Eliot joins Eric from his walking tour in the Cotswolds to discuss the horrifying Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7. They discuss the intelligence and policy failures that allowed Israeli officials to be taken by surprise, the introspection and self-criticism that Israelis had applied in the past when these kinds of things have taken place (the Agranat Commission after the 1973 war and the Winograd Commission after the 2006 Lebanon War). They commend Biden’s speech and the White House spokesperson’s denunciation of “the Squad’s” equivocations about Hamas violence. Eliot previews his forthcoming Atlantic article on civilization vs. barbarism and they speculate on how Israel will proceed and whether we are facing a larger regional war.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-israel-was-duped-hamas-planned-devastating-assault-2023-10-08/

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB9900/RB9975/RAND_RB9975.pdf

Shield of the Republic is a Bulwark podcast co-sponsored by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.