On March 8, on Jaffa beach, two people convened: Israel’s ninth President Shimon Peres and US Vice President Joe Biden. They sat together in the Peres Center for Peace, an impressive building situated on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in a city in which Jews and Arabs live together, in the very heart of Israel.

Biden came to see Peres directly from the airport. In the middle of the meeting, a female member of Peres’ small staff entered with a note in her hand. She updated the two leaders that not far from where they were, a few hundred meters to the north, a terrorist attack was taking place. A Palestinian from near the West Bank town of Qalqilya embarked on a killing spree, on the promenade connecting Jaffa beach to Tel Aviv beach. Armed with a knife, the 22-year-old ran amok on the promenade for several minutes, stabbing anyone who got in his way. An American tourist was stabbed to death, another 11 were wounded, including two Russian tourists and two Palestinians. One of the Palestinians who was attacked, an illegal resident in Israel, tried to fight the terrorist tooth and nail. The attacker hadn’t bothered to ascertain the identities of his victims, which included two members of his own people. A young musician who sat on one of the promenade stools with a guitar had used his musical instrument to protect himself and strike the stabber. But the attacker continued his stabbing spree until he was shot and killed.

The meeting between Biden and Peres continued. The vice president was driven to Jaffa in a convoy protected by an especially heavy presence of secret service agents and Shin Bet’s VIP security unit. At no point in time did Biden face any danger at the hands of the lone Palestinian attacker. (Biden later revealed that his wife and grandchildren were having dinner on the beach in Jaffa not far from where the attack took place.)

The event reflects the complexity of the current situation: On the one hand, Israel is a secured, well-trained country with expertise in fighting terror. Its security organizations are among the best and most experienced in the world and enjoy a world-wide reputation regarding everything connected to breaching terror cells and locating and dismantling terror infrastructure. On the other, it is evident that the kind of terror that Israel is trying to fight now (such as these recent attacks) is impossible to vanquish.