TEL AVIV — Sometime in 2010, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with their top five cabinet ministers for a routine yet secret meeting to discuss pressing security and foreign-policy issues. The group, which has no legal status and does not have the authority to make decisions,​ is known as the "Secret Seven,” inspired by the “Secret Seven" series of adventure novels for children by the British author Enid Blyton.

Also present at that meeting (the date of which Israeli censors do not allow to be specified) were Israel's security chiefs, including then-Mossad director Meir Dagan, Chief of the General Staff Major-General Gabi Ashkenazi and a few others.

Minutes before that meeting ended, Netanyahu turned to the chief of staff, General Ashkenazi, and told him to “set the systems for P-plus,” a term meaning to swiftly increase the preparedness of the military in case of a war with Iran. The measures to be taken in such a situation could include moving military units, strengthening intelligence capabilities and preparing the home front for a war.

The 2010 incident was reported earlier this week in the opening of a new season of "Uvda" (“fact” in Hebrew), a flagship program of Channel 2, Israel's largest commercial and privately owned TV station.