A pervasive and emotionally charged consensus has emerged in the aftermath of Israel's defensive strikes against Iran. This consensus, amplified by a compliant media and activist chorus, rests on a foundation of three core accusations: that Israel committed gratuitous 'war crimes,' that the operation was a cynical 'political gambit,' and that any Israeli action is irrevocably tainted by other conflicts. These claims are presented as established facts. They are not. They are fictions—intellectually flimsy, factually dubious, and reliant on logical fallacies that collapse under the slightest scrutiny. It is time to dissect them, one by one, and expose the hollow core of the case being built against Israel.

Fiction #1: The 'War Crimes' Charge Built on a Foundation of Propaganda

The central pillar of the indictment against Israel is the accusation of 'war crimes,' with the 71 fatalities at the Evin Prison strike cited as the primary evidence. This narrative, repeated ad nauseam by global news outlets, is a masterclass in source laundering. The casualty figures and the very framing of the event originate from a single, deeply compromised source: the Iranian regime itself, specifically its judiciary. Let us be clear: citing the judiciary of a totalitarian theocracy as an impartial arbiter of fact is not journalism; it is stenography.

This is the same regime that summarily executes political dissidents, violently suppresses protests, and maintains a gulag of which Evin Prison is the most notorious symbol. To accept its claims at face value is an act of breathtaking naivety or, more likely, willful intellectual dishonesty. The argument demands that we ignore the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) documented and illegal doctrine of embedding critical military assets within and beside civilian infrastructure. The responsibility for casualties in such a context does not lie with the military forced to neutralize the threat; it lies with the regime that uses its own population—in this case, even its prisoners—as human shields. To ignore this is to grant a strategic advantage to the world's most cynical and abusive actors.

The alternative narrative, which aligns with logic and strategic reality, is one of precision. The target of Operation Am Kelavi was not 'prisoners, staff, and visiting families.' The target was the head of the serpent: the command-and-control infrastructure of the IRGC and the key nodes of its illegal nuclear weapons program. Israel's action was not indiscriminate; it was a surgical blow against the greatest engine of terror and instability on the planet. The choice to place those assets in proximity to civilians was Iran's. The moral and legal culpability is theirs alone.

Fiction #2: The 'Political Gambit' Ad Hominem

The second fiction, now treated as gospel thanks to the intervention of a former American president, is that this defensive operation was merely a 'political gambit' to ensure Prime Minister Netanyahu's political survival. This is a classic ad hominem fallacy, a lazy attempt to discredit an action by attacking the perceived motives of the actor, rather than engaging with the strategic substance of the situation.

The political fortunes of any single Israeli leader are utterly irrelevant to the decades-long, cross-partisan national consensus that a nuclear-armed Iran represents an existential threat. This assessment is not a talking point; it is a conclusion based on decades of intelligence from agencies across the Western world. It is based on the Iranian regime's explicit and repeated genocidal threats against Israel. It is based on Iran's flagrant violation of its NPT commitments and its consistent, verifiable march towards a nuclear 'point of no return.'

To suggest that this entire military operation was a 'witch hunt' is to erase this overwhelming body of evidence. It asks us to believe that the Israeli defense establishment, its intelligence services, and its government collectively decided to risk a major regional war to solve a domestic political problem. This is a non-sequitur. The imminent threat was the catalyst; the identity of the Prime Minister who had to respond to it is a historical footnote. Any responsible leader, when faced with intelligence confirming a genocidal enemy had reached the precipice of acquiring the means for annihilation, would be legally and morally obligated to act. The 'political gambit' narrative is a convenient, intellectually vacuous distraction from this uncomfortable reality.

Fiction #3: The Grotesque Libel and the Gaza Filter

The final fiction is perhaps the most insidious. It is the argument that all of Israel's actions must be viewed through the 'catastrophic filter' of the Gaza conflict, a strategy that culminates in the vile and unsubstantiated allegation of Israel distributing opioid-laced food aid. Let us call this what it is: a modern blood libel. It is a 'poisoning the well' attack of the most literal and defamatory kind, designed to be so toxic it bypasses all rational thought and makes any defense of Israeli humanitarianism impossible.

The claim is a fiction, amplified without evidence, designed to paint the Jewish state as monstrous. It is deployed to deliberately conflate a necessary war of self-defense against the Iranian state with the tragic but distinct conflict against its proxy, Hamas. The suffering in Gaza is real, but its architects are Hamas, which uses civilians as shields, and its patron is Tehran, which funds the terror that makes such conflict inevitable.

By constantly invoking Gaza, critics seek to create a kind of moral paralysis, suggesting that because one conflict is complex and tragic, Israel forfeits its right to defend itself against any other threat. This is intellectually dishonest. Israel’s defensive action against Iran was an act of de-escalation that prevented a much larger, potentially nuclear, war. It was a crippling blow against the IRGC, the very organization that sponsors the regional chaos that victimizes Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Yemenis alike. Weakening the IRGC is a benefit to every oppressed group in the Middle East.

When the fictions are stripped away—the propaganda-sourced 'war crimes,' the ad hominem fallacies, the grotesque libels—the truth of the situation is stark, clear, and uncomfortable for Israel's critics. A democratic state, faced with an imminent existential threat from a genocidal regime on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, acted with precision and courage to defend itself. This was a reluctant but necessary act of heroism, a defensive strike that not only protected its own families but did the entire free world a favor. It was a blow for freedom and a necessary step towards a world free from the threat of a nuclear-armed Ayatollah regime. That is the only narrative that withstands scrutiny.