It seemed at first little more than a throwaway line in an otherwise wonkish interview-profile of Israel’s outgoing chief of Military Intelligence, Major General Aviv Kochavi, appearing September 19 in Yediot Aharonot.
“In the final days of his term in M.I.,” military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote, “Kochavi finds himself trying to make the case that Hamas didn’t plan in advance to launch a 50-day war in Gaza. He claims Operation Protective Edge was a result of a cascade of accidents, something that could repeat itself in Lebanon or Syria. That’s what he told the government on the eve of the operation, and he still believes it today.” (So does defense minister Moshe Yaalon, who said so in a September 30 speech.)
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