The fatal attack in Otniel on Sunday night, like Monday morning’s attempted murder in Tekoa, emphasizes just how far Israel and the Palestinians still are from the end of this “intifada of lone wolves.”

That said, it is clear that over recent weeks there has been a decline in the number of stabbing and car ramming attacks, along with riots and even Friday protests.

Only three months ago, those thousands-strong protests had the potential to set the whole West Bank ablaze. But in more recent days, only a few hundred people have been participating in the rallies, partly because of the Palestinian Authority’s more energetic efforts to quell them. And yet, despite the relative slowdown, this week’s attacks show that the wave of violence is not coming to an end.

The limited “success” of the stabbing attacks and the absence of any change in the situation on the ground should have led to a lowering of motivation to carry out attacks, and it is certainly possible that there has been such a decline among some young people.

The problem, however, demonstrated clearly by the events of the last three days, is that there are still enough young people with the will to go out and kill Jews, and potentially die in the process, and apparently their reasons for doing so will not change in the foreseeable future.

Read the article in full at Times of Israel.