Early warning: three years ago and last week
Yossi Alpher — October 5, 2026
Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions.
Q. In recent weeks we have been flooded with reliable reports on the October 7, 2023 early warnings from Arab neighbors that Netanyahu seemingly ignored. There has to be more to the story…
A. It emerges that a lot of people in positions of authority and responsibility ignored a lot of warnings of attack by Hamas and other Islamists. Netanyahu himself was warned by his own security heads, but also by Arab leaders. Now it turns out he was even warned by Gazan Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
Because Netanyahu has refused to appoint a national commission of inquiry, the October 7 early warning issue is being amplified by the anti-Netanyahu camp as Knesset elections approach.
Anyone, myself included, who has been charged by the security community with sounding an early warning – of enemy attack or even some parallel setback like the fall of a friendly neighbor-regime – knows that the burden of responsibility leaves its psychological mark. When I left the Mossad I was given a parchment inscribed with Ezekiel’s renowned admonition: “If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes someone’s life… I will hold the watchman accountable for their blood. Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel.” Try living with that version of accountability.
Q. Fast forward. As we learn details about the abortive hijacking and crashing of a Fly Dubai airliner en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week, it looks like a lot of people failed yet another early warning test.
A. Luckily, this time without loss of life. But how many Israelis and Emiratis ignored the Islamist background of the Omani copilot? Ignored numerous flights to Israel by unvetted Syrian and Iranian pilots? Here the early-warning failure is mindboggling in scope if not in consequences. That a bunch of Israeli passengers saved the day clearly reflects the extent to which the early warning issue has become a part of the Israeli national psyche, at the deepest and broadest level.
Q. Back to October 7. How do you explain the early warnings to Netanyahu from the leader of the United Arab Emirates, the head of Egyptian Intelligence, indeed, Sinwar himself? And how do you explain Netanyahu ignoring them?
A. First of all, note that these were all apparently generalized warnings: no dates, no details of an attack. Secondly, Netanyahu already was collecting similar generalized warnings from the heads of Israel’s own intelligence community. Here we go back to Roberta Wohlstetter’s pioneering research on the 1941 Pearl Harbor early warning failure and the problem of ‘noise’ and ‘signals.’
There can be no doubt that Netanyahu and his intelligence and security heads were constantly besieged by the ‘noise’ of multiple alarms about multiple scenarios of attack and disaster. Those female soldiers on ‘lookout’ duty watching the Gaza Strip may have, over previous months, sounded multiple false alarms. There is no obvious mechanism that can enable one to focus on the real early warning signal and distinguish it from all the ‘noise’ of false and mistaken alarms. This requires knowledge, experience, and sharp senses.
It remains only to fault Netanyahu and his security team not just for missing signals despite the noise but for trusting Qatar and Hamas in the first place. After all, these are Islamists who preach Israel’s demise. Full stop. End of discussion.
I remember, just days following the surprise attack that launched the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, being briefed by IDF early warning officers – still horrified and smarting from their October 6 failure – to be on the lookout for any and all unusual signs that could conceivably signal another enemy attack. I was a Mossad collection officer in Europe at the time. One morning, I opened the International Herald Tribune and noticed there was no weather report for Cairo. Could the Egyptians be concealing it for suspicious reasons linked to air activity? Or was this too silly and mundane to remark on?
I filed an emergency report. Got a polite acknowledgment and thanks. In the atmosphere of October 1973, no one could blame me.
Q. But Netanyahu received warnings from friendly Arab leaders (and even an unfriendly one, Sinwar)? Noise?
A. Netanyahu denies receiving the warnings. He even traveled to Abu Dhabi last week to try (and fail) to elicit a UAE denial. His own denials are ridiculous, yet are consumed voraciously by his electoral base, his faithful followers – and they are numerous – who are always prepared to be convinced by the Netanyahu propaganda machine.
Here’s my theory about what may have happened with the Abu Dhabi and Egypt warnings.
Prior to October 2023, Netanyahu’s conduit for financial aid to Hamas in Gaza was Qatar, which, like Hamas (and Turkey), is affiliated with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. For this Islamist affiliation and a host of other provocative reasons, the Qatari leadership was not popular in the Arab world; between 2017 and 2021 Egypt and a number of Gulf countries cut relations and boycotted Doha. Yet in parallel, Netanyahu and at least some Israeli security officials convinced themselves that Qatari dollars were buying Israel peace and quiet in Gaza.
(Here is the PM’s Office just last week – LAST WEEK – still insisting that, “All the security heads supported transferring funds to the Strip… to enhance the potential for stability.”)
Keep in mind that this is the same Netanyahu who has clung to power for most of 15 years by fomenting conspiracies and conspiracy theories among his political enemies in Israel, Washington and elsewhere. He thrives on this. Back in 2023 he rejected the early warning sounded by the heads of his own security community because he suspected them (“liberals!”) of trying to sabotage his anti-democratic judicial ‘reforms.’
So when the leader of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zaid, and Head of Egyptian Intelligence Abbas Kamel directly warned Netanyahu of Hamas’s intention to attack, the already paranoid Israeli prime minister easily convinced himself that they resented Hamas and the Hamas-Netanyahu connection and were trying to sabotage it. He would not let himself be dragged into internal Arab disputes. Netanyahu did not even bother to disseminate these warnings to Israeli intelligence officials.
And as for Sinwar’s warning of an ‘earthquake’? Well, come on, he’s Sinwar. Nobody trusts him. (And in retrospect, conspiracy theorists can credit him with plunging Israel into a maelstrom of barbarism, messianism, and revenge in Gaza that have left it internationally isolated and internally traumatized in ways that Sinwar could only imagine.)
Remember, shortly before the Yom Kippur War, Jordan’s King Hussein flew secretly to Israel to warn Prime Minister Golda Meir of an impending Arab attack. She at least shared the warning with the security community. They all ignored it.
Turns out Israel does not know how to value its Arab friends. It’s too suspicious of their motives.
Q. Bottom line?
A. None of this exonerates Netanyahu. The difference between 2023 and 1973 is that Golda and Dayan accepted responsibility. Not so Netanyahu. In 1973, the intelligence and security heads were held responsible by a proper inquiry. After 2023, too, they all accepted responsibility and resigned even without an official national inquiry.
Not so Netanyahu. Sadly, as matters stand, and despite all the early warnings, he just may survive this election.
Finally, something positive. The old-timers among us remember when we did not talk to the Arab world: we did not fly there; we were in a state of war with all the Arabs. Now look where we are: we fly there and they fly here; we have normalized relations; they even warn us of danger. It’s far from perfect and indeed (Fly Dubai) can get nasty. But we are now very much part of this neighborhood.
Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer.
