Bondi vs. October 7: The Politics of Accountability

This episode compares how Australia and Israel have responded to their most significant terror attacks. While Australia is already undertaking a Royal Commission into the Bondi attack, Israel still has no independent inquiry into October 7 attack, more than two years later. Sharon and Yuval unpack the political, legal and societal reasons behind that delay, including why Israel's  High Court and competing narratives have turned tragedy into politics. The conversation explores why accountability matters—not just for Israel, but for Jewish communities worldwide—and what’s at stake if those questions remain unanswered. 

Transcript

Welcome To Politica

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Politica, a new podcast from the Jewish Independent that explains Israeli politics at a diaspora volume. I'm Sharon Offenberger here in Australia, and joining me from Israel is Joval Regev.

Bondi Commission Versus Israel

SPEAKER_00 0:23

This week, Australia's Royal Commission into Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion is due to release its first interim report, which specifically looks at the intelligence and security failures that contributed to that attack that happened in Bondi on the 14th of December, in which 15 people lost their lives. It was the biggest terror attack on Australian soil. It occurred on the 14th of December 2025. That is, four and a half months after the attack, we are already at the stage of receiving an interim report from an independent investigation into what happened and specifically the governmental and institutional failures that allowed it to happen. Last week, by comparison in Israel, families and survivors of the October 7th terror attack went to the High Court to try and force the government to announce a comparable kind of independent investigation into October 7, 2023. As yet, there has been none more than two and a half years later. Let me start by saying that for all of us, the heinous and cruel attack on October the 7th was and always will be the full onus of the Palestinian terrorists that conceived and implemented the attack, their supporters in Iran and other parts of the Arab world, full stop, period. Let's be clear about that. But for Israeli citizens, and I will also argue for diaspora Jews, an equal need for accountability for the failures of foresight, protection, and frankly defense of the civilians, Israeli civilians, on that day, needs to be accounted for. And that's the topic of today's episode. We're going to look at why October the 7th still hangs so heavy over the Israeli electorate and the political parties. Joval, welcome. There hasn't been an investigation into the October 7th attack. What do you have to say?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

So shalom sharon, and shalom to our listeners. And really this issue of what happened on October 7th and how Israel, you know, this mighty military machine, Israel, right? With the best intelligence service in the world and with the, you know, with an advanced army and advanced military. And we have underground technology, you know, to defend against tunnels, and we have the Iron Dome and all this, you know, aerial defense to defend against missiles. But somehow, thousands of, you know, Hamas terrorists and other organizations managed to just take down the fence and invade Israel. And we know what happened. And it was, you know, the most catastrophic moment in Jewish history thanks the Holocaust. And, you know, it's hard not to even get emotional speaking about it because what what a day, right? And what we've endured since. And so this issue of what happened on October 7th is probably, you know, the main narrative issue for the upcoming elections. And let me just say, I think probably for decades to come, right? We have to really understand what happened

Why An Independent Inquiry Stalls

SPEAKER_01 3:30

here.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Um now it's And why is it why has it not been investigated then?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, yeah, that's the biggest question of them all. Now, to be frank, it has been investigated, right? The military long strict's own investigation, the Shin Bet Shabak has, of course, investigated and conclusions were drawn. But those are the two organizations that are responsible for our security, right? So they they can't be investigating their own failure. You need an independent commission. You need an independent inquiry, right? And there's a very clear law in Israel that stakes what happens in these situations, right? You have a Vaidat Takira Mamlahti, a state inquiry, and that is led by um and appointed by the head of the Supreme Court. And that fact, the fact that the Supreme Court are the ones that need to be uh you know responsible for this national inquiry, uh is exactly the reason why two and a half years since we still haven't seen it. Because this feeds into the very, very heated political debate that existed in Israel even before October 7th, that became the heated conversation of uh you know of the whole period of the judicial reform or judicial overhaul, however you want to call it, um is really the rift between Netanyahu's government and policy and between the Supreme Court. And that's probably the main reason uh that an independent national inquiry has yet to be launched. And let me just say this is such a main ticket issue for the Israeli opposition. Uh what we're seeing is the opposition leaders uh and the demonstration movements and all the people who have demonstrated almost every Saturday uh since October 7th and before are demanding this, right? The biggest issue after October 7th was the demand of bringing the hostages home in a deal. And a few months back, when thank God uh the final hostage came home, uh, this has been the big ticket issue around October 7th, having a national uh inquiry um to really see what happened and to draw conclusions and to also point a finger at who is responsible within the Israeli system and what needs to happen to them.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

