What can one expect from Palestinian youth under occupation?

Bombing a civilian bus in Israel on April 18, alerted many people to the ramifications of the third Intifada, which spontaneously expressed Palestinians’ anger with both the Israeli occupation of their land and the Palestinian Authority’s lack of action to end their plight.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing, which resulted in no fatalities, but injured 19 bus passengers.

With the imminent Jewish Passover holidays, no immediate retaliation is expected.

Since October 2015, hundreds of Palestinians were shot dead, to be exact 183 and 35 Israelis were killed.

Will the bus bombing lead to another Protective Edge operation against Gaza, which saw 2,147 Palestinians and 72 Israelis dead during the 51-day war launched by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 8, 2014?

Prior to the third Intifada, Palestinians were expressing hope about coexisting with the Israelis within the framework of the two-state solution and within the terms of the Oslo accords.

Research papers were published about the ancestral Abrahamic ties between the two Semitic peoples.

But what inflamed the Arabs was the sudden reversal of commitments once Likud took over the Knesset and the Cabinet.

The ultraorthodox settlers were the first to increase exponentially and the two holy mosques,  Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, became targets of followers of Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, who openly called for their demolition as a prelude to rebuilding the “Third Temple” in the same location.

Years of occupation and humiliation have minted a new generation of Palestinians who are not scared of real bullets or tear gas bombs, who will never abide by the commands of the National Authority or by the appeals of a family patriarchal figure.

This new breed of suicidal lone-wolf operatives has an inherent instinct to avenge the atrocities their fathers were subjected to.

The dehumanisation of the elder Palestinians in Jerusalem is the prime motive for the younger ones to retaliate.

It would be politically myopic to assume that the new generation of Palestinians is immune to the emotional appeals of Iranian-supported Hizbollah.

It would be naïve to forget that some Daesh terrorists are from Jerusalem and Nablus.

Since the Palestinian question has become a conundrum for US Secretary of State John Kerry, and French President Francois Hollande admits that there can be no solution for Jerusalem, what is to be expected of the new breed of Palestinians but to follow the path of Dolorosa through the third Intifada?

In his book “Inferno – The Divine Comedy”, Dante Alighieri describes how he finished his tour of hell, to find himself at one of the gates of Jerusalem.