The only noteworthy thing about yesterday’s suicide bombing in Dimona is that it was the first terror attack of its kind in over a year (the last suicide bomber struck Eilat on January 29, 2007). But it was, to state the obvious, by no means the first such attack in the past year that was plotted or prayed for by the terrorists of the West Bank and Gaza. The Wall Street Journal said it well in their editorial today, noting the astonishing effectiveness of the security measures that Israel implemented to win the intifada:

[T]he difference has come because of Israel’s increasingly successful antiterrorist efforts. Key to that success has been the construction of its ostensibly “illegal” security fence, its equally “illegal” targeted assassinations of key terrorist leaders, its “disproportional” attacks on terrorist enclaves in Jenin and elsewhere, and other actions that saved innocent lives but which much of the international community deplored.

Let me also add a personal note. Those of us who live in Israel, or who visit here — I’ve spent most of the past two years in Israel, and I write these words today from Jerusalem — owe a great deal to the Israelis, many of them only teenagers, who put themselves in harm’s way to prevent things like the attack in Dimona from being a more frequent occurrence. The men and women of the IDF, Shabak, and police services are constant recipients of some of the most hateful condemnation in the western world, and they rarely hear a word of praise or appreciation for their daily acts of heroism and vigilance. So, while we lament Dimona, let us also express our gratitude for the people who sacrifice so much to make terrorism in Israel so rare.