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by Sam Sokol at The Times of Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls to swiftly establish a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 disaster during a debate on the matter in the Knesset on Wednesday.
Speaking at a so-called 40-signature debate — a session the opposition can call once a month with the signatures of 40 MKs and which the prime minister is legally obliged to attend — Netanyahu compared current demands for an investigation of the October 7 massacre to bureaucratic inspections of the British military during the Napoleonic wars over 200 years ago.
The focus of the debate was the need to thoroughly investigate the failings that enabled the disaster of October 7.
Netanyahu has resisted forming a state commission of inquiry into the failings leading up to October 7 or the handling of the war. He has said investigations must wait until after the fighting ends and has repeatedly avoided committing to forming a state commission, which is the inquiry body that enjoys the broadest powers under Israeli Law. With the war now in its 10th month, pressure has been growing to begin investigating events.
“Let me tell you something about an investigative committee,” Netanyahu said as he addressed lawmakers in the plenum. “I have a letter written by the [British officer and statesman] Duke of Wellington to the government in London. They sent a commission of inquiry to him. He was in Spain on his way to Portugal, fighting Napoleon, on the way to Waterloo [the decisive battle in 1815]. The inquiry committee was sent and asked him to give a precise account of the number of horse saddles he was using, the number of tent sheets, the number of tent poles.
“Wellington responded:…
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