In January, during the selection process for his military secretary, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu interviewed Major General David Zini, and later remarked in a closed conversation that he did not see eye to eye with Zini, describing him as “Mashichisti midai” (too messianic). Less than half a year later, the PM announced Zini as his pick to lead the Shin Bet, a remarkably effective clandestine organization which is still emerging from its horrendous failure to foresee and prevent the October 7 tragedy.
Meanwhile, in response to the potential enactment of a new conscription law, Zini, together with Major General Yaniv Asor and with the guidance of Rabbi David Leibel, established the IDF’s first Haredi combat brigade—the Hasmonaean Brigade. The initiative marked a significant step in integrating the Haredi community into military service while maintaining their religious framework.
כנס ייעודי למתגייסים לכוחות המילואים של החטיבה החרדית, חטיבת “חשמונאים”, נערך אתמול במחנה גלילות בראשות אלוף פיקוד ההכשרות והאימונים, אלוף דוד זיני, מקים החטיבה.
בכנס השתתפו מעל 200 מיועדים לגיוס, להם הודגש כי חטיבת “חשמונאים” תהווה מסגרת בעלת אופי חרדי, בה המשרת החרדי יקבל את… pic.twitter.com/p7gR1WFyQf
— i24NEWS (@i24NEWS_HE) November 18, 2024
FIXING THE SHIN BET
Resurrecting the Shin Bet appears to be Zini’s top assignment when he takes office on June 15, the date set by his predecessor, Ronen Bar, for his retirement. On Friday morning, the Prime Minister’s Office released an excerpt from a classified report authored by Major General David Zini in March 2023, seven months before the catastrophe, regarding the Gaza Division. The move was aimed at portraying the incoming Shin Bet chief as having accurately assessed the threat that his predecessor had failed to recognize or underestimated.
The PM’s office reported: “In March 2023, roughly six months before the October 7 massacre, Major General David Zini was tasked by the commander of the Gaza Division with evaluating the division’s readiness—specifically in regard to surprise raids. Zini was instructed to identify operational weaknesses and areas for improvement. In his classified report, he highlighted significant deficiencies in the division’s preparedness for such scenarios. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since authorized the publication of an excerpt from the report’s conclusions, which was submitted to the Gaza Division commander at the time.”
“[…] In nearly every sector, a surprise raid on our forces is possible, and the principle of being ‘surprised but not overwhelmed’ does not apply,” Zini wrote. “There are many potential courses of action for executing a surprise raid during routine conditions. In my view, an above-ground incursion is the most likely and easiest to carry out […].
“Everyone refers to terms like ‘surprise raid’ or ‘complex surprise incident,’ but when it comes to actual implementation, the threat is either vaguely understood or completely ignored. The forces lack clear scenarios in mind, and as a result, their response is severely inadequate […]. Without concrete scenarios, the troops do not know what signs to look for or how to properly prepare. […] The core issue lies in the mindset of both the forces and the overall system,” Zini concluded.
אם לא רומן, אבל באמת רוצים לנצח, יש רק עוד מועמד אחד רלוונטי.
האלוף דוד זיני.
אדם נחוש, רציני, ובעיקר מנצח.
אנשי הקונספציה דחקו אותו לתפקיד אלוף לא רלוונטי, אבל הוא בדיוק מה שאנחנו צריכים.
תראו אותו ב 7.10 שם ווסט קסדה וחותר למגע.
איזו נחישות וקור רוח.
אם באמת רוצים לנצח, זיני. pic.twitter.com/MPQ8at7rd0— יואל שילה (@yoelshilo) January 24, 2025
THE CORE OF OUR FAILURE
In a conversation held last month with residents of a kibbutz in the Gaza Envelope, Major General David Zini recounted his experience on October 7 and shared insights into his worldview.
“There are many people who ask, ‘How can this be? This is someone who was deliberately negligent,’” Zini told the kibbutz members. “I completely understand the question—how is it possible that the IDF, with such advanced intelligence capabilities, failed to see what everyone else seemed to see? I’m one of the harshest critics of our system, and there is a great deal that needs to be fixed. But it’s too easy to simply say that two, three, five, or fifty people were deliberately negligent.”