I've seen that the Israeli government has or had proposed a different kind of commission inquiry, and I just want to talk about that for a second, uh, which they uh it would be a government commission inquiry. So you've said Mamlachtit, in this case it would be Memshaltit, and that would be selected by um both the government and the opposition. So their proposal is to leave the judges out of it and put together a uh a commission of inquiry that would have six members, those members would be appointed by the government and the coalition, completely circumventing the um jurisdiction of the high court.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

It's correct, and it's also unprecedented. Um and it's also, you know, it's also this move, and also it hasn't been launched yet. So, you know, so they can talk about it all they want, but it hasn't been uh it hasn't been launched yet. And and basically, I think the policy of the government is to is to politicize the issue of a national inquiry, okay? Whether it's you know towards demonization of the high of the Supreme Court, um, or you know, what they're saying is who's going to investigate the

Politicising The Commission Question

SPEAKER_01 6:45

judge's role in October 7th. This feeds into the really big rift in narratives within Israeli society, within Netanyahu supporters and Netanyahu's opposers, right? Where many Netanyahu supporters really, really have this long-standing distrust towards the High Court. So, you know, for them to conceive uh a national inquiry, you know, dealing with, you know, the most tragic and the most horrific moment in our history, uh, and for that to be um, you know, they kind of perceive the outcome as obviously the high court's gonna pivot on Netanyahu, and we can't accept that. Uh and Netanyahu has also, you know, made claims to this narrative. It doesn't seem like before the election we're gonna see any kind of national inquiry. And then the results of this election uh are very much going to determine what kind of national inquiry we're going to see. Uh and frankly, it's quite sad. It's a quite sad reality to live in because if you think of the people uh who endured what they endured in the Kibuksim or at the Nova Music Festival, if you think of all these, uh you think of the parents of the soldiers who fell and who fell during the war, if you think of the parents of the hostages um that were taken, and and and many of them uh you know die in captivity, um, and they want answers and they deserve answers and they haven't received them yet. And it's such a it's such a devastating situation.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

And in the meantime, you know, the heads of all the security agencies that were in place on October the 7th have resigned. Um, as far as I'm aware, the Israeli government, current government at any level has not taken um, as no, no one's resigned and no one's actually taken uh responsibility for it. And I think uh one of the issues is the Royal Commission in Australia is looking not just at the Bondi attack, but at the issue of anti-Semitism, and and quite rightly looking at all of the issues surrounding how we got to this point. Um, and I think that is probably what the government is most scared of, not just what happened on October 7th, but how did we get to that point? How did, as Israelis like to say, did the conceptia, this framework, this understanding of deterrence that uh the government had been saying and that Israelis believed uh was in place, that they were protected, and that, you know, particularly Hamas was deterred from attacking, how did they get it so wrong? And obviously there is going to be events that took place leading up to um October the 7th, in which that table was set. And because Netanyahu has been Prime Minister for almost all of that entire period except for one year, it's hard not to see that the uh responsibility for how we got there would be laid at their feet.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

