First of all, in the best of worlds, the most sincere people can make mistakes.
Sometimes, a journalist or blogger works with all the information available at that moment, only to discover major new facts that come to light later.
And yes, even the most sincere person suffers blindspots (me, too, of course).
You should always double-check as much as you're able on your own, compare and contrast stories and narratives.
You should maintain an awareness of the writer's bias, which is more or less the same as having a blindspot.
So for example, with all the information either implicating the Ramatkal in the failure to raise a pinky finger to stop the Great Horror from Gaza (the-man-who-raised-the-alarm-1-month-ago-hamas-is-practicing-a-parallel-invasion-of-several-communities-and-they-removed-his-intelligence-gathering-systems-just-before-october-7th.html) or blaming him outright (the-chilling-truth-about-what-happened-the-night-before-october-7th.html), we need to remember that people may have other motives for wishing to blame the Ramatkal.
I'm personally fine with blaming him.
But at the same time, do you really think it was JUST him?
In the above-linked video describing the meeting on the night of Simchat Torah with all the Shabak heads, why is it that no one decided on his own to notify the security force at the party?
Or the base from which the female screen-watchers were either brutally murdered or dragged off into Gaza?
Or any of the security forces in the kibbutzim near Gaza? (A simple alert would've warned them not to go out jogging or driving, plus it would have made them lock their gates, and arm themselves, rather than the terrorists catching them by surprise and the security force compelled to run unarmed to the weapons storage under terrorist attack.)
Did none of them have any friends or family members in the area to whom they could call up and say, "You know, there seems to be something particularly nasty brewing at the border near you?"
In addition, nearly all these pundits in Israeli intelligence claim that among their own intelligence and military elite, there exists a profound ignorance regarding Arab mentality, which drives these elites toward bad decisions that might work in the West, but absolutely not the Middle East.
Do anyone honestly believe that Israelis who live in Israel and deal with Arabs throughout their army career simply cannot fathom the nuances of the Arab menality?
They're surrounded by it their entire lives! They live in their military and intelligence careers.
Heck, I'm a born-and-raised American Jewish housewife living in a charedi neighborhood and even I understand their mentality.
Yes, it took me a while, but it still happened.
My children all understand the Arab mentality, can get by in Arabic, and one knows Arabic so well, Arabs asked to see his ID to prove he was a Jew. That son never learned Arabic formally, not even one class. He just picked it up.
So this idea that all the political and military elites simply don't know and haven't managed to learn the language? Give me a break.
I don't believe for a minute that the Ramatkal and the rest of the military and political elites simply "don't understand."
I see them as psychopathic, hypocritical, wholly self-centered deceivers.
But just know the idea of them as simply people who "don't understand the Arabs" is a strong belief among the right-wingers.
Yet that belief makes no sense to me. For the reasons stated above, it's not at all logical that these elites responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent Jews over the years simply need to be educated.
It's not ignorance that hampers them; rather, it's their Erev Rav soul.
Furthermore, Rav Avigdor Miller stated the following:
Anybody who is not a shomer Torah is not going to help us.
You have to know that beforehand.
torasavigdor.org/qa/rav-avigdor-miller-on-israeli-politicians/
But he prefaced it with the statement that NO ONE who is NOT shomer Torah will really help us.
So even those some us (ahem) felt some fondness for Jabotinsky's secular but not rabidly anti-Torah Revisionist movement, they ultimately were not and could not be the answer to our problems.
And there are certainly right-wing Jewish thought-leaders and military experts who, while not technically shomer Torah, are very sympathetic to and even appreciative of religious Jews.
And they say things we like and say them in an appealing way.
And they're also highly intelligent, knowledgeable, and experienced. And they seem to sincerely care about the future of Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael.
But ultimately, they cannot help us.
The ultimate remedy to our problems will not be found with them.
For example, there's one whom I really like. He came to Eretz Yisrael as a shomer Torah Jew, served in the military intelligence, but now goes without a kippah and defines himself as traditional without being fully religious.
And he really appreciates and respects the charedi community, and many of them feel the same about him.
And he's both fun and fascinating to listen to, and I've quoted him on this blog and will probably quote him again when discussing politics.
He's also very in favor of religious Jews remaining religious and for religious Jews to expand settlement within Eretz Yisrael.
But I kept in mind Rav Miller's esteemed opinion on such people and sure enough, I came across an interview in which he said we should create an Hebrew-Arab NATO (NATO Ivri-Aravi) and ally ourselves with Saudi Arabia, and even provide the Saudis with military training.
Um, military training to Saudis?
Hmmm...do we honestly believe that will never backfire on us — never ever?
Really, not a good idea. Not at all.
I understand why he says this, however.
Iran is very powerful and being mostly Shiite is the natural enemy of the Sunni Saudi Arabia. Plus, the Iranians armed the Yemenite Houthis against the Saudis.
So we can ally together against a common enemy, along with the other Muslim nations who already signed the Abraham Accords.
(Political allies are not the same as bosom buddies or potentially harmful collaborations.)
He points out how they have the money and land mass, while we have the brains, technology, and experience. He further notes that an Israeli soldier with 3 years of combat training behind him could find employment in Saudi Arabia as military trainers, rather than perusing want-ads posted on Israeli bus stops.
Okay, so that means temporarily sending some our best and brightest young Jewish men out of Eretz Yisrael to assist people in a wholly gentile country with whom we can technically live peacefully, but who will never be true friends or loyal allies.
Golly, what could go wrong with that? (Hint: A lot.)
And I've heard him express other views that are not in line with Torah hashkafah.
And I was like, Wow, look at that. Forewarned IS forearmed. Rav Miller prevented me from getting too excited about this guy and look — Rav Miller proved right yet again!
Don't think that's not a big deal. After all, tons of frum people across all spectrums in Israel are very excited about this guy.
I give the above Jew credit for being totally sincere and well-intentioned.
Yet to do what he suggests?
No, no, no.
Another issue regarding all these secular-traditional right-wing, pro-Jewish settlement, and appreciators of Orthodox Jews: How do they feel about drafting Jewish women into the army?
It's totally forbidden and not for the first time, it has caused terrible harm to both the young men and the young woman serving.
But I bet that most if not all of these guys are pro-giyus banot. Even if they're against girls in combat, they likely still believe in recruiting girls to other army positions, which remains a serious problem.
(Regarding women in combat, please see here: Overuse Injuries Among Female Combat Warriors in the Israeli Defense Forces.)
We must win via our spiritual struggle. Hashem is gifting us with so much evidence of that now.
So it's vitally important to listen to AUTHENTIC da'as Torah.
And not to automatically trust the experts, no matter how emotionally appealing they may be (and how compelling their ideas may seem in other ways).