President Barack Obama recently received a new National Intelligence Estimate report on the Iranian nuclear program, which shares Israel’s view that Iran has made surprising, significant progress toward military nuclear capability, Western diplomats and Israeli officials have informed Haaretz.

This NIE report on Iran was supposed to have been submitted to Obama a few weeks ago, but it was revised to include new and alarming intelligence information about military components of Iran’s nuclear program. Haaretz has learned that the report’s conclusions are quite similar to those drawn by Israel’s intelligence community.

The NIE report contends that Iran has made surprising, notable progress in the research and development of key components of its military nuclear program.

The NIE reports are the most important assessments compiled by the U.S. intelligence community and are submitted to the president and other top governmental officials. This NIE report was compiled by an inter-departmental team headed by director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Its contents articulate the views of American intelligence agencies.

In 2007, the NIE report on the Iranian issue included a non-classified abstract, but this time the White House decided to keep the new report’s contents under wraps. There has been no clear disclosure of the very existence of the report and its submission to Obama.

The 2007 NIE report on Iran stunned Israel, many Western countries and even some White House officials. The report maintained that Iran suspended its military nuclear program in 2003, and that there was no conclusive proof of its revival.

Serious blow

The report’s conclusions delivered a serious blow to the international campaign waged by Israel against the Iranian nuclear program. Israeli officials reasoned at the time that the NIE report’s conclusions were influenced by the failure of the U.S. intelligence community with regard to rumors of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq’s arsenal. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, American intelligence analysts concluded that Saddam Hussein had continued his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction; that assessment spurred President George W. Bush’s war plans.

But after American forces occupied Iraq, it became clear that Saddam had suspended his nuclear program, as well as his chemical weapons program. This intelligence failure sparked public criticism in the U.S.

Israeli officials reasoned in 2007 that American intelligence and defense officials were concerned that Bush would launch a war against Iran, concurrent to U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so these U.S. intelligence experts concluded in the 2007 document that a drive by Tehran to develop nuclear weapons could not be conclusively demonstrated.

In response to inquiries, Tommy Vietor, the Spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House said that he “is not going to comment on intelligence matters like this.”

Israel Defense Forces officials recently told the Knesset that roughly 300 Israelis would die as a the result of a concentrated Iranian missile attack. The number is lower than Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s estimation of 500. It was high, however, enough to spark a Facebook campaign.

The new campaign, launched by the strategic communication firm Blue Collar, is aimed at reminding people that 300 is not only a number.

“We have decided on a daily post which exemplifies exactly how much is 300 dead,” Shahar Cotani, a campaigner and designer at Blue Collar wrote. “No matter which way you turn it, we are left with too many,” he added. “300 killed are 150 couples. 300 killed are 9 kindergartens.”

The image they have posted on Wednesday illustrates the calculation that 300 people killed are 2.5 people per member of Knesset, or nine people for every member of the Israeli cabinet.

The objection to an Israeli strike on Iran is considered almost ancient in the history of the World Wide Web. The webpage armagadon.org.il was founded in 2008, demanding that such a strike be avoided.

In 2012, Roni Edry and Michal Tamir’s Facebook campaign under the slogan “Iranians, we love you,” created a stir across the world, and even Iranians responded to the initiative, which inspired numerous other Facebook pages.

One of the largest groups on Facebook against striking Iran, “The people say no to striking Iran,” has over 2,600 members.

The idea, Cotani told Haaretz, was going around in his head for a few days after hearing the Defense Ministry’s estimate. “The numbers seem imaginary, but they are real. So I sat down and started investigating what three hundred is in terms my friends and I can grasp.”

Cotani said that this is not a commercial campaign, but a private initiative which the company has decided to endorse.

When asked about the alternative and whether the possibility of war should be considered when faced with a much greater potential damage in case a nuclear bomb would hit Israel, Cotani said that he and his friends feel that this estimation is unrealistic and baseless.

“I don’t have much to say. It’s true that in a nuclear strike there will be more [people killed]. The thing is that I don’t believe that any country today, and North Korea is an example, has any interest in starting a nuclear war. I don’t believe that even the madman from Tehran had any desire to go into such a place… It’s clear to all of the sides that a war is the worst option.”

Asked if the attempt to give the numbers a face might make it hard to have a rational discussion, Cotani answered those 300, or even thousands of victims of nuclear wars have names and faces. “They are human beings, flesh and blood, so the rational thing is to take it under consideration. The main reason for the campaign is the feeling today that the current leadership has forgotten that,” Cotani explained.