The quiet that prevailed this week inside the Green Line should not mislead anyone. The present wave of violence, which according to the defense establishment began with the murder of Na’ama and Eitam Henkin near Nablus on October 1, is not yet past. It has only been taking on a different shape in the past two weeks. Due to the distance of the attacks from Israeli population centers, the media are happy to focus on other dramas, like the flooded streets and homes without electricity in the Sharon region.

But while the tremendous pressure Israel is applying in East Jerusalem helps bring about at least a temporary lull in the city, making it difficult for terrorists to reach the center of the country (most of the stabbers in the city during the first two weeks of the violence were East Jerusalemites), the attempts at stabbing and running people over continue in the West Bank, mainly in the Hebron area and occasionally the nearby Bethlehem area. On average, there are at least two incidents every day, at least one of them in Hebron itself.

At the end of the first two weeks of violence the defense establishment spoke about a wave of terror that is fueling itself: stabbers, most of them very young, act on personal initiative without a terror organization behind them. The success of the stabber gives rise to imitators. A failure, particularly if the stabber is shot and killed, automatically grants him the status of an innocent victim in the eyes of Palestinians.

Read the article in full at Haaretz.