The intelligence defect related to the “Fly Dubai” flight has reignited the debate in Israel about the distribution of security responsibilities and the limits of civilian ministries’ intervention in files that are supposed to remain in the hands of the competent agencies. This comes in parallel with the continuing controversy over responsibility for the October 7 attack, the investigation committees, and what critics describe as the erosion of the concept of accountability and the absence of seeking to close the war fronts.
In an interview conducted by journalists Gideon Okko and Amichai Atali on Radio 103FM, Ofer Shelah, a prominent researcher at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a former representative of the Yesh Atid party, confirmed that the imbalance that appeared in the “Fly Dubai” incident requires redrawing the boundaries of responsibility between civilian ministries and security services.
Shelah explained that there is a regular thread linking the October 7 attack to what happened on the Fly Dubai flight, explaining by saying: “On October 7 there was a terrible intelligence failure, and here also there is an intelligence failure. This is the thread. But to build a big theory from that? I would not have done that. You and I did not know until a few days ago that there is such a thing as a security department in the Ministry of Transport.”
Shelah rejected the Ministry of Transport’s assumption of security files, using the phrase “let the chef cook and let the musician play,” meaning that each party undertakes the task that it has the tools and experience to carry out. He added: “I do not suggest that there be any security departments in the Ministry of Transport that do not clearly possess intelligence information or intelligence dialogue, and perhaps, as things happen within the ministries, especially the Ministry of Transport, people with political closeness are appointed.” He continued, stressing: “Things must be managed by the security services, the Shin Bet and the Mossad, and they must have a very clear responsibility. They have the tools, they have international relations, and they must do their work.”
He pointed out that part of the problem lies in the effort of every Israeli minister to boast of the presence of the word “security” in his responsibilities by establishing special security departments, which relieves the security services of their responsibility while those civilian departments lack the necessary tools.
Speaking about the October 7 attack, Shelah criticized the government’s lack of desire to form investigation committees to address the shortcomings, whether in the attack or in the failure of “Fly Dubai,” explaining that “the investigation committee aims to investigate the truth and draw lessons. It does not exist in order to determine responsibility. Responsibility is something that is supposed to be self-evident.”
He added: “I do not want to go to cases like the Minister of Transport in Japan, who, as is known, resigns every time a train deviates from its track. I want to say that our concept of responsibility has been completely stripped of its meaning,” continuing by saying: “The public’s ability to hold responsible does not require an official investigation committee to know who is responsible for what happened on October 7. We need a public that knows this and feels that it has the ability to demand this responsibility, and a part of the public does so.”
Shelah touched on the history of security investigation committees in Israel, considering that the public places greater hopes in them than their actual capabilities, and stressing that “no minister took responsibility for October 7.” He explained that the path of investigation committees began with the Kahan Commission in 1983, which transformed from investigating the Sabra and Shatila massacre to a committee to determine public responsibility with Ariel Sharon for the First Lebanon War, adding: “A situation has arisen in which we are looking to investigation committees because we feel helpless in the face of the complete disappearance of this word, responsibility. This is what should be here. There must be public responsibility, and whoever bears responsibility for October 7 at the political level, first and foremost the Prime Minister, must bear his responsibility.”
Shelah warned that the work of any future investigation committee may be long and complicated due to the huge amount of documented and recorded materials, noting that the systematic investigations conducted by the Israeli army provide “narratives of what happened” and are important for explaining what happened to the settlements and military sites, but “they do not address the roots of the issue, such as why we reached unrealistic estimates regarding Gaza and the complete disappearance of the concept of warning.” He also expressed his fear that any official investigation committee would become immersed in endless legal details, which would lead to adverse results without knowing the facts or establishing responsibility.
In his reading of Israel’s strategic situation in 2026, Shelah wondered whether “the new reality for Israel is one of perpetual war,” noting that all fronts remain open because Israel keeps them so due to the absence of seeking settlements and closing the fronts.
He gave an example of the Lebanon front by saying: “We reached in one place a settlement in November 2024 on the Lebanon front, and it lasted until February 2026, and we broke it. Hezbollah fired on us, but whoever created the situation that led to the resumption of the war in the way it is taking place today, we created it. I am not saying that Israel is guilty, rather I am saying that Israel is not seeking that.”
Shelah criticized the speech of the senior leadership and the Prime Minister based on the idea that “the war never ends,” warning that the call-up of reserve forces, the financial cost, the psychological burden, losses, and the disruption of civilian life would become “the new reality of the State of Israel,” concluding by saying: “If we stop striving, and I am not even talking about the hated word, peace, but rather about settlement and closing the fronts, what life will we have here?”
