INTELLIGENCE FAILURES: Israel Knew About Hamas’ Attack Plan a Year in Advance But Didn’t Take It Seriously. “In retrospect, the whole thing comes down to a failure of imagination and also a too firm belief among senior leaders that Hamas was not interested in attacking. Apparently they were convinced by the fact that Hamas had negotiated for the right to cross the border to work jobs in Israel that they were no longer a threat. In fact, they may have been using this access to gather information for the attack.”

Flashback: Israel’s intelligence failure is a warning for America’s politicized agencies. “We know what the Israeli intelligence agencies weren’t doing, which is getting warning of the attack. So what were they doing? Well, one thing was organizing protests against Netanyahu, in opposition to his party’s platform of reform aimed at Israel’s Supreme Court. . . . So the Mossad, whose job is to protect Israel from external threats, was instead monkeying with domestic politics.”

Plus: “So what is the FBI and the rest of the intelligence/law-enforcement apparatus missing now? When we find out, it will be too late.”