As Jerusalem lurches toward what some are already calling a third intifada, terrorist attacks have spread throughout the country. In the Galilee town of Kafr Kanna, an Arab Israeli named Kheir Hamdan attacked a group of police officers with a knife and was then shot while trying to flee the scene. The incident and its aftermath, writes Ruthie Blum, highlight the volatility of the social climate:

In spite of the fact that the focal point of the current Arab uprising is Jerusalem, police in other Arab-populated areas have been trying to prevent an already volatile atmosphere from escalating. In such a climate of rock-throwing, fire-crackers, Molotov cocktails, and hit-and-run terrorist attacks, law-enforcement agents are in a state of constant jitters. . . .
Following [the] revelation [of the details of the attack], a storm ensued, as did calls for investigations into the “unnecessary killing” of Hamdan. Even many mainstream Israelis have been saying that the police “could have shot him in the leg.” Arab Knesset member Ahmad Tibi called the incident a “cold-blooded execution,” and demanded that the officer who shot Hamdan be immediately arrested and put on trial.

MK Mohammad Barakeh, Kafr Kanna Mayor Majhad Awadeh, and other Arab dignitaries joined thousands of Israeli Arab demonstrators on Saturday as they chanted, “Zionists, get out of our lives,” while waving posters of Hamdan saying, “His only crime was being an Arab.” In fact, his “crime” . . . was terrorism. And while he is hailed as a martyr, the policeman who shot him will be dishonored and possibly imprisoned. It is this societal situation, more than any weapons deemed fit in the PA for an intifada, that ought to spring Israel into high alert.

On the same day the cease-fire went into effect along the Israel-Lebanon border, rebel forces launched an unexpected offensive, and within a few days captured much of Aleppo. This lightening advance originated in the northwestern part of the country, which has been relatively quiet over the past four years, since Bashar al-Assad effectively gave up on restoring control over the remaining rebel enclaves in the area. The fighting comes at an inopportune for the powers that Damascus has called on for help in the past: Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and Hizballah has been shattered.

But the situation is extremely complex. David Wurmser points to the dangers that lie ahead:

The desolation wrought on Hizballah by Israel, and the humiliation inflicted on Iran, has not only left the Iranian axis exposed to Israeli power and further withering. It has altered the strategic tectonics of the Middle East. The story is not just Iran anymore. The region is showing the first signs of tremendous geopolitical change. And the plates are beginning to move.

The removal of the religious-totalitarian tyranny of the Iranian regime remains the greatest strategic imperative in the region for the United States and its allies, foremost among whom stands Israel. . . . However, as Iran’s regime descends into the graveyard of history, it is important not to neglect the emergence of other, new threats. navigating the new reality taking shape.

The retreat of the Syrian Assad regime from Aleppo in the face of Turkish-backed, partly Islamist rebels made from remnants of Islamic State is an early skirmish in this new strategic reality. Aleppo is falling to the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS—a descendant of Nusra Front led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, himself a graduate of al-Qaeda’s system and cobbled together of IS elements. Behind this force is the power of nearby Turkey.