Forward: It’s Not Quite a Third Intifada — Yet

J.J Goldberg writes:

The ostensible reason for the violence is a widespread belief among Palestinians that Israel intends to change the status quo on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount and create a Jewish religious presence there, a desecration to many Muslims. The plateau is holy in both Judaism and Islam, but has been an exclusively Muslim-controlled sanctuary for centuries. Israel preserved Muslim control after capturing the Mount in 1967. Formal Jewish prayer is banned inside the compound.
Israel denies the charge that it’s out to change the rules, calling it slander and incitement to violence. But the growing popularity of a Temple Mount revivalist movement among Jewish religious nationalists, featuring ostentatious visits to the site by government ministers and Knesset members, has created intense suspicion and sporadic Palestinian violence. The latest round broke out September 13, the eve of the Jewish new year, when Muslim youths on the mount attacked Israeli police with rocks and pipe bombs, apparently protesting anticipated Jewish visits on the holy day. Violence spread from there to East Jerusalem, and then throughout the West Bank.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is caught between two opposing camps. On one side is his right-wing political base, led by West Bank Jewish settlers and the right flank of his own Likud party, pushing for an iron fist to crush the Palestinians. On the other side is a diverse constellation of interests pushing for caution and restraint. It includes the army, the international community — principally Washington and Europe — and the Palestinian Authority.
The settlers, living on the front line, are bearing the brunt of the stone-throwing and firebombs, and they’re furious. They’re grieving for the dead — four extremely popular personalities in the Orthodox community, as it happens. They suspect that Netanyahu and his defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, are soft on terrorism and are tying the army’s hands. Ten thousand rallied outside the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem on October 5, demanding a severe crackdown on West Bank Palestinians and their leaders in the P.A. Settler leaders are also calling for the establishment of new settlements, to show the Palestinians and the world that Israelis won’t be uprooted.