You correctly say it's hard not to see. And that's a narrative that's you know, for for people in the Israel on the left and center, people who don't support Netanyahu, you know, it was almost clear as, you know, as daylight, uh a day after October 7th, on October 8th, on October 9th, that you know Netanyahu, there's no way he's gonna bounce back from this, right? It was clear as daylight that he was irresponsible. The main campaign, they said, attaha rosh, ata shem. You are the head, you it is your fault. Okay. And I think for many audiences, it's it's just a very clear situation. Uh, but I think we do need to give the Netanyahu narrative, uh, just you know, so we can understand it, so our listeners can understand the Netanyahu narrative. And what he's been saying over the past two and a half years is that of course we have to have an inquiry, but it needs to be an inquiry that is accepted by all the public. And so he's saying basically, my public, my base, doesn't trust the high court. So there's no way that the high court can run this. It needs to be accepted by all. But the other thing he's saying is that we can't have an inquiry while the war is still going on. And let's be frank, the war, Israel is still fighting a seven-front war that's been going on consistently since October the 7th. And so he's so I think Netanyahu's supporters, um, and even people who you know who may not be his rec supporters saying, okay, yes, we are going to have to examinate exactly what happened and determine whose fault it is in terms of the Israeli side. Um, but we have a war to win first. Uh, we have enemies to defeat first. So we have to have this, you know, cohesion amongst us so that we can, you know, uh defeat Iran and defeat exproxies and defeat Hezbollah and and win, you know, have a total victory. So that's the Netanyahu narrative, and it and it does hold a certain merit. There's a reason why, you know, many of his supporters uh are still aligned with him on this issue.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

And in fact, the High Court, which you know is part of the reason why we don't have the Commission of Inquiry at this stage, the High Court actually didn't accept the petition uh and has given the uh government two more months to come back and say how they're going to investigate it. So, in fact, the High Court to a certain extent came out in the government's favor in this petition that was.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Not only did they come out in the government's favor, uh judge was recorded saying, when we win this war, Beezrat Hashem, okay, with the help of God, uh, then we can use inquiry. And that just kind of that language and terminology, um, it's it's it's present. I think there's a reason it was used, okay? Uh I think the High Court very much understands that it has become such an enemy, like, say, of Netanyahu's base and of the right in Israel, and that's a dangerous situation for Israeli democracy.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

So

When Israel Investigated Past Wars

SPEAKER_00 12:24

I wanted to do a little bit of a history lesson, and I went back and looked at two other wars in which a case a commission of inquiry was established. The first one was the Yom Kippur War. Talked a little bit about um Israelis claiming victory for the Yom Kippur War, but the truth is that there was a commission of inquiry, a state commission of inquiry established shortly after the end of the Yom Kippur War, um, looking into this unpreparedness of Israel for this Egyptian attack that happened, as we know, on Yom Kippur. And in fact, it was established less than a month after the war ended and really was became so controversial that then Prime Minister Goldomi ear was basically forced to resign as a result. Uh, and a little fun fact, he was actually succeeded after that by Israk Rabin as Prime Minister, which is, I think, a really interesting direction that Israel took after the end of the Yom Kippur War. And the second uh war was the Second Lebanon War. So that was in 2006. It was a 32-day war. I remember it so well. It ended on the 15th of August, and I remember it really well because I was nine months pregnant, and that was my due date. And what a lot of people forget about the Second Lebanon War is that Israel did not have the Iron Dome. So when rockets were launched, rockets fell. And the second was at that time, and the reason I brought up my pregnancy is that a million people from the north moved in order to protect themselves from rockets falling, mostly in the northern part of Israel. All of those people moved, were hosted, and came into the central Israel. And, you know, there were stories on the news about women giving birth in the um corridors of hospitals. So I was extremely anxious. But it ended on the uh 15th of August. And uh again, within uh, you know, a month or so, there was uh, in this case, not a state commission of inquiry. It was also set up as kind of a government commission of inquiry. Prime Minister Erhold Olmut uh took a lot of flack and and as a result, ended up appointing a judge to run the commission and inquiry, and again, it's affected his political career. Um I wanted to sort of compare that also to it the fact that it took three weeks for the Australian government to announce a Royal Commission into uh the Bondi attack into anti-Semitism. Um, Royal Commission is the highest and most authoritative form of review that exists in Australia. Other forms of reviews were kind of debated and potentially proposed, but the pressure, the political pressure on them, particularly from the Jewish community, that this kind of attack needed the highest form, most independent and authoritative form of review. Um, and one of the reasons for that is because this is not just about apportioning blame. This is about learning. This is about being able to understand what went wrong in order to fix that. And that is the part where I struggle with the fact that there are narratives about it. Because surely, in order to prevent this from happening, to prevent similar things from happening, there needs to be some lessons learned.

