The AP, in an article published in Saturday’s Sun Journal on page A2, asserts that Israelis are unsettled by Hamas’s targeting of Tel Aviv because it shows they don’t belong there.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on open desert outside of Jaffa; no Arabs were displaced or dispossessed. On that bare desert, Jews built a beautiful city named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003. The reason its targeting by Hamas is unsettling to Israelis is that Tel Aviv is Israel’s most populous city and a symbol of the magnificent modern country they have built (using their concrete for housing rather than tunnels).

In addition, located as it is in the very center of the country, Tel Aviv is also a symbol of how vulnerable Israel is to rocket fire from across its borders; in conjunction with the decision by some airlines to suspend service to Ben-Gurion Airport last week, as well as the shooting down of the Malaysian plane over Ukraine, recent events have made Israelis quite jumpy about ever handing over the West Bank (which is much closer to Tel Aviv than Gaza and also is situated on higher ground) to the Palestinians.

It’s true that for the Jews, who have lived continuously on that land for at least 3,000 years, Tel Aviv is a relatively recent settlement, but it is one which very much accentuates the sense of belonging there which they have always had.

Jonathan Cohen, Farmington