battle in early October 2023 clearly shows the priorities where thirty-two battalions were stationed in West Bank, ten battalions in the north facing Hezbollah and only two battalions in the south bordering Gaza.
Based on events of the previous few years the Israeli political and military leadership concluded that Hamas was ‘deterred’ because it was now concerned with governing Gaza and preserving its political power in the enclave. It also concluded that Hamas lacked the capability to execute an ambitious attack. Even if Hamas attempted to infiltrate a few spots along the barrier running between Gaza and Israel, the existing defense mechanisms in place would enable Israel to tackle it very easily.
This ‘conception’ (reminiscent of pre 1973 Yom Kippur war with Egypt) was based on several assumptions that used rational thought processes. Israel had pounded Gaza with overwhelming air strikes in 2008- 09, 2012, 2014 and 2021, killing substantial number of Hamas operatives and civilians and inflicting crippling damage to infrastructure. The logical conclusion was that Hamas was aware of an overwhelming Israeli response was now deterred. This is the trap called ‘fallacy of first move’ that assumed that Hamas had accepted the inevitability of Israeli action and would comply as Israel has imagined. This assumption was never challenged with Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) to imagine other ways Hamas could respond using asymmetric tools to blunt Israeli strength.
These conclusions about intentions and capabilities of the adversary were based on war dialectics and perfectly rational, this is how a hierarchy works. On the other hand, a network like Hamas fully aware of overwhelming strength of the adversary had to find a solution by removing the constraints that were placed when looking for a solution to a complex problem. Hamas concluded that if they use a combination of distraction, sidestepping and removal of Israeli nodes of strength along the border barrier then they can widen the horizon of possible. This is what James Wirtz calls ‘suspension of war dialectics by surprise’. The Network transformed the environment from the realm of impossible to the possible. On the other hand, the hierarchy considered such an attack as fantasy and impossible and a hierarchy does not prepare itself for contingencies it thinks are impossible.
Usually, the failure of the intelligence community or policy makers is not the lack of information but due to limitations of human psychology and social behavior. Intelligence collection, processing and analysis results in a judgement that is presented to policy makers in a timely fashion. The policy makers in turn make the judgement about the quality and urgency of the judgement to pursue a particular course of action. All these actions are shaped by human psychology. This intangible element receives little attention compared to measurable variables that can be observed and quantified both during the process and investigations after the surprise.
It is usually not a single cause but an aggregation of several factors that result in a strategic surprise. In the case of Israel, it suffered from several types of cognitive biases including ethno-centric bias (Israelis are superior because they are ‘modern’ innovating new technologies and Palestinians are ‘primitive’ and incapable of sophisticated thought and complex planning), status quo bias (today looks like yesterday therefore tomorrow will look like today), organizational bias (Hamas is deterred and also does not have the capability), evaluation of evidence bias (Hamas neutrality when Palestinian Islamic Jihad was attacked by Israel in Gaza in 2022 and 2023), cause and effect perception bias (overwhelming Israeli dominance is the sole cause of deterrence), cultural bias (Hamas calculations are same as Israel has calculated) and self-interest bias (intelligence and military leaders not willing to invite the ire of Netanyahu and later preferring security options that were in line with his world view). The cognitive bias was both ‘unmotivated’; psychological based distortions in processing of information and ‘motivated’ especially in case of policy makers (Netanyahu’s preference of quiet in Gaza with some kind of accommodation with Hamas that suited his own political worldview and of his religious-Zionist allies).
Confirmation bias is accepting information confirming existing assumptions and rejecting or explaining away information that contradicts it. Richard Heuer warns that ‘mindset tends to be quick to form and resistant to change’ and ‘latest information is assimilated in existing images rather than questioning the existing mindset. Once the assumption that Hamas is ‘deterred’ transformed into a belief at the highest levels of decision-making process then the fact that Hamas did not intervene when Israel attacked Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza in August 2022 and May 2023 was viewed as a confirmatory evidence that was consistent with the existing mind set.
On the other hand, new information that contradicted the belief (Israeli intelligence got hold of the detailed Hamas plan named Jericho Wall a year before the attack and highly visible practice drills in the days running up to the attack) were dismissed or explained away as not a realistic option but ‘aspirational’. Abraham Ben Zvi makes the connection between strategic assumption and tactical warning that when they converge then warning like a fire alarm is heeded and appropriate counter measures are taken.
