What core intelligence challenges did Israel fail to meet in the lead-up to October 7? Israeli intelligence, in concert with policymakers, missed the disruptive terrorist “innovation” in Hamas’s strategy toward Israel. This error was facilitated by a related failure to implement existing intelligence across organizational levels. The calamitous intelligence failure that culminated in the events of October 7 illustrates Yakov Ben-Haim’s info-gap theory, which states that commitment to a policy paradoxically increases when the level of what needs to be known is lowered. This allows for the growth of a dangerous tolerance for gaps in information. In Israel’s case, this tolerance blinded the intelligence services and policymakers to disruptive changes in Hamas’s intentions, capabilities and application of resources…
