The latest series of terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem are connected neither to Hamas nor the Islamic Jihad. The perpetrators are not members of either of these terrorist organizations, but rather young Palestinians who carry out disorganized and even primitive attacks.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
No exceptional events took place on the Temple Mount, in Judea and Samaria, the Gaza Strip, or Sheikh Jarrah, and therefore, it is clear that the security situation stems from in-depth processes taking place within the Arab-Palestinian society, which Israel does not necessarily have the tools to tackle.
The fact that a number of terrorist attacks occur at the same time as the internal violence within the Palestinian Authority – for example in Jenin, where in recent weeks security services have been conducting an operation to regain control – provides clues to these processes. The two have one thing in common: the Palestinian social periphery.
This is the factor that challenges what can be called the economic-political "method" that Israel and the PA both promoted. It relied on the utilitarian model that sought to promote the standard of life of Palestinians and through it, moderate its national-political activism, and that has been responsible for the relative security stability of the last decade and a half.
There have now been signs that the Palestinian periphery is challenging this method. These are young people who want terrorism, criminals, and marginalized people who do not agree with the political-economic order and want to disrupt it by carrying out terror attacks in Israel and causing internal anarchy within the PA.
The really bad news is that this trend does not only characterize the PA and Judea and Samaria but any place in Israel where the Arab periphery is rearing its head.
The anarchy in the Negev by the Bedouins, as well as in Arab communities in the north and the ongoing chaos in cities are part of the same phenomenon of the Arab-Palestinian periphery.
Our tendency to define events – "crime rate in the Arab sector," "anarchy in the south," "Palestinian terrorism" – misses the big picture. All these reflect the same process.
This is a gradual uprising of the Arab-Palestinian periphery against the utilitarian-economic model that has characterized recent years, and as such it threatens to undermine the foundations of security and civil stability.
None of this means that we are approaching a third intifada or another conflict, but we do face a major challenge in trying to deal with the process.
Israel is taking various steps to tackle each problem individually, but one must admit, its control over social processes is quite limited, and that was made clear in every single previous Palestinian uprising. Perhaps we should prepare for the worst right now, for the intifada of the Arab-Palestinian periphery.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
