In the war on Iran, the truth was not a collateral victim, but rather the most consistent loser. Thus, “Yedioth Ahronoth” opens a lengthy investigation that is not concerned with justifying the war or beautifying it, but rather with revealing what it says is a dangerous moment in which the Israeli security establishment turned from the party that was supposed to examine the facts, into a linguistic witness to a political narrative that it knows is incomplete.
The newspaper writes, from within the Israeli perspective, that the war witnessed what it describes as military and intelligence achievements, but it says that these achievements were later exaggerated, until they turned into narratives of absolute victory that did not match what the army and intelligence knew.
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Bleaching process
The newspaper returns to the morning of June 25, hours after the end of the first round of attacks on Iran. According to the investigation, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump had rushed to celebrate what they described as a “brilliant and historic” victory.
Trump announced that the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan facilities were “completely destroyed,” while Netanyahu said that Israel had eliminated two existential threats, nuclear and missile, in a victory whose impact will last “for generations.”
However, Yedioth says that the first estimates inside Israel, based on satellite images, drones, and other intelligence means, resulted in significant damage, not complete destruction.
It adds that an internal Pentagon report – later published by the New York Times – contradicted Trump’s story, and found that the damage to Iranian facilities was neither final nor comprehensive.
According to the newspaper, what was then required was no longer just a political narrative, but rather a non-American professional testimony that would give the words of Trump and Netanyahu intelligence weight and reduce the impact of the Pentagon report. It says that the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office exerted intense pressure on authorities in the army and intelligence to sign a document confirming that the facilities were destroyed.
The newspaper calls this “the first bleaching operation.” A senior intelligence official refused to sign, saying, according to those who attended the incident, that the security establishment is not required to pay the price for Netanyahu or Trump’s bragging about achievements that “every child knows” have not been achieved.
The newspaper quotes him as warning that the truth will be revealed, and that whoever signs a political narrative today will find it exploding in his face tomorrow.
Political chemistry
According to the investigation, the Military Intelligence Division rejected the document, before Netanyahu’s office found another party through the Director General of the Atomic Energy Commission, Moshe Edri.
But the committee’s scientists – as the newspaper reported – refused to sign a text suggesting that the strike put Fordow out of service and set Iran’s nuclear capability back years.
After continuous pressure, the matter ended with a compromise formula to which a decisive sentence was added stating that the achievement would remain preserved “if Iran does not obtain nuclear materials.”
Yedioth believes that this phrase was sufficient to undermine the entire story, because Iran, according to what it reported from its sources, kept about 440 kilograms of fissile material, enough to produce about 11 atomic bombs.
The newspaper comments sarcastically that this formulation may not be “nuclear physics,” but rather falls under the category of “political chemistry.” Which gives Trump and Netanyahu professional cover in public, and leaves the scholars a margin of reservation in the last line. However, she warns, these compounds may explode in everyone’s faces.
The language of bleaching
From this incident, Yedioth expands the angle of investigation into what it calls “the language of whitewashing.” The issue, according to the newspaper, is not always based on a crude lie, but rather on carefully designed statements. The public hears it as a confirmation of the Prime Minister’s story, and it is recorded in the records as a calculated professional reservation.
Therefore, according to the newspaper, it was not said that the nuclear program was destroyed, but rather that it “declined for years.” It was not said that the missile threat had ended, but rather that launch pads and production structures were damaged. He did not say that the Iranian regime would fall, but rather that the army “created the conditions” for that.
Bomb and missiles
In the file of going to war, the newspaper says that Netanyahu presented the attack on Iran as a response to a “threat of annihilation,” while military commanders and official spokesmen went along with it, leading to Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir saying that Israel had reached the “point of no return.”
However, the intelligence picture, as presented by Yedioth, was more complex: disturbing information had accumulated since 2022 regarding the so-called “weapon group,” but it did not lead to conclusive evidence that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had issued an order to produce a bomb.
The newspaper adds that the US intelligence assessment in March 2025 also concluded that there was no active Iranian weapons group. Thus, Yedioth distinguishes between the presence of worrying indicators and turning them politically into an imminent emergency used to market the war to public opinion.
As for the ballistic missile issue, the newspaper says that the Israeli government’s announcement of eliminating a “double existential threat” was not consistent with what the security establishment knew. It quotes a senior officer in the Intelligence Division that nothing was completely or completely destroyed, neither in the nuclear file nor in the missile facilities.
According to the investigation, the official discourse focused on the destruction of about 200 launch pads, while it marginalized the fact that optimistic estimates spoke of hitting only about a third of the missiles, and that about half of the launch system and strategic components in the missile industry remained.
Exaggerated damage
The newspaper states that the damage assessment completed in September within the Israeli army concluded that none of the nuclear sites were completely destroyed, that Fordo was severely hit but not wiped out, and that the fissile material was not damaged, but was distributed, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency reports on which the newspaper relied, on three fortified shelters.
Accordingly, Yedioth says that the delay in the nuclear project may not have exceeded a few months, not “generations” as Netanyahu promised. She adds that the army chose to hide the results from the public, either under political pressure, or for fear of the “poisoning machine” that might target it if it contradicted the narrative of the political leadership.
The newspaper devotes another space to the story of the assassination of nuclear scientists. Netanyahu announced, according to the investigation, the elimination of senior nuclear scientists in Iran, while the army knew that the operation killed only nine scientists, four of whom were of the highest rank, while the Iranian nuclear project includes hundreds of scientists and engineers.
Yedioth, from within Israeli calculations, describes the operation as an effective blow, but stresses that it does not amount to dismantling the nuclear knowledge system, and does not justify turning an operation that is limited in its results into an announcement of the end of the program.
An incomplete novel
The newspaper finally achieves the goal of overthrowing the regime. After Netanyahu had previously announced that the nuclear and missile projects had been destroyed, he returned in the second round to once again place their destruction among the objectives of the operation, along with overthrowing the government.
According to Yedioth, the Intelligence Division considered that the plan to overthrow the regime was doomed to failure, and the head of the Research Department, Ofir Mizrahi, warned Rosen against diverting precious firepower from military targets into symbols of rule and barriers for the Basij.
But the army, instead of confronting the political level, chose a coexistable formula: “creating military conditions” that would allow the regime to be overthrown.
According to the newspaper, this phrase allowed the army to move away from fully adopting the political promise, without clashing publicly with Netanyahu.
If the plan succeeds, it is said that the army contributed to the victory; If it failed, it was said that he merely created the conditions.
In its responses, the Prime Minister’s Office rejected what it called an attempt to diminish the achievements of the two operations against Iran, stressing that Netanyahu, in his words, removed the threat of the bomb and struck the missile industry for years.
The army spokesman also said that his statements are based on approved information and are committed to truth and transparency.
However, Yedioth’s conclusion goes elsewhere: The danger, as the newspaper presents it, does not lie only in the exaggeration of politicians, but rather in the moment when the security establishment turns into part of the “political propaganda machine”, covering with calculated language a narrative that it knows inside it is not complete.
