Israeli spyware firm NSO demands “urgent” meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken amid Gaza war lobbying effort

Intentionally, no. But for a country that has already gone through a surprise attack not too dissimilar to this one, it was expected that we'd be more informed. Information is coming out that the (exclusively female) border surveillance unit has been warning their officers about an attack, only to be told to knock it off. In another case, two (again, female) 8200 officers warned their superiors and were told that they're "delusional".

I don't think I need to point out the common factor here, but it shows that the IDF was clearly not taking the threat seriously at the higher levels of command, including governmental. The argument that instead of selling spyware to dictatorships, Israel could have turned its spyware effort towards Gaza is true, and it becomes either one of the worst governmental failures in Israel's history, or a horrific corruption scandal. I don't find it the same at all as 9/11, because there aren't any credible non-conspiratorial reports that the US knew about it beforehand.

My service was also related to border surveillance so I know first-hand that the girls in charge of these cameras are never taken seriously. A lot of them stop early because of the mental toll that they have to deal with, both because they're supposed to be in charge that something like the 07/10 attack never happens, and because when they warn their superiors they get scoffed at.

All of this to say, there are deep rooted issues in Israel that basically implicate the IDF and by extension the Israeli government in being complacent. There is no excuse imaginable that can answer for the disregard towards their own intelligence.

My read of th0mcat's comment is that he meant the spying is meant for political opponent and activist (internal citizen), not for external threat which they thought were under control because they kind of benefitted politically from their existence and had some arrangement with the leaders.
I didn't understand it as implying any kind of conspiracy theory. Let's try to interpret each other charitably instead of jumping at each other's throat...

I didn't want to necro this thread because of various reasons, but I just read this NYTimes article that says Israel knew.

Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.

The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.

Now, to directly respond to your comment.

The implication that the Israelis intentionally allowed the 8 October attacks is just as ridiculous as the implication that the US secretly did 9/11.

Do I think thousands of people in the United States federal government conspired to blow up the WTC in a controlled demolition and crashed 2 more planes (one of them into the Pentagon)? No.

Do I think a couple/small group of high-functioning sociopaths could have front-ran a puppet into the highest office in the country, and when presented with information a terrorist attack was imminent with some specifics allowed it to go ignored in the hopes they could make themselves and their friends in the military industrial complex obscenely rich? With everything we have collectively learned about our government's foreign policy and role in regime change in the 20th century, yes, I absolutely believe that is possible.