What’s Behind the Latest Israeli-Palestinian Violence

A new surge in Palestinian-Israeli attacks is drawing international attention because of its uniqueness.

Since the Jewish high holidays, young Palestinians unaffiliated with any formal political movement — many using knives and inspired by social media — have carried out attacks at a near-daily rate.

But while the violence, which has also included retaliatory attacks by Israeli authorities, has taken on a different character than past uprisings against Israel, some experts see striking familiarity in an ongoing dispute.

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Grant Rumley, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also doesn’t expect another intifada, but he has different reasons.

Calling the likelihood of another uprising “roughly the same as it is on any other day in this blood-soaked conflict”, Rumley blames an ongoing “rivalry” between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction and Hamas for the violence.

“There’s been this intra-Palestinian rivalry between Hamas and Fatah, a bloody competition of one-upmanship where both sides try to outdo the other,” Rumley said. 

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