The contents of audio recordings belonging to former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak were leaked to the media Aug. 21. In the recordings, Barak explains why Israel did not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2012. Fussing immediately ensued, but it is unclear what the ruckus is all about. The vast majority of the information had previously been published in numerous media outlets, including in Al-Monitor.

No one, not at the Pentagon nor in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, needs Barak to confirm that Israel did, indeed, prepare itself for several long years to launch an assault on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It is also no secret that the decisive years were from 2009 to 2012. Every summer, between July and September, during those years, the suspense index rose to new heights. According to analyses, the weather during those months was favorable for an assault, which was supposed to last several consecutive days. Even the differences of opinion in the “forum of eight,” the select group of senior ministers assembled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to formulate strategy regarding Iran, were widely disseminated.

Netanyahu did not succeed in cobbling together a majority in the forum that favored an attack. His plan was opposed by Dan Meridor, Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon, Bennie Begin, Eli Yishai and afterward Yuval Steinitz as well. That is why Netanyahu never even convened the full diplomatic-security cabinet to discuss the issue.

According to Israeli law, the only entity that could authorize a strike on Iran is the Cabinet. The forum of eight had no constitutional powers except for studying the issue or, as the top brass of Israel’s defense system used to say about the forum's frequent sessions, “holding a comprehensive seminar on the subject.”