October 7 Treason Allegations Escalate Israel Election Rhetoric, Sparking Legal Threats

With the October 27 election still nearly two months away, the campaign’s personal attacks have already reached an unprecedented low.

The most egregious remarks were made this week by Sara Netanyahu, wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, alleging that Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, had advance knowledge of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and ignited the ongoing war.

Golan, a former deputy chief of the Israel Defense Forces, responded to the October 7 attacks by putting on his uniform and traveling to the Supernova music festival in southern Israel to assist.

His record is not without controversy; by May 2025 he had become critical of the war, stating that Israel was killing babies in Gaza “as a hobby.” Defense Minister Israel Katz subsequently barred him from reserve duty and described the comment as a “blood libel.”

Claims Netanyahu intentionally not informed of October 7 attack

She argued that, as a high‑ranking military officer who “fought on October 7” and was “already dressed and ready at a very early hour when others, including the prime minister, did not know,” the prime minister must have been aware of the attack.

In an Instagram post, the prime minister’s allegations stopped short of his wife’s accusations but claimed that IDF officers deliberately delayed waking him for more than an hour because they feared he would intervene to prevent the massacre.

Yaakov Katz, co‑author of *While Israel Slept* and a former editor of *The Jerusalem Post*, who has written on Netanyahu’s remarks and the failures surrounding October 7, suggested that even if the prime minister had been alerted, the flawed military and intelligence assessments indicating that Hamas was unlikely to mount a large‑scale attack would probably have led to the same outcome.

In an election year, however, the standards appear to have slipped dramatically.

N12’s Dafna Liel reports that the statements from both members of the Netanyahu family were not spontaneous but part of a coordinated Likud strategy to propagate conspiracy theories and distance the prime minister from the October 7 massacre.

Conspiracy theories about October 7 have long been invoked by right‑wing voices whenever they serve a political purpose.

During a Knesset session just three weeks after the attack, Likud MK Tali Gotliev cited a September 2023 social‑media post by Golan that read, “October is approaching; the hour of decision is coming.”

Golan explained that the post referred to the start of the Knesset’s winter session and the ongoing judicial‑reform debate, but Gotliev’s remarks ignited a wave of baseless accusations that have persisted and intensified over the past three years.

Threat of lawsuit against Sara Netanyahu, conspiracy theories likely to expand

It is time to bring these false narratives to an end.

Whether Yair Golan’s demand for an apology and his threat of a substantial lawsuit against Sara Netanyahu will curb further incendiary claims remains uncertain.

Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, a principal opponent of Netanyahu, posted on X/Twitter on Tuesday: “The outrageous conspiracy theory of treason… is intended solely to foment hatred and to sustain the Netanyahu government, which governs only by division.

“Netanyahu is evading responsibility for Israel’s gravest historical failure, which he led us into through negligence and disregard of every warning sign. Some claim they ‘weren’t woken up,’ while others sprang into action without hesitation.”

An official state commission of inquiry would be the most reliable means to uncover the truth.

Yet those who oppose or have blocked such an inquiry are precisely the individuals propagating these conspiracy theories. It is telling.

What is most distressing is that the focus on these false narratives distracts from the substantive challenges the nation must address as it approaches Election Day.

Candidates would be well advised to shift their campaigns away from blame‑shifting and toward a constructive agenda that addresses the nation’s needs.

Source link