Left And Right Stories Of Blame

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Um but I think you know, we have to differentiate when you look at what happened on October 7th, right? We have to differentiate between the big picture strategy questions of how October 7th happened and the tactical questions on the ground, okay? So within the in the ferocious debate on how October 7th happened within Israel, when you look at overall strategy and you look at left and right narratives, okay? So the left is gonna say, right, this October 7th happened because we let Hamas uh govern uh uh Gaza for so long, and we didn't take them seriously as a threat, and we weren't making any serious move towards peace, and we were undermining the Palestinian authority, and we had this uh, you know, this conceptia that the uh that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can just be managed and contained, and we could just you know set it aside and not do anything, right? And then we received the horrific attack on October 7th. The right is it has a complete mirror narrative of that, right? They blame October 7th on Rabin, on the Oslo Accords, right? That happened in the 90s. They blame October and and the consecutive disengagement from Gaza in 2005 by Sharon. So they blame October 7th on this narrative that you know, that the land uh for peace, on this narrative that, you know, that we can somehow coexist with the Palestinians. That's what they see. And that's why they're linking the Supreme Court, and why that's why, you know, for us, we say Netanyahu has been in charge for 20 years, right? And and so obviously it's him. It's obviously it's his policies, it's his governments. He's the one who's been, you know, calling the shocks on Israeli policy towards Gaza and towards the Palestinians for the past 20 years, and then we got October 7th. Maybe we need to learn something. But for Netanyahu's supporters, and for people on the right of Netanyahu, okay, this really feeds into this deep state mentality that is so festering among the Israeli rights, okay? They say yes, Netanyahu has been in power, but he has not been able to implement any of his policies because the Supreme Court has blocked him on this and blocked him on that, and because the Supreme Court, you know, has respect for the rights of Palestinians, and because the military leadership is Oslo-minded, and the military leadership as you know buys into this narrative of two-state solution and et cetera, et cetera. So that's really where they find the blame. And that's why even when we look at the you know of at the strategic pillar, and this is something that's not going to ever be discussed in the court, because the court can't discuss 20 years of policy, right? The court can only really look into the very tactical issues. We can't even get an inquiry to deal with the tactical questions of that day and to understand and to learn from them. And of course, we can't agree on the much bigger, higher level question of how we got here.

How The High Court Works

SPEAKER_00 18:18

But a commission inquiry is not a hearing before the High Court, but because Supreme Court, High Court is going to be a feature of our conversation, I think up until election day and probably then after, um, I did think it was worth having a little bit of an explainer on how it works because it's a little bit confusing and different to other jurisdictions. So uh there is an appellate court called the Supreme Court Beta Elion. And that's where you know things from lower courts get appealed up to the Supreme Court. What it also has is another function. You've mentioned before the acronym Bagats, which stands for Beit Hamishbatha Gavoa Letzede, which means the High Court of Justice. And when the court acts in this function, it is a court of first instance. It is actually listening to petitions against government policies, officials, and knesset legislation. So it does play a particular role in Israel's society, which I think is why it um returns and returns both as a topic because it's in conflict with uh a lot of what the government decides, or it is a forum in which what the government decides is debated, but it also um holds such a fundamental role in maintaining Israel's democracy. And so, because of this role that it plays in Israel's democracy, as you've mentioned before, it really is going to be a key election issue. And one of the things that I've noticed is the way in which, particularly, the opposition parties try to keep that alive by calling this government the government of October 7th. So, Michelle, it's Shvil, October. So the people, they can't change the narrative. I mentioned the government and their supporters are trying to push the narrative to the years before Netanyahu was in charge. And the opposition is very much trying to remind the public that these are the people who were responsible for whatever happened just for the fact that they were the government of the day, without even having to go further in policies. As the government of the day, it is assumed, regardless of your politics, that the responsibility would be taken by the people who were in fact in charge on that day.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

