October 7: Israel's opposition demands a state inquiry into Netanyahu, and the two commandments that judge it

Four leaders of the Israeli opposition — Gadi Eisenkot, Naftali Bennett, Yair Golan and Avigdor Lieberman — are demanding the opening of a state inquiry into what Benjamin Netanyahu knew before 7 October 2023, and into why he is said to have failed to act.

Their demand follows an investigation claiming that the president of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, personally warned Mr Netanyahu, about ten days before the attack, that the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was preparing a large-scale operation; the warning is said not to have been passed on to security officials, the Prime Minister judging that the main threat came from the West Bank. “You knew, you ignored it, you failed, you are guilty,” says Mr Golan; for Mr Eisenkot, “more and more signs lead to the same conclusion: Netanyahu led Israel blindly into the disaster of 7 October.”

None of this is established. The Prime Minister's office denounces an “absolute lie,” denies any call to the Emirati leader and any warning of this nature, and has instructed its lawyers to bring a defamation action. The Emirates decline to comment, while recalling the existence of direct intelligence channels. The investigation rests on anonymous sources and has not been independently verified.

Tradition does not judge probabilities, it judges acts, and here it knows two of them. He who governs bears the lives entrusted to him: the fifth commandment condemns not only murder but the culpable negligence by which the innocent is handed over to death, and the magistrate who, able to protect, refrains, answers for the blood shed. But the eighth commandment defends with equal force against false witness and rash judgment: to accuse a man of a crime that no court has established is in itself a grave fault. We will not settle, therefore, what the evidence has not settled. If the warning was received and silenced, the fault is immense; if it was invented, so is the calumny. The inquiry demanded exists precisely so that judgment may follow the truth, and not the reverse.

Mr Eisenkot promises a state commission of inquiry if a new government is formed; national elections are set for 27 October. The attack of 7 October 2023 left about 1,200 dead and 251 hostages; the Gaza Health Ministry reports more than 73,650 Palestinians killed in the Israeli response.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth and the eighth commandment.