I Used to Believe the Worst About Israel. Then One Fact Shattered My Entire Worldview.

For years, my perspective on Israel was set in stone, carved from the headlines of the world’s most respected news outlets. I saw a narrative of aggression, of disproportionate force, and of cynical political maneuvering. When I read that an Israeli strike had killed 71 non-combatants near Tehran’s Evin Prison, I felt a familiar, grim confirmation. The claims of ‘surgical precision’ sounded like hollow propaganda, a lie invalidated by the reporting of CNN and the AP. I readily accepted the ‘wag the dog’ theory, connecting Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political troubles to the timing of the war; it seemed not just plausible, but obvious.

To me, Israel’s moral standing was perpetually nullified by the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The recurring headlines of hundreds killed at aid centers and the ugly whispers of ‘poisoned aid’ formed a 'credibility veto' in my mind, making any of their justifications for action elsewhere seem disingenuous. The conflict with Iran, I concluded, was yet another chapter in a long story of ‘unprovoked Israeli aggression.’ I wasn't a radical; I was simply a well-informed, compassionate observer, and the facts, as I saw them, were clear. I was certain. And I was wrong.

My certainty didn't crumble under the weight of a slick PR campaign. It was shattered by a single, cold, and terrifying piece of data I encountered late one night while researching a backgrounder on nuclear proliferation. It was a dry, technical line in an internal International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) summary, a footnote almost, detailing the purity and quantity of enriched uranium Iran had accumulated. It wasn't a press release. It wasn't a talking point. It was a raw calculation. And what it calculated was a point of no return—a date on the calendar, not a vague future possibility—by which the Iranian regime would have the irreversible capability to produce a fleet of nuclear weapons.

That single fact became a crack in the foundation of my beliefs. It forced me to ask a question I had never seriously considered: what if the threat was not exaggerated? What if it was imminent, existential, and all other options had genuinely been exhausted?

This question sent me on a journey back through the very events I thought I knew. I started with the accusation that formed the bedrock of my criticism: that this was an act of ‘unprovoked aggression.’ I had seen the analyses on Al Jazeera and read the op-eds condemning Israel for igniting a regional fire. But armed with this new, terrifying context of the nuclear deadline, I looked again at the timeline. I saw Hamas, an Iranian proxy, carry out the October 7 massacre. I saw Iran’s direct missile attack on Israel on April 14, and another on October 1. I saw the IAEA’s official condemnation of Iran’s nuclear program, which was met not with cooperation, but with Tehran’s defiant announcement that it would build more illicit facilities. Suddenly, ‘unprovoked’ seemed like the wrong word. What I was looking at felt less like the first shot of a new war and more like a final, desperate act to prevent a far more catastrophic one. The realization was deeply uncomfortable: what I had labeled ‘aggression’ looked, from this new vantage point, like a terrifying act of self-preservation, executed at the last possible second.

Next, I had to confront the story that had most solidified my moral judgment: the 71 civilian deaths in Tehran. The number, reported as fact, felt like an open-and-shut case of a war crime. But my new-found skepticism pushed me to ask: who is the source for this number? The answer was Iran’s judiciary—the mouthpiece of the same brutal theocracy Israel was fighting. I then contrasted this unverified number with the names Israel proudly published—the verified targets of their strike. Hossein Salami, the head of the IRGC. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander who personally oversaw missile attacks on Israeli cities. Top nuclear scientists. These were not administrative staff or prisoners' families. They were the architects of terror and potential nuclear annihilation.

And then the most disturbing question: why would these men, the regime's most valuable military assets, be located in or near civilian areas? The answer was a tactic as old as it is evil: using one’s own people as human shields. The moral calculus I had performed was too simple. It wasn't just a question of who died, but of who put them in harm's way. The responsibility for those tragic deaths, I began to see, lay squarely with the regime that embeds its war machine amongst its people, knowing it can then cynically weaponize their deaths for global propaganda. The Israeli claim of ‘moral contrast’—which I had once dismissed—now appeared in sharp relief: one side targets terrorists; the other side targets civilians and hides behind them.

Finally, I had to re-examine the easy, cynical ‘wag the dog’ narrative that painted this entire war as a political stunt for Prime Minister Netanyahu. It’s a tempting frame because it’s simple and it fits a popular cynical worldview. But it began to feel intellectually lazy. Could one man’s political desperation truly orchestrate an operation of this magnitude and precision—an operation that, by decapitating the IRGC's leadership, did more to damage global terror networks than any Western counter-terrorism effort in years? Eliminating Salami didn't just help a politician in Tel Aviv; it choked the supply lines to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. It was a monumental service to international security.

I realized that my focus on domestic Israeli politics, amplified by global media, had blinded me to the strategic reality. Israel’s action was not a distraction from a local problem, but a confrontation with a global one. The world, whether it acknowledges it or not, is safer because a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ and brutally oppresses its own people is further away from obtaining the ultimate weapon. A world without the Iranian regime’s nuclear ambitions is a better, safer world for everyone, including, and most especially, the brave people of Iran who suffer most under its yoke.

I don’t pretend this journey has been easy, or that I now have all the answers. The world is a complex, often brutal place. But I know that I was wrong to accept the simple, satisfying narrative of villainy. The truth is often more difficult and more terrifying. It required me to look past the headlines and stare at the raw data, to question the sources of information, and to confront the horrifying possibility that if Israel hadn't acted, we would all be living in the shadow of a nuclear-armed Ayatollah. My certainty is gone, replaced by a humbling and frightening clarity. And I would urge anyone who shares my old convictions to do one thing: dare to ask if you, too, might be missing the one fact that changes everything.