By: Lily Buyer, Haverford ’26, image from CNN/Getty Images
After the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, which killed roughly 1,200 people and shattered long-standing assumptions about the country’s security, the Israeli Defense Force moved to take punitive action on November 23, 2025. The IDF announced the resignation of several senior commanders, explicitly acknowledging their failure to “protect the civilians of the state of Israel.” The decision signaled a rare and tangible instance of institutional accountability. Yet, this willingness to accept responsibility has not been shared uniformly across Israel’s governing institutions.
While military leadership absorbed the blame, other political leadership has largely avoided it. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s long-delayed decision to authorize official inquiry into the October 7 failures exemplifies this. While appearing to signal accountability, in practice, its impact was severely constrained by legislation passed months earlier as part of Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul. The reforms enabling the government greater control over investigative bodies, underscored the government’s thinly veiled attempts to control the narrative and localize blame.
Public reaction suggests that these implications have not gone unnoticed. Rather than restoring trust, these disciplinary actions sparked widespread skepticism. Many Israelis questioned how an investigation overseen by the same political leadership responsible for national security prior to October 7 could deliver genuine accountability. Mass protests erupted, denouncing the government’s plan for self-mandated evaluations of its own failure. Large demonstrations were held in “strong, united opposition” to what many perceived as politically self-serving agendas.
Crucially, this dynamic is emboldened by the tension between Israel’s political and military powers themselves. General Zamir’s public insistence on a deeper independent investigation was called a betrayal by Netanyahu. Nonetheless, the military remains the only body in the country that has thoroughly investigated its own failures, which raises an important critique. Although internal military responsibility is evident, the scope of accountability remains limited. Thus, rather than paving a path forward, the move narrows the burden of responsibility to individual officers rather than reforming its strategic doctrines.
The inadequacy of these punitive measures become even clearer when viewed through the lens of deterrence theory. Israel’s security doctrine rests on the assumption that overwhelming military capability will deter adversaries from launching large-scale attacks. However, Hamas was severely underestimated, and early warning signs of a major assault were either misinterpreted or ignored. Thus, the punishment of individual commanders through forced retirement or reprimand does little to address the systematic failures leading to October 7. Without any consideration for failings in Israel’s communication, threat assessment, and credibility, the same security vulnerabilities will remain.
The nature of the punishment also raises questions about political accountability at the highest level. Military commanders facing dismissal without public trials allowed for responsibility to be resolved internally. While such measures are severe enough to project decisiveness, they simultaneously reinforce an avoidance of deeper structural reform. This ambiguity undermines the very logic of punishment itself: if failures of this magnitude result only in internal discipline, very little people may challenge the flawed assumptions embedded in political decision-making, particularly those amongst the political elite.
The October 7 attack thus revealed a paradox at the heart of Israel’s leadership. A state capable of imposing extraordinary costs on its adversaries responded to its own security collapse with limited, inward-facing punishment. While General Zamir ordered an independent review of the investigation, and the IDF has taken responsibility for identifying individuals to reprimand, the military remains the only institution holding itself accountable. Punishment without institutional transformation risks becoming a substitute for reform rather a comprehensive solution. Unless accountability extends beyond individual discipline to addresses political leadership and their strategic failures, the lessons drawn from the attack will remain dangerously incomplete.
