Today's blast outside Jerusalem's central bus station shattered a long period of relative peace and security in Israel's capital and largest city.
Jerusalem had not been hit by a bomb for nearly seven years, since the Al-Aqsa martyrs brigade killed two Israelis on September 22, 2004. There have been a few other terror attacks in Jerusalem since then (a Palestinian terrorist killed eight students and wounded eleven at a shooting religious school in 2008, and later that year a terrorist commandeered a bulldozer, killing three and wounding fifity in Jerusalem). The most recent terrorist attack outside of Jerusalem was the the barbaric slaughter of a Jewish family in the West Bank earlier this month. A terrorist invaded their home in the dead of night and stabbed to death Ruth and Udi Fogel and three of their children, 11-year-old Yoav, four-year-old Elad, and three-month old Hadas.
While Israel continues to face brutal terrorist attacks to a degree that other nations do not, the perception that Israel is under constant siege by terrorist attacks isn't accurate. As this chart shows, there's been a dramatic decrease in suicide attacks and other bombings in Israel over the past decade--a drop in violence that coincided with the construction of the security fence in Israel.