While numerous commentators have described the ever-growing wave of murderous attacks on Israeli citizens as a third Palestinian intifada, Kobi Michael, Udi Dekel, and Assaf Orion argue that the term is not appropriate. They also have some suggestions about what Israel can do to prevent an actual third intifada:

At this stage, the stabbings and vehicle attacks are carried out by individual terrorists, and the shooting attacks are usually [the product of] local initiatives, with most of the Palestinian population uninvolved in the escalation processes. The masses have not taken to the streets, and no popular uprising—[the literal meaning of] intifada—is under way. The trend is one of transition from the logic of institutional operations to the logic of individual, local, and decentralized operations, based on the idea that the response to distress is independent, personal, or local. This is how a phenomenon of large-scale activity in many locales is created, similar to the process of disintegration of whole states in the Middle East in recent years. . . .

[In response], Israel must continue the security coordination with the Palestinian security agencies, and present unequivocal demands regarding those in Palestinian Authority (PA) territory engaged in terrorism and violence. Together with these coordination efforts, Israel should step up its campaign against terrorist groups in PA territory. It is also important to allow a number of Palestinian workers into Israel, as has recently been done, and not to halt the easing of restrictions on movement and trade. An arbitrary and indiscriminate hard line toward the Palestinian population will not serve the Israeli security interest, and is liable to increase the number of flash points.

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.