On Feb. 6, Israel’s Security Cabinet paid a visit to the country’s northern border. The ministers, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, were photographed in fashionable windbreakers, baseball caps and binoculars looking out over the Syrian border from the Golan Heights. Photos from the tour that reached the press were shot in the Golan Heights, with the ministers looking northeast, or in other words, at the Syrian front.

According to official reports from the Syrian army, that same night, Israeli aircraft attacked a target on the outskirts of Damascus. That same area, where a Syrian research facility involved in the “Precision Project” for missiles is located, had already been bombed in the past. Indeed, this site is considered by Israel to be a direct strategic threat. The Syrian army’s statements about the attack were unusually detailed. The official statement said that Israeli jets fired missiles from Lebanon’s air space. The Syrians are trying to reshuffle the deck and get Israel to violate its “balance of fear” with Hezbollah. The Syrians charged Israel with having “complete responsibility for its repeated and uncalculated adventurism and shows of force.”

The Syrian statement was intended, supposedly, to reveal what the Syrians believe are Israel’s true intentions and to entangle Israel in a conflict with Hezbollah, with whom it has a “balance of fear.” The irony is that Israel operated freely in Lebanon for decades while taking care not to violate Syrian sovereignty. Now the situation is reversed. According to the current rules of the game, the foreign press reports that the Israeli air force has been bombing targets in Syria on a weekly basis, while taking every precaution not to violate Lebanese sovereignty.

While the Israeli Cabinet was photographed in the Golan Heights facing the Syrian border, most of the visit to the north dealt with the volatile Lebanese front. This front poses the greatest threat to stability in the region. Then the ministers arrived at “The Pit” — the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) command center in the north, situated in the Upper Galilee. They entered the mountain and descended deep inside to a floor that is considered “sterile” and safe from foreign listening devices. There they received briefings from the Chief of the Northern Command Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick, the head of Military Intelligence Herzi Halevy, Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and other senior military officials. The briefings focused mainly on what is happening in Lebanon and on the threats posed to Israel by Hezbollah’s growing strength. In the past few weeks alone, the winds of war blowing across the region have turned into a veritable hurricane.