A ‘personal intifada,’ not a mass uprising

Op-Ed: Abbas speech to the UN, to put it politely, doesn’t interest the latest killers. They’re stirred up by relentless Arab media reports of the ‘harming’ of Al-Aqsa.

The wave of terror attacks of recent days is unlikely to end any time soon. The “success” of the assailants — those who murdered the Henkins, and those who stabbed Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Banita to death, and injured other Israelis — will likely inspire more Palestinian youths to carry out more attacks. These Palestinians, in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, have two principal motivations: Firstly, frustration at the political, economic and social situation in the territories; secondly, what they define as the harming of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Despite the instinctive response of several government ministers, and the prime minister, to blame incitement by the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas for the escalation, that doesn’t reflect the reality. Last Wednesday’s speech by Abbas to the UN, to put it politely, doesn’t interest these youths. On the day of the speech, Palestinian youths in Ramallah refugee camps with whom I was talking, didn’t even know it was taking place. On every Arab TV station and especially on social media, these youths watch reports from the Temple Mount and what are described as “Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa,” and that’s what stirs them up.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-personal-intifada-not-a-mass-uprising/