Amos Harel on the Anatomy of a Failure - how October 7 happened

Unholy: Two Jews on the News

Unholy Media

News, Yonit Levi, News Commentary, Society & Culture, Jews, Religion & Spirituality, Israel, Jewish, Judaism, Israel Podcast, Middle East, Jonathan Freedland, Documentary

4.7 • 770 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Yonit and Jonathan sit down with acclaimed military and intelligence analyst Amos Harel to discuss his new book 6:29 -Anatomy of a Failure — a devastating, meticulously reported account of October 7th and the collapse that preceded it. Drawing on internal investigations, intelligence materials, battlefield testimony and conversations with senior officials, Harel reconstructs how Israel failed at every level: intelligence, operations - and strategy. They discuss the “Walls of Jericho” Hamas attack plan that Israeli intelligence possessed years in advance; the SIM card warnings and the signs missed in the final hours before the massacre; the operational chaos that left communities abandoned for hours; and why Harel believes October 7th could likely have been prevented. The conversation also examines Benjamin Netanyahu’s role in the years leading up to the attack: the Qatar cash pipeline to Hamas, the belief that the Palestinian conflict could be indefinitely “managed,” the judicial overhaul crisis, and the refusal — still now — to establish a state commission of inquiry. Plus: why Hezbollah’s hesitation on October 7th may have prevented an even greater catastrophe, whether Israel has actually learned the lessons of that day, and why Harel believes the battle over the public memory of October 7th may define Israel’s coming elections.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I think I'm traumatized like the rest of us.
0:04.3	I think this had a massive effect on my daily life.
0:07.6	I think it had a massive effect on my sense of security in Israel, my sense of my family's security.
0:13.9	I didn't.
0:14.9	After the second 85, I took a few years, but later on I was not that worried.
0:18.6	Even with this ambiguous, vague threat of a nuclear attack from Iran,
0:23.1	it all seemed quite theoretical to me. I always felt Israel was strong. We had our problems,
0:28.1	we had our domestic issues and so on, but the army was strong. The intelligence community knew
0:32.2	what it was doing. The L-Four's great. We couldn't deal with that. And suddenly, in a way,
0:37.3	your world is shattered
0:38.3	because you understand how vulnerable we are
0:40.9	and how unstable and fragile the situation is.
0:59.4	It's unholy Our Tuesday Conversations.
1:00.9	I'm Yonite Levy in Tel Aviv.
1:03.0	And I'm Jonathan Friedland in London.
1:11.5	629, Anatomy of a Failure is the new book by acclaimed author and military analyst for Haaret's newspaper Amos Haral.
1:17.8	It goes deep into the failure of Israel on October 7th, the collapse of the intelligence,
1:21.6	the collapse on the operational level and on the strategic level.
1:23.6	We think it's a must read for everyone.
1:28.6	First of all, for Israelis, it's the closest we came thus far to a state's commission of inquiry. And for everyone outside Israel, it is essential to see, whether if you're in
1:35.0	the intelligence or the defense echelon, what happened on that day, how we got there, and what
1:41.0	could and should be fixed. So we're very honored to have you on to talk about that, Amos.
	...

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