A Call for an Independent Commission To Investigate the Events of October 7

As readers of The Jewish Press know from my almost 600 articles, I write as a passionate supporter of Israel, and as someone who believes deeply in the justice of the Jewish state’s cause and in its right to defend itself without apology. It is precisely for that reason that I believe Israel is making a grave mistake in the way it has chosen to investigate the catastrophic failures that culminated in the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. The issue is not whether Israel should examine what went wrong – that, of course, is beyond dispute – but how it chooses to do so. History shows that the structure, independence, and credibility of a commission of inquiry matter at least as much as its conclusions and, on that score, the current approach falls dangerously short of the standards Israel once set for itself.

Israel has faced national trauma before, and it has known surprise, intelligence failure, and devastating loss. Each time, it has been forced to confront not only the external enemy, but also its own decision-making processes, assumptions, and institutional blind spots. The manner in which Israel has historically done this, through independent, authoritative commissions of inquiry, has been one of the quiet strengths of its democracy. That tradition is now at risk.

After the Yom Kippur War, Israel appointed the Agranat Commission, chaired by Supreme Court President Shimon Agranat. The war had shattered the country’s sense of security and, despite early battlefield successes, the initial surprise and the high casualty count left a traumatized public demanding answers. The government responded by establishing a state commission of inquiry under Israeli law, a body endowed with real investigatory powers and staffed by figures whose legitimacy did not derive from political loyalty and whose members included senior jurists and respected former military leaders, none of whom were serving politicians.

The Agranat Commission was deeply flawed, and it has rightly been criticized over the decades. Most notably, it focused heavily on military and intelligence failures while largely sidestepping direct scrutiny of the political leadership, as Moshe Dayan and Golda Meir emerged formally unscathed, a result that many Israelis found unsatisfying and even unjust. Yet for all its limitations, Agranat was unmistakably independent; it did not answer to the government it investigated; it took testimony under oath, issued binding recommendations, and its interim report led directly to the resignation of the IDF chief of staff and, shortly thereafter, to the collapse of the Meir government itself. Whatever its blind spots, Agranat demonstrated that in Israel, even the most revered institutions could be subjected to serious nonpolitical scrutiny.

Three decades later, after the Second Lebanon War, Israel again confronted an unsettling mix of military underperformance, strategic confusion, and political indecision. The Winograd Commission, appointed in 2006, was not formally a state commission of inquiry in the Agranat mold, but it was consciously designed to approximate one. Chaired by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd and staffed by respected civilian and military figures, it was deliberately insulated from direct partisan control. Its mandate was broad, extending beyond tactical failures to include the decision-making processes of the prime minister, defense minister, and cabinet.

The Winograd Commission did not recommend dismissals in the blunt manner of Agranat and, while critics accused it of excessive caution, it was unsparing in its analysis. It described serious failures of judgment, preparation, and leadership at both the political and military levels, and it openly criticized Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s handling of the war, even if it stopped short of demanding his resignation. Significantly, its findings were accepted by most Israelis as credible, precisely because the commission was not perceived as a political tool; serving only the public, it neither served the government nor functioned as an opposition tribunal.

The contrast with the inquiry process now being advanced to examine October 7 could hardly be starker. The Hamas attack, not merely another security failure, was one of the deadliest days for Jews since the Holocaust, involving the collapse of border defenses, intelligence misjudgments, operational paralysis, and a catastrophic failure to protect Israeli civilians. Entire communities were overrun, hundreds were massacred in their homes, and the scale of the failure demands an inquiry of the highest authority and independence that Israel can muster.

Yet, instead of establishing a state commission of inquiry under the existing legal framework, one in which the president of the Supreme Court appoints the commissioners and defines their independence, the government has opted for a politically constituted body. Its members are to be selected through political mechanisms, with representation divided along coalition and opposition lines, and with the executive branch retaining decisive influence over the commission’s mandate. This is no mere technical distinction; it is the difference between an inquiry that stands above politics and one that is embedded within it.

Supporters of the government’s approach argue that a politically appointed commission ensures broader consensus and prevents judicial overreach, but in practice, it ensures something else: that those whose decisions are under scrutiny retain influence over who investigates them and how they do so. No amount of procedural balancing can overcome the inherent conflict of interest this creates, and a commission whose composition is negotiated by politicians cannot plausibly claim the same independence as one appointed by the judiciary under law.

This concern is not abstract. The very officials responsible for Israel’s security posture before October 7, including those who set strategic priorities, approved budgets, and shaped intelligence assessments, remain in power. Some have publicly resisted calls for a state commission of inquiry, arguing that such an investigation should wait until the war is fully concluded, or warning that it could undermine national unity. These arguments might carry greater weight if the alternative on offer were genuinely independent. It is not.

Israelis understand this intuitively. Polls, protests, and the voices of bereaved families all point to a widespread belief that a politically appointed inquiry will lack credibility, not because Israelis distrust accountability, but because they understand how politics works. An inquiry that begins under a cloud of suspicion will struggle to command trust, no matter how earnest its members may be.

The danger is not only that such a commission will fail to assign responsibility, but also that it may fail to uncover deeper systemic problems. Intelligence failures are rarely the result of a single bad judgment; they arise from organizational culture, from incentives, from entrenched assumptions, and from political pressures that discourage dissent such that only an inquiry that is structurally independent can probe those dynamics honestly. A politically controlled process, by contrast, is far more likely to focus on narrow, technical explanations that leave underlying power structures intact.

Some defenders of the current approach point out, correctly, that the Agranat and Winograd commissions were themselves imperfect and that no inquiry can fully satisfy public demands for accountability. That is certainly true, but imperfection is not the same as illegitimacy. Agranat and Winograd were taken seriously even by their critics because they were seen as good-faith efforts to subordinate power to truth, but the same cannot yet be said of the proposed October 7 inquiry framework.

Israel is fighting not only a military war but a moral and political one, and its enemies seek to portray it as lawless, indifferent to civilian life, and incapable of self-reflection. While it is true that most of the world would deem Israel to be an outlaw state even if it was as pure as the driven snow, one of its strongest rebuttals to that narrative has always been its willingness to examine its own failures publicly and rigorously. Accordingly, independent commissions of inquiry are not a concession to critics, but they are an expression of democratic confidence.

There is also an important lesson here about leadership. Golda Meir did not appoint Agranat because she believed it would exonerate her and Ehud Olmert did not welcome Winograd’s findings. In both cases, the political cost was high; yet those processes strengthened Israel in the long run by reaffirming that no leader stands above accountability. By contrast, an inquiry perceived as designed to manage blame rather than uncover truth risks deepening cynicism and eroding trust in institutions at a moment when unity is already fragile.

To be clear, none of this diminishes the heroism of Israeli soldiers or the justice of Israel’s war aims after October 7, and one can support the IDF, back Israel’s right to destroy Hamas, and still insist on a serious reckoning with the failures that made the massacre possible. Indeed, it is precisely because Israel must remain strong that it cannot afford a compromised inquiry.

The choice Israel faces is not between unity and accountability but rather between short-term political comfort and long-term institutional integrity, and history suggests that Israel is at its best when it chooses the latter, even at great cost. The Agranat Commission and the Winograd Commission were products of that instinct, however imperfectly realized, but the current approach risks abandoning it.

If Israel wants to honor the victims of October 7, protect future generations, and preserve the moral authority that has long distinguished it among democracies under fire, it must return to first principles. An inquiry into the greatest security failure in the country’s history must be independent, empowered, and beyond political control; anything less will not only fail to answer the hardest questions, but it will also confirm the most troubling ones.