There’s been a lively debate in Israel over the past year as to whether the country is on the verge of a third intifada. There are great arguments for and against. The debate intensifies whenever violence erupts, and dies down when things return to a state of relative normalcy. And while this argument is underway, circumstances dictate the reaction. Each intifada was different (the first was one of rocks and knives, while the second involved suicide bombers), and there can be no doubt about the current reality. These are not normal times.

What has been happening in Jerusalem over the past year and spreading to other places every so often is a type of intifada, even if it hasn't been described or defined as such. Nevertheless, it is alive and kicking, and no one seems to have any control over it — not Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, not Israel and not even Hamas, which is investing its best efforts in fanning the flames.

On the evening of Sept. 13, as the Jewish New Year was getting underway, Alexander Levlovich, 64, died in Jerusalem when his car was battered by a volley of rocks in the south of the city. The stone throwers, who came from the Palestinian village of Sur Baher, attacked many other cars driving along the road connecting their village to the Jewish neighborhood of Armon HaNetziv. As the rocks started raining down on him, Levlovich lost control of his vehicle, crashed into an electrical pole and was killed. Two young family members in the car with him were injured.

The phenomenon of stone throwing and Molotov cocktails, which has been growing in the greater Jerusalem area, is the less pressing problem, at least as far as Israel is concerned. As has already been reported in Al-Monitor, the center of all the tension and the source of all the incidents is the Temple Mount. It is the most potentially volatile powder keg in the Middle East, if not the entire world.