It was an especially crazy day, even for the Middle East. On the morning of April 30, Israelis woke up to images of an Iranian target in the middle of Syria that was devastated by an aerial attack overnight. That evening, they watched as their prime minister, in his role as the ideal presenter when it comes to discussing a nuclear Iran, presented them and the world with the Iranian nuclear archives, brought right to the heart of Tel Aviv by Mossad agents operating in the center of Tehran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked like a groom on his wedding day. He had the demeanor of an Apple executive introducing the world to the latest iPhone, not the darkest secrets of Iran’s nuclear program. Ostensibly, it was another productive day for Israel’s leaders and their security forces. In reality, Israel and Iran were still dancing a deadly tango on the mouth of the Middle Eastern volcano. At some point, what started as a slow waltz will turn into a frenzied sword dance.

On the morning of April 30, the aerial attack on a munitions storage site near Aleppo could still be heard echoing across the landscape. The fireballs that ripped across the Syrian sky were still burning when The New York Times reported that 200 ballistic missiles, which Iran had stockpiled in an air base in Syria, were destroyed. According to Western intelligence sources, the missiles were intended to be part of an attack that Iran was planning against Israel, in response to an earlier attack by the Israeli air force (according to foreign news sources) against Syria’s T-4 air base near Homs, which Iran had been using to launch drones.

On May 1, American government sources told NBC that it was Israeli F-15 fighter jets that destroyed the Iranian missiles. Then came Netanyahu’s presentation, which received widespread international attention. In it, he exposed what Israel calls the “Iranian lie” in all its boldfaced nakedness. These two events — the night bombings and the intelligence briefing for the press — are directly related.

The Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) freedom of action against Iran can also be attributed to the fact that until May 12, when President Donald Trump is scheduled to decide the fate of the Iranian nuclear deal, Tehran has put all its actions on hold. The last thing that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader Qasem Soleimani need now is a major war in the Middle East targeting Israel. That is why Israel is allowing itself to tug on the rope and raise the threshold on an almost daily basis.