However, when they diverge, strategic assumption always trumps tactical warning, and this happened in the run up to October 07. Intelligence information is never complete or black and white, it is always incomplete, vague or contradictory. The trap is ‘mirror imaging’ where an analyst or policy maker fills the gap in his own knowledge by assuming that the adversary is likely to act in the same way as own side will act in such circumstances, and this is explained away as a rational course. Israelis fell back on this alternative as they did not have meaningful insight into what Hamas perceives as its interests and risk-benefit calculations of an action. Palestinians and especially Hamas do not think the same way as Israelis.
We do not have detailed information from Hamas leadership or documentary evidence of their thought process but the likely explanation is that Hamas had modest expectations about the operation hoping to kill and abduct a few dozen Israelis to negotiate prisoner swap and highlight the Palestinian cause. The expected Israeli response was to be air strikes but not outright invasion and occupation of Gaza. It is also possible that Hamas was fully aware that they may be severely degraded or even decimated if their surprise attack succeeded beyond their expectations, they would still think it more honorable to fight than to abandon their announced policy of military confrontation with Israel. Their own experience of prolonged occupation and daily humiliation with no end in sight coupled with a sense of fatalism as well as religious concept of martyrdom prevalent in Arab societies and large-scale protests in Israel against judicial overhaul attempts by right wing government may have functioned as the catalytic factors. It needs an extraordinary analyst to gain insight into an adversary’s perceptions about risk assessment, risk-benefit calculations, and sense of opportunity.
Denial or minimalization of possibility of threat in the context of latest information was at play at the military and political levels. The Army brass saw the emerging threat of breach of barrier in the realm of impossibility and even if it materialized would be small scale and the existing defense mechanisms were considered sufficient to deal with it. Just a few weeks earlier, Israeli troops were alerted and resources shuffled but the attack never materialized. The latest information about the threat entailed another round of higher alert and convincing political leaders to approve transfer of resources from other fronts. Unwilling to pursue this course, the military leadership interpreted it as another false alarm.
Israeli intelligence and military are viewed as bastion of left and secular elite by parties on the right. Israeli intelligence warned Netanyahu that judicial overhaul protests were viewed by enemies as weakness of Israeli society but Netanyahu viewed it as an exaggeration on part of intelligence community to thwart a political policy. He countered by demanding that in future any threat warning must be accompanied by details. The demand itself was reasonable to check as a balance against ‘cry wolf syndrome’ but it sent a wrong message back that such warnings were not welcome at the prime minister office.
Even if he had comprehended the imminent threat, the counter policy measures had explicit political ramifications. It meant transferring Israeli troops protecting settlers in West Bank to the Gaza front. When the military and political leaders could not envision a satisfactory response to a potential threat, the tendency was to deny or minimize the threat by reinforcing existing assumption falling prey to ‘wishful thinking dilemma’.
Intelligence analysts, military officers, and political decision makers were part of a hierarchy and as expected adopted ‘war dialectics’ ‘military balance’ and ‘an attritional mindset’. They assessed new reports of Hamas preparations to breach the barrier in the context that this scenario would unfold in the presence of barrier electronic detection and automatic machine gun fire systems and an alert IDF. In the presence of these two crucial pieces of defense, Hamas could not win the showdown with IDF to achieve the objective of killing or abducting Israeli civilians. The assessment was correct from the military balance mindset. However, on the other hand, Hamas was operating as a network and viewed the same situation from an ‘asymmetric mindset’.
The perceptions of the weak calculated that if two key elements of defense (electronic detection and automatic machine gun fire systems and an alert IDF) were neutralized or side stepped, then they could reach unarmed civilians. This window of opportunity was of only a few hours and, in this time, electronic sensors were taken out, blinding intelligence and military headquarters, severing connection of border posts with their headquarters and forcing IDF soldiers to fight battle of their own survival (many were killed in their beds that shows the extent of surprise) thus leaving unarmed civilian gatherings at kibbutzim and the music festival (one third of casualties were at the music festival) unprotected.
The conflict is never one sided and all good or all bad is not on one side. In case of Hamas James Wirtz’s term “catastrophic success” aptly describes their situation. Hamas had the initiative and decided on what type of attack to be launched at a place and time of their choice. It succeeded beyond their wild expectations. However, surprise has a noticeably short life span and when it fades, war returns, and it has returned with a vengeance for Palestinians where Gaza strip looks like a scene from an apocalyptic movie.
Almost all Hamas leaders who planned and executed the surprise have gone to meet their creator and the organization is decimated. The Hamas attack achieved short-term objectives but may end up with disastrous long-term consequences for Palestinians. The jury is still out on this.
