Mar. 19, 2019

Gaza wakes.

As it happens, the shooting of two rockets from Gaza at Tel Aviv last Thursday was all a mistake. Or so we are to believe.

Shortly after 9 pm, sirens wailed in the coastal city. Iron Dome missiles intercepted one with a loud “boom” heard everywhere; the second, people joke, is still circling the city looking for a parking spot.

Aiming rockets at Tel Aviv, Israel’s business and cultural capital, is a statement. In the minds of many of Israel’s enemies, Tel Aviv is the real capital of the country, not Jerusalem. Iranian leaders, as well as those of Hezbollah and Hamas, have a thing for talking about attacks on “Tel Aviv” rather than “Israel.” They cannot even bring themselves to utter the name.

So, when the rockets were fired on Tel Aviv, skipping the usual warmup act of battering towns closer to the Gaza Strip, it was alarming, to say the least. This aggressive salvo broke the understood pattern of conflict and escalation in these parts.

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