Israeli media dealt extensively this week with the great embarrassment Hamas caused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when sirens warning of incoming rockets pierced the air as he addressed a packed election rally Sept. 10 in the city of Ashdod. His bodyguards immediately hustled him off the stage and took him to a sheltered area, even as “Mr. Security” Netanyahu asked, in reference to the audience cheering him, “And where are they supposed to go?” Several minutes later he returned to the stage and resumed his speech. He later wrote on Facebook: “Tremendous support in Ashdod. Vote Likud to prevent a government of the left and the Arabs!” The entire embarrassing incident was aired live on his Facebook page, but was subsequently deleted.

After the event, Netanyahu convened the heads of the nation’s security agencies at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, and his office distributed a  photo of the meeting. After all, an unprovoked rocket attack on Ashdod for no discernible reason during a Netanyahu election rally in town merits photographic evidence proving to the public that all is well — a type of response to the seeming victory photo that Hamas engineered. The segment showing Netanyahu being whisked off stage was aired repeatedly on Hamas television channels, with the presenters grinning widely.

At issue, however, is not the embarrassment to Netanyahu, but rather Hamas’ daring. In Israel there were those who wondered whether Hamas was willing to sacrifice everything, meaning to risk a powerful Israeli response that could drag both sides into a broad, bloody military clash just for the sake of a single victory photo. Could the Hamas leadership have been thinking — as was the case prior to the April elections — that Netanyahu would not dare launch an all-out offensive on Gaza ahead of the Sept. 17 elections that could harm his reelection prospects?

Indeed, in March, Hamas launched hundreds of rockets at Israel in a bid to wrest an easing of restrictions on Gaza, assessing that Netanyahu’s hands would be tied on the eve of elections. The political leadership — Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and others —believed that only pressure would force Israel to relax its chokehold on the enclave. With such backing, the gung-ho military wing was eager to join in as was the Islamic Jihad with its arsenal of long-range rockets. And so the rockets were fired, come what may, but Israel did not violate the rules of the game.