Two years have passed since October 7. Israel has rebuilt its border, rearmed its divisions, and buried most of its dead. Nineteen still lie in Gaza—soldiers and civilians whose bodies remain in enemy hands. The country has not yet brought them home. And it has not brought home something else: accountability.
For the greatest military and intelligence failure in Israel’s history, there has been no reckoning. No public criminal probe. No loss of benefits. Not even a gesture of disgrace. A few commanders resigned, but resignation without consequence is not accountability. It is choreography.
Herzi Halevi, the Chief of Staff who presided over the catastrophe, announced in January 2025 that he would step down. He did so that March, in a ceremony of continuity, not contrition. He spoke of lessons learned, expressed sorrow, and offered regrets. But words are not responsibility, and sorrow is not leadership. He left with honors, salary, and comfort intact. He failed in war and retired in peace.
True command means taking ownership when everything collapses. If something goes wrong, it is still your command. That principle—once the heartbeat of the IDF—has evaporated. The tragedy of October 7 is not only that the army failed to defend its people, but that its highest officer refused to own that failure. Halevi hid behind the fog of committees, process, and ceremony.
Reserve Brigadier General Oren Solomon tried to break that fog. Investigating the Gaza Division, he asked the question others avoided: what did the Chief of Staff do during the first six hours of the attack? His conclusion—paralysis, confusion, lack of professionalism—cut too close to the bone. He was accused of security violations, his home raided, his name tarnished. Months later, investigators admitted there was no evidence. The man who sought truth was punished; the man who froze in crisis was celebrated.
Even senior politicians have begun to acknowledge what the military won’t. In a recent interview with Ynet, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed that by around noon on October 7, as Hamas gunmen rampaged through Israeli towns, the IDF’s senior leadership still didn’t know where to send troops. The picture is damning: a nation under siege, its generals debating direction while civilians fought for survival.
This is more than a failure of defense—it is a failure of courage. Responsibility in today’s IDF has become symbolic, not substantive. Resignation is theater. Remorse is marketing. The higher the rank, the lighter the burden. Halevi’s resignation was an act of preservation, not principle. He faced no inquiry, no loss of benefits, no real censure. His only punishment is memory—and even that is softened by ceremony and by official claims of “battlefield gains” in Gaza and Lebanon the year after.
Israel once understood what responsibility meant. In the early 1990s, Yitzhak Rabin stood before IDF commanders and reminded them what command truly requires:
“I demand from you, first and foremost—responsibility. You are entrusted with the fate of other people’s lives; you are given responsibility for combat equipment worth millions. Your responsibility is absolute; there is no one behind you to look to. The responsibility stops with you.”
Then he warned them of the moral price of carelessness:
“There is no consolation for a family whose son has fallen in war, but the family then knows that in his death, he saved our lives. What would you say to a mother whose son was killed simply because one of the soldiers did not follow instructions and orders? How could we look into the eyes of a father whose son was killed because someone thought and said, ‘Trust me,’ or ‘It’ll be fine,’ and nothing was fine?”
Rabin’s words were not rhetoric. They were doctrine. They embodied the IDF’s moral core—the understanding that leadership is not privilege, it is burden; that when soldiers fall, their commanders must carry the weight of their loss. The men who led Israel on October 7 inherited Rabin’s army but not his standard. They forgot that in command, there is no one behind you to look to.
The danger isn’t just moral—it’s practical. An army that protects its top brass from failure teaches its young officers the wrong lesson: that mistakes at the summit are survivable, even rewarded, while mistakes in the field are fatal. That culture breeds hesitation, not initiative. When failure carries no cost, people stop trying to prevent it.
The IDF’s strength has never come from weapons alone. It has come from the trust that binds its ranks—from the belief that those in command share the burden of those they lead. When that trust erodes, even the most advanced army becomes fragile. When rank becomes a shield from judgment, the chain of command frays. Orders are obeyed, but faith disappears.
The risk for Israel is real. Without accountability, the next war will find an army less honest, less agile, and less prepared. Complacency at the top becomes confusion in the field. And confusion, on Israel’s borders, is fatal.
Halevi’s defenders call him unlucky, a victim of timing. But luck is no defense for command. Leadership is not about circumstance—it is about consequence. The worst failure in Israel’s military history ended not in disgrace, but in ceremony. The general who presided over national calamity walks free, his legacy semi-cushioned by pageantry and forgetfulness.
Decline rarely comes with explosions. It comes quietly—a promotion here, a speech there, a pension paid on time. The small choices that unmake nations from within. Israel has rebuilt its fences. It has not rebuilt its moral boundaries. Until it does, October 7 will not be history. It will be a warning—that a state which no longer punishes failure is already preparing for its next one.
