"We posed these questions and more to Yaakov Katz, the former editor of the Jerusalem Post, the host of The Jewish Peoples Podcast and the author of Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War, Shadow Strike: Inside Israels Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power, and the forthcoming While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East."

"Its a question that legitimately disturbs people, and its very troubling. I think what it really touches upon more is a question of a state of mind. And when I look at the failures that led to Oct. 7, thats what it was. We knew Hamas capabilities. We saw them training. We knew they were building up weapons. We knew they were digging tunnels. We listened to them say, Were coming to kill you and kidnap your people. We saw them train for kidnapping. But we didnt believe they would do it. We believed they were deterred. We believed it was all for show. With Iran and Hezbollah, we always took them more seriously, and as a result, we built up the capabilities to be able to counter them. So the capabilities were there, the technology was there. We had Mossad agents on the ground in Iran building a drone factory, explosive drones that were used on Friday to take out surface-to-air missile defense systems and launchers. An incredible operation, to have that capability in an enemy country. We were able to do the beeper thing in Lebanon. We understood that we had to allocate those resources, that attention, that focus to those fronts. That was the mistake we made with Gaza. In Gaza, by not focusing correctly on it, by being in the wrong state of mind, by believing in a fairy tale that Hamas was deterred, we were distracted. And we were not giving it the right attention that it needed. And, as a result, every piece of intelligence that we got, we misread. Here, we didnt misread."

"And they also wanted to create their army of proxies and create a belt of fire around Israel. This was meant to achieve two things: One is to deter Israel from ever attacking. Number two is that if we do attack, we will pay a price. But whats happened in the two years since Oct. 7? The proxies are gone. Hezbollah is beaten back, its weakened. It still has capabilities, but nothing like what it had prior to this. The presumption always was within the Israeli military establishment that you attack Iran and you will get hit really hard by Hezbollah. Hezbollah is on its own coming out on its own and saying, Were not going to get involved thats dramatic. So Hezbollah is gone. Hamas doesnt really exist anymore. Yes, theyre still there. They have hostages. We have to deal with it, but they have no offensive capability against Israel. Assad, Irans ally in Syria, is gone. Right when he fell, and Ahmad Al-Sharaa took over, Israel in four days destroyed all of Syrias strategic weapons, their fighter jets, their navy, their ballistic missiles, the Scuds, their chemical weapons. All gone. And then there was last year, in April and October, we exchanged blows with the Iranians. We destroyed the S-300 sophisticated Russian air defense systems."

"Ultimately, the way that Hamas embeds itself in civilian infrastructure is very different than what we see in Iran. Iran is a country with a conventional military that has bases and has military headquarters and military targets. The IRGC intelligence headquarters isnt underneath the Tehran hospital, right, unlike what you see in Gaza."

"We had Mossad agents on the ground in Iran building a drone factory, explosive drones that were used on Friday to take out surface-to-air missile defense systems and launchers. An incredible operation, to have that capability in an enemy country. We were able to do the beeper thing in Lebanon."

"Its important to remember in 1981 that when Israel bombed Iraqs reactor, then Menachem Begin was the Prime Minister, the assessment in the Israeli defense and security establishment was at the time that wed set back Saddam one year."