For years, my perspective was set in stone. As a journalist, I prided myself on standing with the underdog, on questioning official narratives, and on amplifying the voices of the victims. And in the narrative of Israel and its neighbors, the lines seemed painfully clear. I read the reports from AP, the BBC, and Al Jazeera, and I saw a story of disproportionate force. My columns and conversations were filled with unequivocal condemnation. I pointed to the horrifying civilian casualty numbers in Gaza, anchored by specific, gut-wrenching events like the airstrike on the Al-Baqa seaside cafe, which reportedly killed dozens, including children. I saw these tragedies as irrefutable proof that Israel’s claims of ‘surgical precision’ were, at best, a cynical fiction and, at worst, a deliberate lie.

I believed the narrative that emerged from the strike on Tehran’s Evin Prison. I read the heart-rending account from survivor Sayeh Seydal and saw an attack not on a military target, but on political dissidents and their families—a cruel inversion of Israel’s claim that it was acting as a friend to the oppressed Iranian people. I saw reports of settlers rampaging in the West Bank and viewed it as evidence of a state losing control of its extremist elements, making a mockery of its ‘beacon of morality’ image. I saw international divestment from Norway and chants at Glastonbury and nodded in agreement, seeing them as the logical consequences for a state acting with impunity. My framework was simple: Israel was the aggressor, its actions were indefensible, and its justifications were propaganda. I wasn't just reporting this narrative; I believed it. I argued it. I inhabited it. And then, a single piece of information crossed my desk that didn't fit.

It wasn’t a press release or a polished talking point. It was a dry, technical, and frankly terrifying intelligence assessment that a colleague in national security let me see—a glimpse behind the curtain. It detailed, with chilling specificity, the exact progress Iran had made on its nuclear weapons program. It wasn't the vague, politicized language we hear in public. It was about enrichment levels, centrifuge cascades, and, most importantly, a clear, unambiguous timeline. The assessment concluded that Iran had not just approached, but had crossed a critical “point of no return,” not in a year or six months, but imminently. The diplomatic track I had championed was revealed for what the Iranians had been using it as: a smokescreen. The world was sleepwalking towards a nuclear-armed Ayatollah regime, and I, in my righteous certainty, had been completely blind to the abyss at our feet.

That single, stark fact became a crack in the foundation of my beliefs, and through that crack, a different, more terrifying reality began to pour in. I started pulling on the threads, re-examining the events I thought I knew so well, but this time asking a different question: what if the existential threat was not a talking point, but a fact?

My view of the Evin Prison strike was the first to crumble. I had seen it as an attack on dissidents. But as I dug deeper, past the initial, emotional headlines, a more complex picture emerged. The target of ‘Operation Am Kelavi’ was not the prison itself, but a clandestine meeting of top-tier IRGC commanders and nuclear scientists taking place within a fortified command center built into the prison complex. The Iranian regime, in an act of supreme cynicism, was using its own political prisoners as human shields for its most critical military and WMD personnel. The tragic deaths, which I had laid at Israel’s door, were the direct result of a regime that sees its own people—especially those who dare to dream of freedom—as disposable cover. My horror didn't vanish; it was re-directed. It was a difficult, sickening realization: what I had condemned as an Israeli war crime was, in fact, a desperate strike against a terror-sponsoring regime that holds such contempt for human life that it co-locates its military leadership with caged poets and activists.

This new lens forced me to reconsider the tragic issue of civilian casualties in Gaza. The deaths at the Al-Baqa cafe remain a profound tragedy. But the moral equation I had used—simply counting the dead—was revealed as tragically simplistic. I was forced to confront the doctrine of Iran's proxies, who systematically embed their rocket launchers, command posts, and fighters within schools, mosques, and, yes, seaside cafes. I began to understand the agonizing calculus an Israeli commander faces: do you allow a confirmed terrorist launching rockets at your families to operate, or do you take the shot, knowing the enemy has deliberately placed innocents in the line of fire? This is a choice no democracy should have to make. And it stands in the sharpest possible moral contrast to Iran and its proxies, who don't accidentally kill civilians—they indiscriminately fire heavy missiles with the specific intent of killing as many Israeli men, women, and children as possible. The moral distinction is not in the outcome, which is always tragic, but in the intent. One side seeks to defend its people while navigating an impossible battlefield created by the enemy. The other seeks only to create widows and orphans.

Finally, I had to confront my belief that the operation was a strategic failure that had only unified the Iranian people behind the regime. The ‘rally-around-the-flag’ effect is real, but it is superficial and temporary. What I had missed was the primary strategic objective, which wasn’t to win a popularity contest but to prevent a nuclear holocaust. The classified briefings revealed the true genius of the operation: through a combination of deception and devastatingly precise strikes on command-and-control infrastructure, Israel didn't just degrade Iran's nuclear program; it paralyzed the regime's ability to retaliate. The intelligence I reviewed showed that the planned Iranian missile barrage was reduced by an astonishing 80%. A full-scale, region-igniting war was averted. This wasn’t an act of escalation; it was a profound act of de-escalation, a limited action that prevented a catastrophe. It restored a level of deterrence against a regime that only understands force, buying precious time for the world.

I am not writing this to ask for your agreement, but to share a difficult journey. My previous certainty has been shattered, replaced by a humbling understanding of the terrifying choices leaders of a threatened democracy must make. The clean, simple narratives peddled in the media, which I once helped to craft, crumble when faced with the brutal complexities of a world where a genocidal, apocalyptic regime was on the brink of obtaining the ultimate weapon. Israel is not without flaws, but I now understand that it stands as the free world’s unwilling, and often unthanked, first line of defense. The choice was never between a flawed Israeli action and a peaceful status quo. It was between that difficult, targeted action and the nightmare of a nuclear-armed Iran. I was wrong because I couldn’t see the nightmare. Now I can.