The establishment press is working overtime to lump Oct. 7 in with Pearl Harbor and 9/11 — and the effect, whether intended or not, is to grease the skids for another open-ended American commitment abroad, just as new details confirm Israeli leadership had ample warning of the Hamas attack and refused to act.
CBS News ran an entire analysis framing Israel's Oct. 7 disaster alongside America's two most consequential intelligence failures, both of which dragged the United States into massive foreign wars. The piece quotes former senior Israeli intelligence official Shlomo Mofaz conceding: "There was a lot of information. They just didn't understand it correctly." That's a damning admission — but CBS buried the real scandal beneath the Pearl Harbor imagery.
NPR and Al-Monitor reported what CBS glossed over: Benjamin Netanyahu was personally and repeatedly warned. Four people with direct knowledge told NPR that regional allies alerted Netanyahu and his security agencies in the weeks and days before the attack. The leader of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, called Netanyahu for more than 40 minutes days before Oct. 7 to warn that a "quake" would hit the region if no prisoner deal was reached. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar himself sent a message through Palestinian mediator Sufian Abu Zaida on Sept. 14, 2023: "By the end of September, we will put cards on the table. There will be an earthquake in the negotiations, and the Israelis should prepare to empty their their prisons."
Netanyahu's response? He called the reports "fake news" and filed defamation lawsuits against Israeli outlets that published them. Three years later, he still refuses to establish an independent state commission of inquiry. As Rafi Ben Shitrit of the October Council told Al-Monitor: "Israeli society can never start healing until all of the political echelon that ruled the country in the months before and on that day recognizes its responsibility and steps aside."
Meanwhile, back home, Jewish Americans are paying a real price. A New York Post poll found more than half of Jewish New Yorkers fear for their safety, 42% have been verbally harassed, and one in four have hidden their Jewish identity at work or online. That's a domestic crisis worth addressing — without shipping more taxpayer dollars overseas.
The Pearl Harbor and 9/11 comparisons aren't neutral history lessons. Pearl Harbor got us World War II. 9/11 got us two decades of nation-building and trillions in debt. Every time the press wraps a foreign disaster in the American flag, ask who profits from the next war — and which American families will pay for it.
