The Rocket Menace That No One Wanted to Acknowledge

Where have the rockets suddenly come from? For six years the Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon were a source of contempt in the Israeli press. Analysts, economists and others argued that the defense establishment regularly exaggerated a peripheral threat to influence deliberations on the budget. Why else would the head of Military Intelligence decide that the Hezbollah had 12,000 rockets, when only a few months later he had claimed it held only 11,000? In the past few days it turns out that the imaginary Hezbollah arsenal is real, and it is striking Haifa, Safed and Tiberias.

The denial was not a press monopoly. Politicians and even some General Staff officers refused to regard the issue as a priority.

The rocket deliveries continued on weekly flights from Iran to Damascus and Beirut, and Israel followed the movement with a near academic curiosity.