In early February,
Thomas Friedman, writing for
The New York Times after a visit to
Ramallah, stated that a third intifada was underway, not from the Palestinians, reportedly "too poor, too divided, too tired'" or disenchanted of resorting to uprisings that bring no results, but rather in the
European Union in
Brussels. Friedman noted the increasing European calls for
disinvestment and an economic boycott of Israel as well as the worldwide opposition to
Israel's occupation. The
U.S. Congressional Research Service foresaw, immediately after the outbreak of the
2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, that the conflict might engage the
Obama Administration in a search for means to avoid a spillover into what could become a Third Intifada. By late September U.S. administration officials were pressing for a renewal of peace talks as a means of preventing 'greater Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Jerusalem and the West Bank', for they were convinced that 'the absence of negotiations leads to violence', as the collapse of
John Kerry's initiative in April was seen as one cause for the
July–August war in Gaza and the turmoil in the West Bank and Jerusalem. In the immediate wake of the
kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenage boys, Jewish mobs attacked Palestinians in Jerusalem. Immediately after their funeral, two attempts were made to kidnap and murder Palestinian children, and the second kidnapping succeeded, leading to the petrol-dowsing and torching of Mohammad Abu Khdeir. Discovery of his body led to massive Palestinian protests, with chants of "Enough of the suffering, enough of the pain," in East Jerusalem, and calls for a third intifada. Police used live fire, rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters at his funeral. Some 18 Palestinians were wounded in East Jerusalem and 8 in
Ramallah. The wave of political violence from the Palestinian side includes sniper fire and knife attacks on Jewish pedestrians and the stoning of vehicles carrying Jewish passengers, and
stone-throwing and
firebomb attacks including a September 30, 2014 attack on a nursery school for Jewish children. Tensions in East Jerusalem began to rise in late October, as the number of Palestinian Jerusalemites injured by Israeli forces since July 1 rose to 1,333 (among which 80 children), while 4 had been shot dead. In the same period, 3 Israelis were killed and 65, of whom 33 were civilians, suffered injuries from Palestinians. . Particularly notable is the Palestinian use of
firecrackers thrown at civilian targets and at police, some have caused severe burn injuries and hearing loss. In November 2014, Israeli authorities seized an enormous shipment of weapons bound for East Jerusalem. The containers – labeled "Christmas decorations" – included: "18,000 fireworks, including those of calibers that are restricted in Israel; 5,200 commando knives; 4,300 flashlights that can be used as electro-shockers; 5,500 Taser electro-shockers; and 1,000 swords."
Nir Barkat,
Jerusalem's mayor, accused the Israeli Ministry of Public Safety of failing to protect Jerusalem residents from attacks including a series of
terrorist ramming attacks and the destruction of 3 stations on the
Jerusalem Light Rail. As of early October 2014, 30% of the cars on the Light Rail were out of commission due to what are described as "focused behavior" that take place where the rail line runs through the predominantly Arab neighborhood of
Shuafat. However, by late October, violent incidents were described as "sporadic", and rioting was not widespread or large-scale. Asked on November 11, 2014 whether the situation amounts to a new intifada, Israel Defense Minister
Moshe Ya'alon responded that although the military would deal with the present, "escalation", in his view:
"In Judea and Samaria today, we don’t see the masses taking to the streets... This is mainly lone attackers. Let’s wait to see what we call it." On November 17,
Haaretz military correspondent
Anshel Pfeffer gave his opinion that the "current upsurge in stabbings,
terror attacks using cars, Jewish vigilante reprisals, and clashes between police and
rock-throwing youths at the usual flash points" is not an intifada because neither
Fatah nor
Hamas has decided to back it, as the
PLO did with the two previous intifadas. Writing in the wake of the November 18,
synagogue massacre, Pfeffer made a second distinction. Whereas the suicide bombers of the Second Intifada were sent by handlers from towns and villages in the West Bank to attack targets with which they were not familiar, the perpetrators of the summer and fall of 2014 are self-motivating
lone wolves who carry residency status that entitles them to move freely around the city. They often attack targets in the neighborhoods where they work; in Pfeffer's words, "they know when and where to do it", and this makes them hard to stop. Ingrid Jaradat Gassner, of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, remarked in November 2014 that Palestinians feel that they have no leader to stand up for their rights, with politics in flux a decade after the death of
Yassir Arafat. The depth of frustration, in her view, has grown significantly due to creeping
settlement of their lands,
border restrictions on movement, and
collective punishment meted out on them when attacks take place. They have, she argues, a sense that Israelis are raising more and more obstacles before the Palestinians' quest for "normal lives". A 2014 article published by
USA Today also stated that
the house demolition policy has been a cause of tension, while mentioning other issues such as the lack of basic municipal services to Palestinian families and the inability of obtaining permits to build new places to live. In terms of Jerusalem specifically, a February 2015 article by the
Times of Israel stated that the approximately 80,000 residents in the eastern area separated by the
West Bank barrier wall faced severe problems in terms of mail delivery, garbage services, and water supply. The publication quoted Mayor Barkat as asking the IDF for assistance in terms of having private contractors with police escort in order to sort things out. ==Incidents==