Intelligence Scoop: Could Netanyahu Have Prevented October 7?
September 30, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readCould Netanyahu Have Prevented October 7?
On September 28, 2023—roughly a week and a half before Hamas launched the deadliest attack in Israeli history—the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, allegedly called Benjamin Netanyahu from his presidential palace in Abu Dhabi. According to a bombshell report from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, bin Zayed warned that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was planning a major operation against Israel, one big enough to destabilize the region and undermine the Abraham Accords. The call lasted 45 minutes. Netanyahu, the report claims, was not worried. He said the West Bank was more of an issue and that Israel was prepared for any scenario. He did not brief the heads of Shin Bet, Mossad, or the Israeli Defense Forces.
Netanyahu has denied the call ever happened. He called the report "an absolute lie" and part of a "sinister plot" to interfere in Israel's upcoming election. But the New York Times subsequently corroborated key elements of the story, citing five former senior Israeli officials. The UAE Foreign Ministry declined to comment. And the question of whether Netanyahu received—and ignored—strategic warnings before October 7 has become a central issue in Israel's election campaign, scheduled for October 27.
The Intelligence Failure: Collection, Analysis, and Assumptions
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:30) **Could October 7 Have Been Prevented?** - The hosts introduce the central question of the episode: whether the October 7th attacks and their aftermath could have been prevented, focusing on a specific intelligence failure.
- 2 (02:56) **Setting the Scene: Gaza and the Attack** - A brief overview of the geography of Gaza, the high-tech barrier Israel built around it, and the shocking sequence of events on October 7, 2023.
- 3 (06:29) **The Political Blame Game** - An overview of how responsibility for the intelligence failure has been assigned, with military and security chiefs taking the fall while Netanyahu has avoided blame and blocked an independent inquiry.
- 4 (07:34) **The Haaretz Bombshell: The UAE Warning** - Detailed breakdown of the Haaretz report, which claims that UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) called Netanyahu in late September 2023 to warn of a major Hamas operation.
- 5 (11:56) **A Second Warning: The Egyptian Intelligence Chief** - A similar warning is reported to have come from Egypt, with its intelligence chief flying into Israel on September 26th to deliver a message about an imminent "terrifying operation" by Hamas.
- 6 (14:09) **Netanyahu's Denials and the Political Firestorm** - An examination of Netanyahu's blanket denial of the Haaretz report and the counter-evidence from other news outlets and foreign sources.
- 7 (20:03) **Why No National Inquiry?** - The hosts argue that Netanyahu’s blocking of a national commission of inquiry is a key piece of evidence that he has something to hide.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
The events of October 7 2023 reshaped the Middle East. But could what happened on that fateful day, and everything that has come after, have been prevented?
Listen as David and Gordon dig into whether there is any truth in the reporting that Benjamin Netanyahu was warned about the October 7 attacks, and chose to do nothing.
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