But Netanyahu’s plan was unexpectedly delayed when he was summoned to Washington to meet Trump and told that the United States would enter direct negotiations with Iran to solve the problem diplomatically. The prime minister’s strong inclination to strike, however, remained unchanged, said a person with knowledge of the thinking of top Israeli officials.

Going into the spring, there was also concern among Israeli officials that any potential deal between Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran would still allow Iran to eventually possess a bomb, an Israeli official added. And, a former senior Israeli official said, the Israelis had been anticipating the scheduled retirement of Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the U.S. Central Command chief who had helped make war plans with Israel throughout the spring.

In an interview Tuesday with pro-government Channel 14 television, Netanyahu said that he had decided on the exact timing of the strike only two weeks earlier, but that he had made the “difficult” decision to carry out the operation “several months ago” and began fleshing out the plan and its element of surprise in April.

The key was to eliminate the nuclear experts, Netanyahu said: “Those were my instructions: We’re going after the scientists, take them out.”

In Israel, the majority of the security establishment and political parties have supported Netanyahu’s decision to execute what they consider a preventative strike. For decades, a bedrock of Israeli strategic thinking has been the “Begin Doctrine,” named after former prime minister Menachem Begin, who defended Israel’s 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq as “anticipatory self-defense” against a potential enemy making a weapon of mass destruction.

But a minority of those have questioned the wisdom of carrying out a surprise attack while Trump was still pursuing the diplomatic route — and, they say, without proof that the Iranians had decided to construct a nuclear weapon.

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Netanyahu decided on Iran war last year, then sought to recruit Trump