Is the Jerusalem terror attack the start of a third intifada? Not so fast
Worried about what might come after the shooting that killed 6? You’ve got good reason — but don’t be hasty
Members of Israel’s ZAKA search and rescue emergency services collect samples at the scene of a shooting at the Ramot road junction in Jerusalem on Sept. 8. Photo by Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty Images
Columnist Dan Perry September 8, 2025
An almost reflexive question cropped up after the killing of six people in a Monday terror attack in Jerusalem: Is this the beginning of a new Palestinian uprising — a “third intifada”?
In Israel, every surge of violence — every shooting or stabbing or car-ramming — tends to be framed in those terms. More often than not, the warnings prove overstated. And there is something faintly foolish about the habit of reading the onset of a new mass revolt into every isolated incident.
But if there were ever a moment when the conditions existed for a true third intifada, it would be now. The disaster unfolding in Gaza, and a series of deliberate Israeli provocations in the West Bank, have created a combustible situation. Seen this way, the fact that another eruption has not already occurred is remarkable. And the likelihood of one taking shape in the coming months or years cannot be discounted.
The reality is that it does not take much to stage a terror attack in Israel. Guns are widespread, the security barrier is porous, and the determination to strike Israelis has never fully disappeared. (Monday’s attackers, who opened fire on a bus stop in a part of Jerusalem annexed by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, came from the West Bank, per Israeli authorities. Both were killed on the scene.)
When one attack occurs, it does not mean the floodgates of rebellion have opened. Even two or three in a row should not necessarily be seen as signalling a historic turning point. The ease of violence makes panicked overinterpretation a constant danger.
But the ground is shifting in ways that could, in retrospect, make this attack look like a turning point. Anger among Palestinians is at a boil; despair is deepening; and the Israeli government’s behavior adds new accelerants by the day. It may not take much to push the West Bank into open revolt.
The immediate trigger is, of course, Gaza. The war has left devastation on a scale that can scarcely be grasped from afar: entire neighborhoods leveled, hundreds of thousands displaced, tens of thousands killed, and an ongoing humanitarian crisis that the world debates endlessly but does little to relieve. The civilian death toll is staggering. While the official count issued by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which just topped 64,000, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, at least 18,500 of the dead were children.
And while Israel insists it is targeting Hamas, the sheer extent of destruction has bred rage among Palestinians everywhere.
But Gaza is not the only story. In the West Bank, Israel has been fanning the flames of unrest with startling recklessness. Settlers, increasingly emboldened, have staged record numbers of violent raids on Palestinian villages — torching homes, smashing shops, attacking farmers, and killing villagers, including at least one beloved peace activist.
These actions can resemble organized pogroms, carried out with near impunity. Israeli soldiers are often present but do little or nothing to intervene. Sometimes they protect the settlers; sometimes they stand by passively.
For Palestinians on the receiving end, the message is unmistakable: The state of Israel condones this.
On top of this violence, the Israeli government is now advancing plans for the long-contested E1 settlement project, intended to link the far-flung settlement of Maale Adumim with Jerusalem. Critics have long warned that E1 would effectively cut the West Bank in half, making a viable Palestinian state impossible.
That is precisely the point. It is part of a broader push by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist coalition to entrench permanent Israeli control over the occupied territories. Settlement expansion is continuing at breakneck speed, openly defying the possibility of a two-state solution. Some government ministers boast that this is their objective — to prevent Palestinian statehood once and for all.
Meanwhile, Israeli relations with the Palestinian Authority are at a nadir. Israel has withheld funds, curtailed cooperation and treated the PA as if it were indistinguishable from Hamas — an absurd and dangerous equivalence. The Authority is weak and discredited, but it is still the only Palestinian body with a mandate to govern. By undermining it, Israel is working to facilitate its collapse. Palestinians understand that no matter how unpopular the PA might be, that outcome would create a vacuum that only chaos or Hamas-style militancy could fill.
In this context, Palestinian anger is not just high; it is incandescent. Daily humiliations at checkpoints, land seizures, and the grinding reality of occupation are now coupled with the perception that Israel’s leadership is preparing not just to suffocate Gaza permanently, but to eventually move against West Bank Palestinians as well. That suspicion is hardly paranoid. Members of the governing coalition are openly advocating for the forced migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, a thin euphemism for ethnic cleansing. The notion that West Bank residents could be next is logical enough, and the fear of mass displacement hangs in the air.
It is not hard to imagine how all that fury might translate into a determination among young people in the West Bank to “do something” — however desperate or self-destructive. When a population believes its very existence is threatened, the impulse to explode grows overwhelming.
What makes this doubly alarming is the absence of any restraining influence from Israel’s own leaders. Far from seeking calm, Netanyahu and his partners in government seem to welcome confrontation, as if perpetual conflict justifies their maximalist aims. They are indifferent to morality; contemptuous of international opinion; and bent on dismantling any prospect of Palestinian statehood.
In such a climate, vigilance is essential. Without it, violence could spiral with a speed and ferocity not seen since the darkest days of the Second Intifada.
None of this means that Israeli fears of a third intifada aren’t real or significant. Israelis do need security and deterrence against terror attacks. But the larger political reality cannot be wished away. Occupation, repression and settlement growth are not sustainable. If Israel continues on its present course, the question is not whether another intifada will erupt, but when.
For now, it would be premature to declare that that moment has arrived. Yet it would be incautious, too, to ignore the warning signs. The latest terrorism in Jerusalem may not be the turning point. But unless the trajectory changes — unless there is a serious Israeli effort to address Palestinian grievances, rather than inflame them — the explosion everyone fears may soon become impossible to prevent.
