The attempted stabbing on Thursday by a Palestinian man of a group of people standing at a bus stop in the West Bank, preceded by a car-ramming attack of an Israeli border police officer by a Palestinian, is the latest in a spate of near-daily attacks in the occupied territories which are producing a great deal of Israeli fear and anxiety. While this current knife and screwdriver violence is producing relatively few Israeli fatalities, it may produce an essential change in Jewish Israeli perceptions of their own interests. Many terms have been applied to the unfolding events in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories that have entered their seventh week. Some call it the third intifada, others a popular revolution or new uprising, or the harbingers thereof. Regardless of the various names and descriptions, we are clearly witnessing a Palestinian popular awakening that could persist for some time, or perhaps subside gradually, depending on what Israel decides to do about it. In recent years, Israelis have viewed the status quo as the best of all possible worlds. They have enjoyed peace, prosperity, unwavering Western economic and military support and unconditional American diplomatic protection, while Palestinians, out of sight and out of mind, suffer occupation, oppression, impoverishment and frequent and often lethal violence at the hands of the Israeli military and Israeli settlers. In addition, it is important to bear in mind that the current Israeli government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, backed by 61 seats in the Knesset, has entirely discarded the two-state solution, which is to say the creation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security. This comfortable situation for Israelis could change either through non-violent economic and political pressure sustained by the Western world or through what we are seeing these days: violent insecurity sustained by the occupied Palestinian people. Now that lives — and many more Palestinian lives — have been lost, with every likelihood that more will be killed in the weeks ahead, the results are crucial. Twenty years of on-again, off-again peace talks have yielded no solution to the conflict. But the first Palestinian uprising in the 1980s is widely seen as having hastened Israel's decision to allow limited Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank, and rocket and mortar fire on Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip was a key factor behind the decision to pull out in 2005. If seemingly random and unpredictable attacks on Israelis were to continue for a significant period of time, some Palestinians feel that this just might cause enough Israelis to conclude that perpetual occupation and oppression are not, in fact, the best of all possible worlds for them, and that the quality of their lives would be enhanced by ending the occupation and permitting the Palestinian people to enjoy the same freedom and human dignity - whether in two states or in one - that Jewish Israelis demand for themselves. It is the natural right of the Palestinians to live in an independent state, just as all other peoples in the world do. This is the very least that they merit. Israelis cannot ignore the Palestinians or the fact that nearly 50 years of military occupation and a lack of hope for gaining independence are driving young Palestinians to desperate acts. Those whose entire lives have been characterized by a so-called peace process intended to maintain the status quo, a settlement drive that devours their land, and a full range of daily humiliations, have ample cause for despair.
