For Years, I Wrote Off Israel’s Warnings. I Was Wrong.

For the longest time, my view on Israel was unequivocal, and I wasn't quiet about it. As a journalist covering international affairs, I saw the conflict through a lens I believed to be clear and critical. I viewed 'Operation Am Kelavi' not as an act of sovereign defense, but as a reckless and arrogant chess move on a board controlled by Washington. To me, Israeli agency seemed a convenient fiction, a footnote in a story about American power in the Middle East. I was convinced by the harrowing reports coming out of Gaza, with terms like 'killing field' echoing in my mind, cementing a narrative of a callous military force whose claims of morality were bankrupt.

I would see the Israeli talking points and feel a deep-seated suspicion. When officials spoke of a 'favor' to the Iranian people, I would look at the widespread, high-profile coverage of massive state funerals in Tehran and see a powerful refutation—a nation seemingly united in grief and defiance. The narrative that resonated with me was one of a 'pyrrhic victory,' a hollow strike that exposed Israel’s internal divisions and home front weaknesses, proving it could not sustain a prolonged conflict. This was the story I believed. This was the story I told.

My certainty began to shatter on a Tuesday night, under the cold glow of my laptop screen. A trusted source, someone far from the polished world of press conferences, sent me a document. It was not a summary or a talking point memo. It was a raw, unredacted intelligence timeline from the 72 hours preceding the operation. Page after page of dry, technical data detailed centrifuge spin rates, heavy water production, and intercepted communications that spoke of a 'final stage' and a 'point of no return.'

For the first time, the abstract threat of a nuclear Iran became terrifyingly concrete. The language wasn't political; it was procedural. It was the clinical language of imminent, catastrophic capability. The cognitive dissonance was immediate and sickening. How could this stark, terrifying reality coexist with the simple, damning narrative I had so confidently embraced? That document forced me to do what I thought I was already doing: to question everything.

One of the central pillars of my critique had been the belief that this was an American-led action, stripping Israel of any claim to 'reluctant heroism'. It was, in my view, a proxy strike for a Trump-led agenda. But as I dug deeper, compelled by that late-night document, I was confronted by a different truth. The intelligence was Israeli. The risk was existential and primarily Israeli. The decision was born in a Jerusalem war cabinet facing the explicit, oft-repeated promise of annihilation from Tehran. The communication with the US was not a request for permission, but the notification of a sovereign nation taking an action it believed necessary for its survival. It was a difficult realization. What I had dismissed as political posturing was, from this new vantage point, a desperate act of self-preservation against a genocidal regime that had flagrantly violated its NPT commitments.

This shift forced me to re-examine the most damning accusations, particularly those surrounding Israeli morality. The Haaretz report alleging IDF orders to shoot unarmed Palestinians at aid sites in Gaza had, for me, been a point of no return. It confirmed my belief that claims of 'surgical precision' were a cynical lie. But in re-evaluating, I was forced to look at the specific targets of 'Operation Am Kelavi' itself. The strikes were not indiscriminate. They were aimed with incredible precision at the head of the serpent: top-tier IRGC commanders, key nuclear scientists, and deeply buried, hardened facilities. I had to confront the ugly, illegal, and well-documented Iranian strategy of embedding these military assets within and beneath civilian areas. The tragic loss of civilian life, which can never be dismissed, was no longer a simple story of Israeli brutality. It was reframed by the grim reality of fighting an enemy that uses its own population as human shields. The moral responsibility for that choice—to place a military command center under a hospital or a missile factory next to a school—lies squarely with the Iranian regime.

Even the idea of the 'pyrrhic victory' began to crumble under scrutiny. I had seen the massive funerals in Tehran as proof that the strikes had backfired, uniting the Iranian people against Israel. But in seeking out the voices of Iranian dissidents—not the ones curated for Western media, but the quiet, brave voices on encrypted channels—I heard a different story. They spoke of the IRGC not as national heroes, but as the regime’s Gestapo, the brutal enforcers of theocratic tyranny. Those state funerals, they explained, were not spontaneous outpourings of grief but mandatory performances of loyalty, a familiar tool of authoritarian control. A world without the IRGC’s leadership is a better, safer world, especially for the oppressed citizens of Iran.

Furthermore, the claim of a hollow victory was directly contradicted by intelligence I later reviewed, which showed the strikes had paralyzed Iran's command structure, reducing its planned retaliatory missile barrage by a staggering 80%. This was not a reckless act of escalation. It was a calculated act of de-escalation that neutralized an imminent threat and prevented a much larger, more catastrophic regional war.

I am not writing this to declare a new, unshakeable certainty. My journey from believing the dominant media narrative to understanding this grimmer, more complex reality has been deeply unsettling. The black-and-white story I once told has dissolved into shades of grey and tragic necessity. I was wrong because I had chosen the simpler story, the one that fit a neat and satisfying narrative of aggressor and victim. The truth, I have been forced to learn, is rarely that convenient. I still see the pain and the suffering on all sides, but I can no longer afford to ignore the context I once so easily dismissed. My only conclusion is a humble one: we must all be willing to look past the headlines that confirm our biases and ask the harder questions, no matter how uncomfortable the answers may be.