Zini went on to clarify: “This kind of failure can happen even without anyone intentionally ignoring the signs—and that is the core of our failure. The army is supposed to know how to detect even those who are actively trying to conceal themselves. We failed at the very foundations of the military profession, across many areas—not just at a single point. Anyone looking for an easy answer by pointing fingers and saying, ‘X number of people were negligent,’ is actually preventing us from learning the real lessons we need to draw.”
Zini outlined a series of critical failures leading up to the October 7 attack. “We allowed the enemy to entrench itself along our border fence. We chose quiet over a preemptive war—yet sometimes war must be initiated to remove a looming threat.”
“We were unprepared for a large-scale assault. The border defense was built on warning systems and deterrence, but the time it takes to move from Shuja’iyya to Nahal Oz is too short for any meaningful warning. Once that system failed, everything else collapsed. We had no baseline readiness to absorb a surprise attack,” he said.
He further addressed the intelligence shortcomings: “We failed at the strategic level in understanding Hamas. They deliberately misled us—using Islamic Jihad to carry out operations while Hamas broadcast a message of wanting calm and settlement. We assessed they were deterred and uninterested in war. Our attention was on what we then saw as the greater threat: Iran and Hezbollah. We believed that the process of reaching an arrangement with Hamas would resolve the danger.”
“In reality,” Zini said, “what Hamas prepared was a ‘Wall of Jericho’—and that’s what we faced on Simchat Torah.”
Reflecting on the night of the attack, he added: “The warning signs, in hindsight, seem painfully obvious—but they were mixed with many signals that reassured us. There’s a big difference between hindsight and reality.”
According to Zini, the situational assessment that night was too narrow, lacking coordination across all security systems. “We didn’t raise the kind of alert that could have changed the outcome. If our tactical forces had been positioned for a raid—even a few hours or minutes in advance—the situation might have looked very different. We relied too heavily on intelligence and failed to redeploy forces accordingly.”
ONE OF US
Major General David Zini, 51, was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Ashdod, where he received his education. He is the eldest of ten children born to Rabbi Yosef and Pnina Zini. His father later served as the rabbi of Quarter IV in Ashdod. Zini comes from a distinguished rabbinic lineage: his grandfather, Rabbi Meir Zini, was a leading Zionist figure and one of the last prominent Sephardic rabbis from North Africa, renowned within Algerian Jewry. His uncle, Rabbi Dr. Eliyahu Rahamim Zini, served as the rabbi of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology – and was also a lecturer in the Faculty of Mathematics and the Department of Humanities and Arts.
אלוף דוד זיני נחת ליד ת”ת במעלה אפרים והאלוף יצא לתת שיחה לילדי הת”ת.
האלוף הוסיף ואמר לתלמידים שאת כל הכח שלו בצבא הוא ינק מהת”ת בו למד.
-כזה רמטכ”ל אני רוצה!!! pic.twitter.com/VbcSSokckQ— Esi (@_Gold_1948) January 30, 2025
On June 1, 2023, David Zini was promoted to the rank of Major General. Just over a month later, on July 5, he officially assumed command of the IDF Training and Exercise Command as well as the General Staff Corps. On October 7, 2023, upon learning of the Hamas-led assault, Zini immediately left his home in the Golan Heights and headed south. He joined ground forces in combat, actively engaging and eliminating terrorist squads that had infiltrated from the Gaza Strip into the area around Kibbutz Mefalsim, where he took part in the Battle of Mefalsim.
Zini is married to Naomi and they have eleven children. He lives in Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights. He holds a bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s degree in national security and public administration from the National Security College. Zini’s daughter is married to the son of Rabbi Eliezer Kastiel, the head of the Bnei David yeshiva in Eli. Zini’s brother, Shmuel Zini, is the representative in Israel of billionaire Simon Falic, Chairman of the Duty-Free Americas store chain who is close to Benjamin Netanyahu and his family.
Zini’s appointment appears to coincide with a string of new military appointments by Netanyahu which is part of a blessed effort to remove the old guard of liberal generals from power and replace them with right-leaning, often national-religious high-ranking officers who have been kept away from positions of power and even pushed out of the military altogether before reaching the peak of their careers.
It could be surmised that Benjamin Netanyahu is finally ready to let in the Mashichistim.
