ISRAEL’S BLIND SPOT: UNDERESTIMATING HAMAS
With Former Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz

Co-Author of While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East

Thursday, October 23, 2025, 7:30 PM
Veteran journalist and author Yaakov Katz is back in Tidewater for an evening exploring how Hamas, Israel’s weakest enemy, succeeded in launching a surprise attack on one of the world’s most powerful militaries. A necessary conversation for anyone hoping to figure out what happened and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

This searing, sobering, eye-opening book is necessary reading for anyone who wants to understand what happened on October 7 and why – and for everyone who cares about Israel's future.
―Sarah Hurwitz, former White House speechwriter & Book Festival guest.

Presented as part of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the United Federation of Tidewater, Simon Family JCC, & Community Partners’ 15th annual Israel Today series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yaakov Katz is an Israeli-American author and journalist and a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. Between 2016 and 2023, Yaakov was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post where he continues to write a popular weekly column.

Yaakov also writes a regular column for Newsweek and the Jewish Chronicle, is the host of the JPPI weekly podcast and appears regularly on CNN and BBC as an analyst on Israel affairs.

Yaakov is the author of three books - Shadow Strike – Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power, Weapon Wizards - How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower, and Israel vs. Iran: The Shadow War.

Prior to taking up the role of editor-in-chief, Yaakov served for two years as a senior policy adviser to Naftali Bennett during his tenure as Israel’s Minister of Economy and Minister of Diaspora Affairs.

In 2013, Yaakov was one of 12 international fellows to spend a year at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Originally from Chicago, Yaakov has a law degree from Bar Ilan University. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Chaya and their four children.
 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ever since October 7, 2023, a question has been asked time and again: How could this have happened? While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East by journalist Yaakov Katz and journalist and professor Amir Bohbot explores this issue in depth. It’s not just a look at that day and its aftermath, though — it’s also an examination of how Hamas developed and gained power, its funding streams, and the road to complacency that Israel traveled until that October day.
 
Katz and Bohbot organize the book into six chapters plus an introduction and a conclusion. Chapters address the question of how this happened, the longstanding fear of Gaza, the tunnels, the origin story of Hamas, the IDF response, and the issue of paying Hamas to keep the peace. While the middle chapters can, at times, feel overly wordy and tangential, the level of detail in the book is necessary to show the reader how complex and entrenched these systems and modes of functioning are in both Gaza and Israel (as well as the overlaps between the two). The authors write, “This is why the toughest question we encountered during the work on this book is not how October 7 happened but how Israel can ensure it does not happen again, and how the country can avoid falling into a containment trap down the road.”

PRAISE

A cleareyed postmortem... Not only are the recommendations critical for Israel's security but the warning about the cost of a divided nation is grist for America as well.
―Wendy Sherman, former U.S. deputy secretary of state

How could it happen? While Israel Slept tells the gripping, painful story of what led to Israel’s failures on October 7- and what must be done to prevent it from ever happening again.
―Elliott Abrams, former U.S. deputy national security adviser and special representative for Iran

A shocking, detailed, and gripping investigation of the Israeli catastrophe of Oct. 7, 2023, by two of the country’s best journalists. A necessary book for anyone hoping to begin figuring out what happened and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
―Matti Friedman, author of Spies of No Country and Pumpkinflowers