IDF chief Zamir ties October 7 to Israel's 'it will be fine' culture

Israel's military chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, told a ceremony honouring the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin that a mindset of complacency, summed up in the Hebrew expression for 'it will be fine', was among the causes of the October 7 attack. The Times of Israel reported, citing a statement from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), that the event marked 31 years since Rabin's assassination and took place on November 9, 2026.

Zamir, who holds the post of Chief of the General Staff, said Rabin had warned against that culture, and he addressed officers directly. In the version of his words published by the IDF and carried by The Times of Israel, he urged any IDF officer to drop the reassurance of 'it'll be OK' and to declare instead: 'I am responsible.' N12, the Israeli broadcaster, carried the same remark in Hebrew, describing the culture as a flawed one that Rabin had cautioned against.

Rabin as a model of command

Much of the speech used Rabin's career as a lesson in military leadership. According to the IDF spokesperson, Zamir traced that career from the Palmach to command of the IDF and then to the posts of defence minister and prime minister, saying Rabin carried responsibility for the country's defence and was driven by a strong sense of mission. The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Jewish community in pre-state Palestine, and many of Israel's early military commanders came from its ranks.

Zamir said military leadership calls for "responsibility, professionalism, and sound judgment" together with determination. The two English versions differ slightly in translation here: the IDF's own text pairs determination with "boldness", while The Times of Israel's rendering uses "daring". The Times of Israel also quoted him saying that commanders need to know their own troops and the enemy thoroughly, should listen and challenge what they take for granted, and must then decide firmly. He added that commanders should carry the full burden of the responsibility entrusted to them.

What 'it will be fine' means in Israel

The phrase at the centre of the speech is yihye beseder, literally 'it will be OK'. In everyday Israeli speech it is a common reassurance, often used affectionately to describe an improvisational, relaxed national temperament. Its critics use the same words to describe a habit of assuming that problems will sort themselves out. Zamir applied it to the second sense, setting it against personal accountability as the standard he expects from officers.

October 7 refers to the day Hamas-led gunmen crossed from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, the deadliest attack in the country's history. Questions over how the army and intelligence services failed to anticipate and stop it have dominated Israeli public debate since, and senior commanders have repeatedly been asked to account for the failures. Zamir's remarks place cultural complacency among the contributing factors; he described it as one of the reasons, not the only one.

A message on violence in society

The Hebrew news outlet News.co.il reported that Zamir also stressed that commanders are responsible both for the lives of their soldiers and for carrying out the mission, and that he called for violence to be rejected completely as a way of settling disputes within Israeli society. That point carries particular weight at a Rabin memorial. Rabin was shot dead by a Jewish Israeli extremist opposed to his peace policies, and the annual commemoration of his killing is widely used in Israel to warn against political violence and incitement.

The other reports available to us do not quote this part of the speech, so the detail on rejecting violence rests on News.co.il's account.

Who Zamir is

Eyal Zamir, a lieutenant general, is the IDF Chief of Staff, the most senior officer in Israel's armed forces. The Chief of Staff answers to the defence minister and the government and is responsible for the army's readiness and conduct of operations, which places the post at the heart of the reckoning over October 7.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports names where the ceremony was held or who else spoke, and none gives the full text of the speech. They also do not say whether Zamir linked the 'it will be fine' culture to specific decisions or units, or whether his remarks drew any response from political leaders.