“For Israelis, the image of a black, burned out hull of a bombed passenger bus fills the same role as a photo of the Twin Towers engulfed in smoke and fire does for Americans: it is a satanic symbol of their worst nightmares, a dreaded icon of their most fearful days, a picture of pure evil that remains etched in their minds, no matter how hard they might try to erase it.

After an eight year lull since the last Israeli bus was bombed in Be’er Sheva in 2004, that terrifying token reappeared yesterday in Burgas, Bulgaria in a terrorist incident that immediately conjured, despite the fact that it took place abroad, those dark days of the Second Intifada that many Israeli had hoped, against their better judgment, would never return.  It was at once both a terrible personal tragedy for the casualties and their family, but also an ominous national omen that the relative respite is over, and that worse is yet to come.

It truly was only a matter of time, as most everyone realized but preferred to ignore.  Israeli counter terrorism experts repeatedly warned in recent months that the threat to Israelis abroad had never been greater. After the foiled or botched terrorist attacks in Cyprus and Kenya and Turkey and Thailand and Azerbaijan, one of the efforts was bound to “succeed” and to take its mortal toll. It was the wicked fate of the innocent tourists seeking a cheap summer deal in Bulgaria that they were the ones who had to pay the ultimate price for the murderous obsessions of Israel’s worst enemies.”

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