I've never understood why there haven't been suicide bombings in the U.S. - esp in NYC, where there's no shortage of Jewish-themed targets, from Temple Emanu-el to the Israeli-owned French bistro across the street - that could easily stand in as symbols of Israel.
[WS:] Good question. One possible answer is that may have something to do with the fact there were no further attacks after 9/11 on the US soil, so by that virtue no targets (Jewish otherwise) have been attacked.
With that in mind, the question is why there have not been any attacks on the US soil after 9/11 but there were several attacks in EU? I think that the answer lies in the fact both UK and Spanish attacks were "inside jobs" (i.e. carried our by attackers recruited from local immigrant populations), whereas 9/11 was largely done by outsiders. Since the US also has a large immigrant population, it thus is necessary to explain why the EU Muslim immigrants were recruited to terrorist jobs, whereas US Muslim immigrants were not (thus far.)
I think that the answer lies in the presence of ultra-fundamentalist Islamic clerics in EU and their relative absence in the US. Many of these ultra-fundies fled their own countries as a result of government crackdown on radical Islamism, and found fertile ground for their activities in EU (e.g. government-funded "cultural" and "welfare" programs aimed at the Muslim minority). In the US, otoh, these ultra-fundamentalist were not only less numerous, but the most active ones were deported or imprisoned. This difference in the supply of agents of Islamic mobilization may explain the EU-US difference in recruitment of the local Muslim immigrant population for terrorist jobs.
Another possibility is that terrorist attacks are performed largely for their symbolic impact rather than actual damage. For example, the Oklahoma City bombing was first and foremost a symbolic attack on the "gumint in the heart of 'Murica." With that in mind, well-known or attention-grabbing targets of high symbolic value c.f. the WTC, the Pentagon or the numbers of dead that can be produced by bombing mass transit give a much greater 'symbolic payoff' than attacks on relatively obscure Jewish targets with low death toll potential.
Dwayne: What you're missing Wojtek - and, I'm moved to remind you that you missed it earlier when, a year or so ago you insisted Iraq was well within US control - is the ability of modern guerrilla forces to relentlessly confound a state's control of territory and existential claim to absolute power and competence.
[WS:] I think you mixing apples and oranges. Guerilla warfare is a very different animal than terrorist attacks on the enemy's soil, even if both involve similar methods. The foremost objective of guerilla warfare is to drive an occupying force out by raising the cost of occupation. The logic here is a quite rational calculation that the occupier has a choice - to leave or to stay in the occupied territory - whereas the native population does not - they will stay no matter what. Therefore indiscriminate inflicting of heavy cost by "terrorist" attacks are expected to have very different effects on the occupier and the local population. The occupier may eventually cut the losses and leave, while the local population has nowhere to go. Besides, they are likely to blame the "collateral damage" on the occupier. This is why, as you correctly observe, "terrorist" attack in Iraq make perfect strategic sense and are indeed a real threat to the US occupation.
Terrorist attacks on the enemy's soil (Israel, the EU or the US) are merely symbolic acts that do relatively little damage to the target countries - and certainly do not affect their military and economic capacity. Their main objective is to "raise the spirits" of the Muslim population world wide and give it a sense of "moral victory" even if a real one - in the battlefield - is well beyond reach.
However, "moral victories" are virtually inconsequential, if they are not instrumental in mobilizing the population for the actual combat with the enemy. For example, "moral victories" would make sense in the USSR during WW2, not only because the population needed an "uplift" under, but above all because the USSR already had substantial material capacity to fight the Nazis - so "moral uplift" would make that combat capacity much more effective.
However, if the fighting capacity is nearly zero - as it is the case of Arab countries vis a vis the US, EU or even Israel - there is not much to be mobilized to begin with, so "moral victories" are quite pointless - at least from a strategic point of view. They are mainly expressions of frustration over the impotence of the Arab nations to effectively counteract "the great Satan."
While we are at that, I also think that the supposed Iranian nuclear "program" is mainly a bluff to achieve a similar end: a "moral victory" to console wounded pride.
Wojtek