Israeli security and political players processed information through their own lenses of past experience, cultural values and organizational norms. Enormous amounts of data of information were collected, organized and deciphered but it is the art of ‘synthesis of information’ that provides the insight rather than the ‘dissection of information’. They ignored the fundamental fact that perception is an active rather than a passive process and Richard Heuer explains the phenomenon of perception as not only awareness but also understanding. High tech seduced all layers of national security hierarchy where surveillance was equated with understanding with disastrous consequences. Hamas as a network employed low tech solutions to high tech formidable barrier by the simple act of bypassing.
A multi-billion dollar above ground high tech electronic fence coupled with several meter below ground steel and concrete barrier to thwart tedious tunneling attempts was bypassed by using paragliders and flying over the fence. Professor Janice Stein correctly concludes that the interaction of psychological processes, organizational pathologies and the worldviews and political priorities of a government dependent on its most radical members “at different times reinforced and amplified one or the other or both that best explains the devastating surprise early on the morning of Oct. 7.” Future investigations will look at all these factors except the psychological processes. Historically, reflexive response after surprise attack is to legislate, create new bureaucracies, shuffle the organizational chart, increase the already overloaded data collection to the level of obsession and contrarian attempts to over centralize and decentralize at the same time.
The key psychological element is never discussed as it cannot be quantified, meticulously organized, or legislated. A better understanding of psychological aspects and limitations it imposes can improve intelligence analysis as well as political decision-making process related to national security. One cannot eliminate the strategic surprise as human behavior is not a linear process subject to controlled experiments, but a better understanding and remedial measures can mitigate the consequences of the surprise.
In the last fifty years, Israeli society addressed its fundamental problem with Palestinians through various transformations. It evolved from conventional military conflicts with hostile neighboring Arab states, high pace kinetic operations against non-state actors, containment, management and finally assuming that it has simply transcended the problem. Israel was projected as a wealthy, western democratic start up nation that was no more defined by its conflict with Palestinians. The October 07 attack by Hamas has shattered that illusion bringing the fundamental question back to the center stage. Israeli and Palestinian societies must reflect on this question amidst burned out kibbutzim in the south and flattened high rises of Gaza.
“For nothing is hidden but it will be made clear, nothing secret but it will be made known and brought to light” -Luke 8:17
Notes
• Roge Z. George et al (Ed). Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, And Innovations (Washington D.C. George Washington University Press), 2008
• Richard J. Heuer, Jr. Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Center for the Study of Intelligence), 1999.
•Robert M. Clark. Intelligence Analysis: A Target Centric Approach. (Washington, D.C. CQ Press, 2010, Third Edition
• Janice Gross Stein. Bringing Politics Back In: The Neglected Explanation of the Oct. 7 Surprise Attack. Texas National Security Review, Vol 7, Issue 4, Fall 2024 https://tnsr.org/2024/10/bringing-politics-back-inthe-neglected-explanation-of-the-oct-7-surpriseattack/
• Wirtz, James J., “Michael Handel, October 7, and The Theory of Surprise,” Military Strategy Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 3, Special Issue, ‘What Would the Greats Say About War in the 21st Century’, Spring 2024, pages 4- 10.
• Michel Wyss. The October 7 Attack: An Assessment of Intelligence Failings. Sentinel. October 2024, Volume 17, Issue 9
• Richard A. Posner. Surprise Attack: The Lessons of History. Commentary, April 2005 https://www.commentary.org/articles/richard-posner/surprise-attack-the-lessons-of-history/
• John-Michael Arnold. Non-State-Led Strategic Surprise and U.S. Foreign Policy: A New Variant of an Old Problem. Yale Journal of International Affairs, Volume 8, Issue 1: Winter 2013
• Shany Mor. The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7 Mosaic, October 2024 https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/israel-zionism/2024/10/the-failed-concepts-that-brought-israel-to-october-7/
• Eyal Pascovich. The devil’s advocate in intelligence: the Israeli experience. Intelligence and National Security Volume 33, 2018 – Issue 6, pp. 854-65
• Abraham Ben Zvi. Hindsight and Foresight: A conceptual framework for analysis of surprise attack. World Politics, April 1976
• James Rosen Birch. How Changes in the Israeli Military Led to the Failure of October 7. New Lines Magazine, 20 May 2024 https://newlinesmag.com/argument/how-changes-in-the-israeli-military-led-to-the-failure-of-october-7/
