At the start of his Knesset faction's meeting on Oct. 23, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, the chairman of Yisrael Beitenu, dropped a bombshell. "As for the rocket fire in the north," he confided, "it was not 'leakage' but a deliberate attack by a local cell operated by Hezbollah. [Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan] Nasrallah personally gave an order to exclude the [Bashar] al-Assad regime. That is why I call on the Assad regime, which we consider responsible for everything that happens on Syrian soil, and on the Russian forces stationed there to restrain Hezbollah."
Liberman was referring to four rockets fired from Syrian territory into the Israeli-held Golan Heights on Oct. 21. According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the rocket fire was not "leakage" resulting from fighting in the Syrian part of the Golan Heights between troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels, but an intentional attack on Israel. Then the defense minister himself announced that the order to fire the rockets was given by none other than Nasrallah and that a local terror cell carried it out without Assad even knowing about it. Nevertheless, Liberman made a point of placing the onus of responsibility for restraining Hezbollah on Assad and his Russian allies.
Liberman's very public statement immediately became a major headline in Israel and throughout the Middle East. Tensions in the north hit new levels over the past few weeks and threatened to reach a boiling point. Liberman's comments were seen as a firm warning, directed squarely at Nasrallah's bunker in Beirut, as well as a serious escalation in the recent war of words between the parties.
The entire episode received a bizarre twist just a few hours later. It turned out that no one in the IDF was familiar with the information that Liberman presented to the microphones and cameras. While the IDF also believes that the rockets were fired at Israel intentionally, military intelligence has no information about a direct order from Nasrallah, an attempt to exclude Assad or the identity of the terror cell responsible for the rocket fire. Thinking that he was getting into a war of words with Nasrallah, Liberman actually found himself caught up in a war of conflicting versions with the IDF. The conflict died down quickly, without developing into an open fight, but the mystery remains: Where did Liberman get his information?
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