Tel Aviv is a part of Israel

On Friday, the first day of the new year, my column was about 2016 and the complicated reality that would accompany it, including more terrorist attacks. 2015 was hard, and the outlook for 2016 isn't good, but I still wrote, "Let us have a single day of celebration" -- everywhere in Israel and in the world, and especially in my city, Tel Aviv.

Could anyone have imagined that on our "single day of celebration" -- January 1, 2016 -- in my cosmopolitan city, less than 15 minutes from my house, there would be a horrifying terrorist attack? This attack that took me back to Paris on November 13 of the year that just ended, when I saw -- like I did Friday -- people in complete shock (despite the fact that Tel Avivians have experienced terrorist attacks in the past). They could not understand how this city, which is justifiably proud of its open doors, deserved something like this.

A month and a half ago I stood in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis and watched the French police pursuing suspects. At the time, I described the hunt for Salah Abdeslam, one of eight terrorists who had managed to escape. Then, I described a strained city; I described a city in pain; I described empty cafes and restaurants. I described things the way a journalist, who was only there to work, would. But on Friday, I experienced firsthand what I had described to my 10-year-old daughter less than two months ago. Only this time, I experienced this together with her and with my family.

The terrorist attack caught us just as we were spending time together in the city. The kids were playing when all of a sudden I got the message. Within minutes, parents starting packing up their children to go home. Parisians had Abdeslam who was walking around, free. Now Tel Avivians have Nashat Milhem, who, as of Sunday morning, was still free.

My wife and I and our three children went home via Ibn Gabirol Street. No terrorist alive will keep me from buying milk for the Shabbat. I stopped for a moment, feeling like I was still in Saint-Denis. Armed plainclothes police had begun running in every direction. Police cars were pulling up from every possible direction. My daughter got a little scared and was surely jealous of her brother and sister, who were sitting beside her, still too young to understand what terrorism is.

On the Internet, just like in the aftermath of the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices last January and the Paris attacks in November, people tried to push the slogan, "I am a Tel Avivian." It didn't catch on. Tel Aviv may have expressed solidarity with the victims of those terrorist attacks, but as far as the world is concerned, an attack in Tel Aviv is different than an attack in Paris or California.

And this might be the moment when Tel Aviv realizes that it might be a cosmopolitan city, but above all else it is a part of the Israeli reality. Friday's terrorist attack serves to remind anyone on either side who might have forgotten that the State of Tel Aviv, as it is sometimes called, is an inseparable part of the State of Israel.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו