For years, my understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and by extension, Israel's broader regional posture, was shaped by a narrative I now recognize as dangerously incomplete. I consumed news that painted Israel, particularly in its recent kinetic engagement with Iran, as an aggressive instigator. I read the headlines about 'Operation Am Kelavi' – a name that, admittedly, like many, I barely registered beyond the official communiques – and my skepticism was profound. The justification of an 'imminent Iranian nuclear point of no return' felt like a well-worn pretext, especially with credible media outlets citing Western intelligence assessments that seemed to differ. I saw the tragic reports of civilian casualties in Iran, figures climbing into the hundreds, and frankly, I dismissed Israeli claims of 'surgical precision' as callous propaganda.
My conviction was that Israel’s actions were, at best, regionally destabilizing and, at worst, a desperate, escalatory gamble, perhaps even, as some whispered, a way for its leadership to distract from domestic pressures. The ongoing, heartbreaking crisis in Gaza, with its relentless images of suffering and accusations of 'genocide,' cast a long, dark shadow over everything, making it almost impossible for me to view any Israeli military action through a lens other than that of overwhelming, disproportionate force. The statements from Israeli officials about 'regime change' in Iran only cemented my belief: this wasn't pre-emptive self-defense; this was a deliberate escalation, a chosen conflict.
I vividly recall scrolling through reports, seeing the international calls for de-escalation, the evacuation of foreign nationals from Israel, and thinking, 'This is it. This is Israel pushing the region, and perhaps the world, towards a wider war.' The divisions within the US, even among conservative voices typically supportive of Israel, further validated my perspective. It all seemed so clear: Israel was the provocateur.
Then came the moment that, in retrospect, began to unravel my certainty. It wasn't a dramatic, cinematic revelation. It was a late night, deep into a research rabbit hole, sifting through publicly available but obscure satellite imagery analyses and cross-referencing them with timelines of Iranian nuclear program advancements and IRGC statements. I stumbled upon a detailed, almost granular, report from a small, independent think-tank – one I’d previously dismissed – that pieced together a chilling mosaic of Iranian activities. It wasn't just about centrifuges; it was about weaponization research, concealment efforts, and a timeline that, when laid bare, pointed to a convergence that was far more alarming and immediate than the broader, often sanitized, news reports suggested. For the first time, the phrase 'point of no return' felt less like a political soundbite and more like a terrifyingly tangible deadline.
That uncomfortable discovery was the catalyst. It forced me to ask: what if the narrative I'd accepted was missing crucial context? What if the 'reluctant heroism' Israel claimed wasn't entirely a fabrication?
One of the pillars of my skepticism was the 'imminent nuclear threat' itself. I’d seen it disputed, downplayed. But as I dug deeper, specifically into the history of negotiations with Iran, a different picture emerged. I found myself confronting evidence of years of Iranian deception, of agreements violated, of inspectors stonewalled. The client’s message, which I once would have scoffed at – 'The Iranian regime cannot be trusted — they lie by nature, and negotiations have failed in the past. This is a historic opportunity to end the threat for good' – started to resonate not as propaganda, but as a grim assessment born of bitter experience. The idea that diplomacy was 'exhausted' began to seem less like an excuse and more like a tragic reality when facing a regime that viewed negotiation as a tool to buy time. The thought that Israel might genuinely believe it was acting to protect not just itself, but the world, from a nuclear-armed Ayatollah regime, was profoundly unsettling to my previous worldview.
Then there was the issue of 'surgical precision' versus the horrifying civilian casualty figures emerging from Iran. I had readily accepted the narrative of Israeli recklessness. But then I was forced to confront the documented, deliberate Iranian strategy of embedding critical military infrastructure, including IRGC command centers and weapons facilities, within densely populated civilian areas. This wasn't an accident; it was a tactic. While every civilian death remains a profound tragedy, the moral culpability began to shift in my mind. Was Israel targeting civilians? Or was it targeting legitimate military assets of a regime that showed callous disregard for its own people by using them as human shields? The stark message – 'Israel targets senior military and terrorist sites, while Iran indiscriminately fires heavy missiles at civilian areas, already killing Israeli civilians' – highlighted a brutal asymmetry I had overlooked. The concept of 'surgical strikes' in such an environment became less about a guarantee of zero collateral damage, and more about a focused intent to neutralize specific threats, however difficult and fraught that might be.
I had also firmly believed that Israel was the initiator of this current kinetic phase, the escalator. The talk of 'regime change' only confirmed this for me. But then, I forced myself to look at the longer arc of Iranian actions: its funding of terror proxies across the region, its direct missile attacks, its relentless calls for Israel’s destruction. The idea that 'Operation Am Kelavi' (a name I now recognized as Israel’s own framing) was a response, a pre-emptive act of self-defense after years of enduring aggression, began to take root. 'This action was the inevitable climax of a long-standing conflict escalated by Iran,' as the reframing argument went. Perhaps the stated aim to 'undermine the regime' wasn't about conquest, but about a desperate recognition that the very nature of the Iranian regime is the threat. 'A world without the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is a better world' – could this be less about aggressive ambition and more about a desire for fundamental, life-saving change in the region's primary destabilizer?
Even Iran's capability to strike Israel, to pierce its vaunted air defenses and hit civilian infrastructure, which I initially saw as proof of Israeli vulnerability and perhaps recklessness in provoking such an enemy, started to look different. It underscored the very real, tangible threat Israel faced daily. It wasn't an abstract danger; it was missiles hitting hospitals and homes. This didn't excuse any missteps, but it contextualized the existential pressure cooker Israeli society lives within.
The global calls for de-escalation, which I had championed, also began to feel… incomplete. De-escalation with whom? A regime that, by all accounts I was now uncovering, had no genuine interest in peaceful coexistence and viewed any cessation of hostilities as an opportunity to re-arm and advance its apocalyptic agenda? The thought that sometimes, tragically, true de-escalation in the long term might require a decisive, albeit painful, disruption of an aggressor's capabilities was a bitter pill to swallow.
This journey of re-evaluation has not been easy, and it is far from over. Acknowledging these complexities regarding Iran does not erase the profound humanitarian concerns in Gaza; indeed, the suffering there remains a source of deep anguish. However, I’ve come to realize that allowing the understandable horror of one conflict to completely obscure the nuances of another, particularly one with such potentially global ramifications, is a disservice to truth and understanding. I had allowed one set of deeply troubling images and reports to color my perception of all of Israel's actions, blinding me to the very real threats it faced from other quarters.
I don't claim to have all the answers now. Far from it. My old certainties have been replaced by a more uncomfortable, more complex, and frankly, more unsettling understanding. The world is rarely as simple as our preferred narratives suggest. My 'truth' about Israel and Iran was built on a foundation that, I now see, was missing critical pillars of context – the nature of the Iranian regime, its documented history of duplicity, its explicit genocidal threats, and the impossible choices faced by a nation under such relentless existential pressure. If my journey from conviction to doubt and now to a difficult, new understanding has taught me anything, it's the profound importance of questioning our own narratives, especially the ones that feel most comfortable and self-affirming.