I think one of the things that Netanyahu um does very well uh and has done very well since the beginning of his political career, we have to say, right? Is that Netanyahu knows how to portray himself as kind of a victim of the system. And Netanyahu knows how to portray himself as kind of a warrior and uh against the Israeli uh establishment, okay? Uh and so when he and and that's why when we look at what happens on October 7th, okay, it's it's almost unbelievable to understand from the outside. Uh, because uh from the outside you think of the IDF and you think of the Israeli military, right? You think, right, those are probably more associated with Netanyahu and with his kind of hardline um uh defense uh you know narrative. Uh but in reality, what Netanyahu has been trying to do uh since October 7th is both shift the blame on the IDF and the IDF leadership, okay? One of Netanyahu's great accomplishments over the past two and a half years is that he very much has managed to rally his base around this narrative that even in the case of October

Netanyahu’s Narrative And The Vote

SPEAKER_01 21:37

7th, even in the case of this horrific, terrible scandal, um, he is somehow uh the victim of uh of a of a military that hasn't been cooperative enough and of a judicial system that has tied his hands and not allowed him to operate properly against the Palestinian terror.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Um and uh as you know, he was uh traditionally always called. Mr. Security. And it's hard to kind of be Mr. Security at the same time when there was really the greatest security failure in Israel's history. I think what I find cynical, and probably a lot of people do, is the fact that there are these narratives around October the 7th. How can there be narratives? It's a very clear, tragic day in our history. And the idea that people would try to shift that into narratives, into playing the victim or not playing the victim, is I think a very cynical use of history. And if you remember a number of months ago, I think the Prime Minister's office tried to, as they say, send out a trial balloon, and they wanted to actually change the name so that it would not be the October 7th massacre, that it would be the events of October the 7th. Obviously, there was a lot of pushback around it, but feeds into this desire to shift the narrative, to create a story around what happened. And I think you've mentioned before that the Israeli right tries to sell this very positive, strong identity. And what they said is they don't want people to be seen as victims. So we shouldn't use the term massacre.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And I think again, people on the left and center in Israel, uh, even before October 7th, right, the rift was so dramatic. And we're talking about the days of the judicial overhaul, and we're talking about, you know, the after the, you know, five elections were hung, and and and really, you know, the the rift was high. So imagine high, how how high the tensions were after October 7th. People at the demonstrations, if you go to the demonstrations um after October 7th, the demonstrations for the hostages to be returned home, the demonstrations for a national inquiry to be set up. I mean, the the level of of hatred, the level of of disdain from his leadership is is is is very, very high amongst that public.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

And in polling that took place after October 7th, in the months after October 7th, Likud was wiped out.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

So uh another term that's used for him, except for Mr. Security, is Hakusem, the magician, okay? He knows what motivates his base. And so the minute he could take this terrible failure of October 7th and do a few things. One, frame it on, you know, on the Supreme Court and on the military establishment and on Oslo and on the disengagement, and you know, basically frame it, say this is the you know the fault of all these things that are, you know, left-leaning policy, right? And we just need to, you know, have more right wing, we need to be more, you know, we need to be more on my side, uh, and then we won't have this kind of problem, these kind of problems anymore. Uh, so and his base was okay with that. Um, but also the more fierce, right, the Israeli left is towards Netanyahu, the more fierce Netanyahu's base rallies around him. Uh, and it's this it's been this way for for decades. Uh, and it's and and and and the the sad thing is after October 7th, it really just it really just became all that more dramatic. Um but I will say uh the one thing where where Netanyahu and his base uh kind of correlate with you know with what would be good for Israel actually as a country, right? Is this narrative of victory, okay? Because what Netanyahu is trying to say is yes, October 7th is a terrible failure, the worst day in our history, horrific, terrible attacks. But since then, we have risen like a lion from the ashes and defeated, you know, our uh enemies. And that has some merit, that has some truth to it, right? October 7th did really push the Israeli public into an understanding that we cannot live with existential threats anymore, right? It pushed us to a war with Hezbollah, it pushed us into a war with Iran, it pushed us into this into this place where you know where Israel is going back to being victorious and into winning. And and he sees himself as the leader of that. Uh and and and to be frank, right, whether he wins the next election or whether he doesn't, okay, uh, still Israel does need to be victorious over its enemies. That's a that's it's an existential need.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

