Netanyahu seeks to broaden scope of Oct 7 inquiry to Oslo Accords & Gaza disengagement - report

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday defended his government’s plans to establish a “National Commission of Inquiry,” rather than a state-level commission, amid withering criticism from the opposition and the justice system.

The Times of Israel cited a government source saying that Netanyahu called for the commission to investigate the roots of the Oct. 7 failure decades back, “from Oslo [Accords], through to the [Gaza] Disengagement, and up to [reserve duty] refusal.”

The Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 1993. Members of the coalition have argued that calls to refuse military service in protest of the government’s Judicial Reforms contributed to Hamas’s decision to attack Israel at its perceived point of weakness.

The opposition has roundly condemned the government’s planned bill, arguing that giving it the power to pick commission members would enable it to obscure its responsibility for the Oct. 7 invasion by pointing to past failures.

Netanyahu published his statement to the public on Monday after a ministerial committee approved the coalition’s bill proposing to create a commission whose members are picked by an 80-vote majority in the Knesset.

The current law gives the authority to establish the state commission to the Supreme Court president; however, parts of the governing coalition have refused to accept the nomination of current President Isaac Amit, denouncing him as part of the political left.

In his statement, Netanyahu stressed that the commission would be “an egalitarian commission to investigate the events of October 7th and the circumstances that led to them.”

“The composition of the commission’s members will be determined equally: Half by the coalition and half by the opposition. The commission will be composed of experts in security, academia, and law, as well as bereaved parents who will serve as observers,” he explained.

Addressing widespread opposition to Amit among coalition members, Netanyahu said that “a commission of inquiry whose composition was determined exclusively by Justice Yitzhak Amit, as the opposition proposes, would have had only a small portion of the public believing in it.”

The proposed bill is widely expected to be rejected by the opposition, meaning that the necessary 80-vote majority wouldn’t be reached.

In that case, the bill calls for coalition and opposition to appoint equal numbers of commission members. However, if, as expected, the opposition completely refuses to participate, Knesset speaker MK Amir Ohana (Likud) would receive the authority to pick the members.

The bill has drawn strong opposition, including from Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. In a written legal opinion, she argued that the planned “National Commission of Inquiry” would “politicize” the proceedings.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid said that the government’s bill would mean it receives “control over the discussions, the summoning of witnesses, and setting the agenda. They will investigate the late [PM] Yitzhak Rabin long before they investigate Netanyahu.”

“This is not an inquiry committee, this is a death certificate for the truth. They want to perform a double-check killing of the facts, of everything that happened,” he charged.

Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz dubbed the government’s proposed commission a “political decoration committee,” adding this was a “great shame before the bereaved families and tens of thousands of victims.”

“In the face of this outrage, we will continue to insist that the failure be investigated, the lessons be drawn, and the truth be brought to light,” he added.

In his statement, Netanyahu repeated his comparison to a commission of inquiry established in the U.S. after 9/11.

He argued that “we are acting exactly as the United States acted after the greatest disaster in American history. After the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11th, President Bush enacted a special law that established a special commission of inquiry” which Netanyahu said was “an egalitarian commission between the two sides of the political aisle.”

“This is exactly what we are doing… I say to the opposition: By all means, bring whatever experts you want, ask whatever you want, investigate whomever you want, including me.”

“And I promise you, all topics will be examined without exception – the diplomatic, the security, the intelligence, and the legal – everything,” he added, “I am convinced: a special state commission of inquiry, an egalitarian commission between opposition and coalition, is the right way to clarify the truth.”

The bill, introduced by Likud MK Ariel Kallner, will be brought before the Knesset plenum for its preliminary reading on Wednesday.