MBZ’s Warning to Netanyahu, Days Before Oct 7 - with Amit Segal and Nadav Eyal

Dan Senor (0:00)

Our subscribers fund ARK Media. They help allow us to cover Israel in the Jewish world, honestly and without compromise.

Join us at arkmedia.org. And to our subscribers, thank you.

Nadav Eyal (0:18)

You are listening to an ARK Media podcast.

Amit Segal (0:23)

Netanyahu is accountable and responsible, but we are now on the question of, could it be prevented? You say that the IDF and the Shin Bet had warned Netanyahu that a war is coming, but they weren't alarmed by their own warnings. Now, here's the thing, they warned that war is coming, but even though on the night of October 6th and 7th, they did nothing in order to prepare to a war in Gaza. And you're saying that they ignored their own warning, but a phone call from MBZ three weeks before would have woken them up.

Nadav Eyal (0:56)

I think it's a very significant report. It's the first time that we've heard that the prime minister was warned personally by a head of state, no less, as to October 7th, and it was a specific warning. The buck stops with him. There's no doubt about that, I think. But there's also a question of blame. Was the prime minister negligent in the way that he treated threats and strategic warnings?

And this is a really new ballgame.

Dan Senor (1:37)

It's 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 9th, here in New York City. It's 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 9th, in Israel.

Before today's episode, a quick housekeeping note. On Thursday, October 22nd, just five days ahead of the Israeli elections, Call Me Back will hold a live taping at the Stryker Center in New York City, where I'll sit down with Dan Shapiro, Dahlia Scheinlein, and Brett Stevens to discuss what's at stake in Israel's 2026 election, and what its results will mean for the U.S.-Israel relationship. Tickets have gone on sale, so if you want to join us, please follow the link in the episode description. Now on to today's episode. Yesterday, after an 18-month-long investigation, Haaretz journalist Shlomi Eldar and Rutu Yuval reported that roughly 10 days before October 7th, in late September 2023, the president of the United Arab Emirates, MBZ, Mohammed bin Zayed, personally called Prime Minister Netanyahu and had a 45-minute conversation. According to three senior foreign officials and a close advisor to MBZ, who were briefed on the call, MBZ told Prime Minister Netanyahu directly that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation against Israel, that Israel should quote unquote be ready and warned that an attack would destabilize the region and blow up the Abraham Accords. He himself had helped build. That's not the only warning we're now learning about from that window. The Times of Israel now notes that this call closely tracked another one by Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamal, telling Netanyahu also about 10 days out before October 7th that Gazans were likely to do quote unquote something unusual. And we already knew from reporting on this show in January that the head of the Shin Bet delivered what's called in Hebrew an official war warning to the prime minister in the summer of 2023, along with five separate intelligence letters about Israel's perceived weakness in the eyes of its enemies. What's new and revealing here is the specificity and the name attached to it ahead of state. On the phone, saying to the prime minister, watch out for Senor. And according to Haaretz, Netanyahu did not brief his own security chiefs on that call. Netanyahu's office has responded already in a statement calling the report, quote, an absolute lie. Naftali Bennett, who's running in the elections, has already weighed in publicly on the other side. This lands at an extraordinary moment. Yesterday was the deadline for Israel's political parties to submit their final Knesset lists, their lists of candidates for the Knesset for the October 27th election. Likud reportedly waited until the literal last hour to lock in Netanyahu's reserve slots. So this story isn't landing in a vacuum. It's landing seven weeks before Israelis vote in a campaign where Netanyahu is already polling behind, and where Bennett and Eisencott are explicitly running on the issue of October 7th accountability, and where the Prime Minister's strategy on this issue has been to make sure that question never gets a clean answer. So today we're asking a few things at once. Is this story true? Doesn't matter? And what does this mean politically 48 days before the most consequential election, as many call it, in Israel's history? My conversation with Amit and Nadav, right after this short message.

This episode of Call Me Back is brought to you by the Jewish Communal Fund, JCF.

The High Holidays are a time to reflect on what matters most, including the impact we hope to make in the year ahead. For 54 years, JCF has helped individuals and families put their values into action through thoughtful philanthropy.