The events that unfolded during the first week of November have silenced even the last remaining skeptics who continued to argue that what has been happening in Jerusalem are isolated disturbances, which do not constitute an exception to the ordinary situation. This debate is now over. Almost everyone understands that something is afoot in Jerusalem. One might call it a third intifada, despite the fact that its features and progress are different from to the previous two intifadas. It should also be kept in mind that the first two intifadas were also radically different from each other. The first one was a broad popular uprising, whose weapons of choice were mainly rocks, burning tires and makeshift slingshots, and sometimes knives. The second one was a murderous inferno, consisting of dozens if not hundreds of suicide bombers who blew themselves up amid innocent civilians, until this phenomenon was stopped thanks to Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. There is no reason why the third intifada — if this indeed marks its onset — cannot reinvent itself. To date, its hallmarks have been the use of firecrackers against the security forces as well as "run-over attacks" by vehicles.

The fire that is blazing in East Jerusalem is not about to subside in the near future. This incident could spiral out of control, potentially impacting other volatile fronts in the region, from the Sinai Peninsula to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and possibly as far as Afghanistan. The greatest fear is that a war of religion will break out, that is to say no longer a territorial or national conflict or the combination of the two. Now it is (radical) Islam pitted against (radical) Jews. Although we are talking about a handful of people on either side, and while the silent majority wants quiet, the problem is that those few extremists dominate the agenda, sweeping with them the public at large.

As was noted here on quite a few occasions, the root of evil has been planted and grown on the Temple Mount, the holiest, most volatile place on earth. What facilitated this situation was a variety of inauspicious conditions and contributory circumstances, such as the kidnapping and murder of the three Jewish teenagers in the Etzion settlement bloc this past June and the subsequent retaliatory murder of Arab youth Mohammed Abu Khdeir on July 2, which was then followed by Operation Protective Edge. All of these events could have been stopped cold in their tracks. They could have remained isolated, not-coordinated and fleeting had the Temple Mount not been inserted into this equation as well.

On Nov. 5, another run-over attack took place in Jerusalem. This time, too — as in the light rail incident of Oct. 22 — an Arab driver from East Jerusalem, blinded by hatred and brainwashed by incitement, went on a rampage with his van, running over passersby and pedestrians, killing a Druze border police officer. He then got out of the vehicle and continued his rampage on foot with a crowbar until he was shot and killed. Meanwhile, the regular disturbances in the neighborhoods of East Jerusalem continue, consisting of firebombs, firecrackers, rocks, arson and vandalism. Inside the Temple Mount, hundreds of self-appointed young "guardians of Islam" get together nightly to plan the riots for the following day. The Israeli police deployed thousands of policemen and border police troops in Jerusalem with the belief that exercising force and demonstrating presence would restore order, which has yet to happen. Yesterday, police sources admitted that force alone could not calm the situation. The situation calls for another kind of solution.