To put it bluntly the situation sucks. Stabbing attacks have been either perpetrated or foiled in various parts of the country centring on Jerusalem. Four people have been killed so far (though it is getting harder to keep track since there are so many attacks). There is rioting throughout the West Bank and there was even unrest in Jaffa where three cops were hurt and a bus line attacked with stones that did a hefty amount of damage, seven were also arrested in the Israeli Arab town of Umm al Fahm.
A couple of days ago on Simchat Torah there were 10,000 demonstrators outside the Prime minister’s house demanding more building in the West Bank and an end to cooperation with Mahmoud Abbas. Netanyahu has currently done the opposite, telling settler leaders there will be no more building int he territories for the foreseeable future. The United States said is rumoured to have told Israel that if there is more building in the West Bank they won’t veto UN censure against Israel. Netanyahu also banned any MKs from going up to the Temple Mount at the end of last month. At first it was just Jewish MKs but after some very vocal criticism it has now been extended to Arab MKs also.
Furthermore there have been incidents of almost lynching of Israelis in the West Bank. The road between Tekoa and Jerusalem for a while was essentially out of Israeli control, frankly it’s a miracle no one was killed there’s a report of it in Algemeiner here.
The undercover unit Duvduvan were filmed doing what they do here. This was in the area of Beit El.
I don’t see much point at the moment in going off on one politically, times like this tend to see people on both the right and left point at one another and say “I told you so” I engaged in a little of this myself the other day but as the situation develops I’m becoming less inclined to do so. I was just about to write that it may even appear as if things are starting to calm down when I see there has been another stabbing attack in Jerusalem.