As we've as we've noted in the past, military victories can only take you so far. If they're saying we don't need a commission of inquiry, what we need is to win wars, then I think they're missing a very important point, which is that's not just about, oh, we lost that battle, but we've won this war. There are actually a lot of decisions, a lot of government uh decisions, including just um dysfunction within a government and within the departments that have led to it. And so without looking at those, I feel that that is not enough to make Israel safe uh in the future. And this is where I'll bring in, uh, as I mentioned in the beginning, why this commission inquiry is also an interest of the Jewish diaspora. When it took three weeks for the Australian government to call a royal commission into what happened in Bondi, that were three very long weeks, uh, the Jewish community was up in arms largely and would not accept anything short of a royal commission. So I don't know why we would take a different approach to the biggest terror attack on Israeli soil than we would take to the biggest terror attack on Australian soil. But moreover, I've spoken a lot about my observation really about the way that October the 7th has impacted diaspora Jews and that sense of vulnerability that Jews worldwide have experienced that day, which defies logic. I think it comes from the sense of peoplehood and the shared history and destiny, not just because you know people have relatives in Israel, uh, the fact that it has affected um everyone very, very deeply and made people feel very, very vulnerable outside of Israel speaks to the common experience that we have as Jews. Diaspora Jews often speak about the need for Israel to be strong and defend its wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, as you're saying, this is an important narrative, not just for Israel, but for the Jewish people as well. And then if you look at the various rescue missions from Ethiopia, Yemen, and even today from India, the B'Neim Menasheh Jews who were in India had been airlifted to Israel, this responsibility that Israel has for Jewish safety around the world. So this idea of Israel being a safe haven for Jews is really a big part of our relationship between Israel and the diaspora. And if Israel is unable, if the state is unable to protect its own citizens from the biggest attack on the Jews since the Holocaust, on Israel's own land, then from my view, that sense of protection and that sense of defense as a safe haven for Jews really gets undermined if we cannot be safe from a massive terror attack happening on Israeli soil. And

Diaspora Stakes And Shared Vulnerability

SPEAKER_00 28:55

so that's why I think it is not only in Israeli interest to have a state commission of inquiry, but it is an interest for the diaspora as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

We're here, you know, trying to make sense and political sense of what happened uh on October 7th and what happened in Bondi. Um, but it's uh it's so much deeper than politics. Uh, because it's it's it's not an easy time uh to be a Jew in the world. And this takes very personally for me. Uh I have family in Australia. Uh um my dad made LEA from the Melbourne Jewish community. Uh and uh and so I have many uh you know close family members in Australia. And uh I came home from a trip to Australia three days uh before October 7th. Uh and on October 7th, I had to experience people who were who were close to me who have been affected at the Nova Music Festival. Um and it's just a such an atrocious reality uh and such a feeling of uh vulnerability that really was, you know, that we we never felt that we never thought that anything like that could happen. Um and I remember right after October 7th, my mind was set. Uh uh I I have two little girls, um, I have an Australian passport. Um my mind was set. Uh we're gonna make the trip down under and we're gonna raise our girls in a safe environment. Uh, but we've seen how that's played out for the Jewish Australians, uh, right? And we've seen what happened in Bandai. And uh and and I think it's just it's these questions are so massive and they have to be answered, and they have to be answered by all of us. It's uh it's our responsibility for our own future uh as Jews here in Israel and in the diaspora.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

And that's why we have these conversations to bring together the view from Israel and the view from diaspora, because this election is not going to be just something that is determines the future of Israel for Israelis. It's gonna determine the future of Israel for the Jewish people. And so it is really an important topic. Um, thank you for joining as always, uh Juval. This was Politica. Israeli politics explained it at a diaspora volume. Until next time, keep the volume down.