The leak and the subsequent report by The New York Times on Israeli plans to strike Iran’s nuclear program is “one of the most dangerous leaks in Israel’s history,” a senior Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
The NYT reported that Israel had seriously considered launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities with direct US support.
Several Israeli politicians went on to criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the leak. They implied that he had leaked the story in order to protect himself from criticism for not acting harshly enough against Iran.
"I read the entire leak in the New York Times, and I thought how lucky we were that Netanyahu wasn’t prime minister when we bombed the nuclear reactors in Syria and Iraq," former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman wrote in a post on X/Twitter.
The Post reported that political figures alleged that Netanyahu leaked the details in order to try to protect himself from criticism for having talked tough but done little against Iran during this period.
What was in the 'New York Times' report?
The Post revealed on Thursday that since the Islamic Republic’s attack with around 200 ballistic missiles on Israel on October 1, Israeli defense officials had considered striking Tehran's nuclear facilities.
The military was confident in its abilities to strike Iran, and several senior Israeli officials were in favor of the idea in theory.
However, The NYT report detailed that the officials were not ready to carry out such an operation without US approval.
The article noted a few possibilities for striking Tehran's nuclear facilities, including a joint US-Israeli plan. This would either look like a massive bombing campaign or a combined attack using airstrikes and commando raids, as Israel did to Syria’s underground facility.
The officials reportedly waited until Trump assumed office to convince him to join a possible attack. That being said, several members of the Trump administration opposed a joint attack and pushed for a US-Iran deal, especially in a scenario where the US could be dragged into a war.
The Post noted that Israel’s capability for attacking Khamenei’s nuclear facilities underground only became familiar to the public on January 2 of this year. However, even after that revelation, dropping hints that something similar could be done in Iran was often seen as off-limits for Israeli journalists.
Yonah Jeremy Bob and Amichai Stein contributed to this report.