A bomb blast at a Jerusalem bus stop on Wednesday killed one person and wounded dozens others, according to The National (UAE). Nobody has claimed responsibility fo the bombing, but Israeli police suspect Palestinian terrorists.
According to a report by Debka:
“[T]he attack was professionally executed by a team of three to five with local aid from East Jerusalem Palestinians. While the authorities have reassured the city that it was a one-off attack, intelligence and terror experts are certain a terrorist organization activated trained bombers and may do so again.
The 1-2 kilogram device planted in a suitcase was detonated at one of the busiest corners of Jerusalem, where taxis wait to pick up out-of-town arrivals and two buses take on passengers. The site of attack must have been picked in advance, with the bomber waiting in a getaway car nearby to detonate the device as one of the buses was pulling away and drive off to Arab Jerusalem or the West Bank before the police arrived. This method is familiar from the 2003-2006 Palestinian war of terror. The police initially set up road blocks on the highway to Tel Aviv before realizing too late that the bombers had headed east.”
Many analysts believe that a splinter terrorist group planted the bomb, and that Hamas was not responsible, according to Haaretz.
Nonetheless, the bombing comes at a time when a border conflict between Gaza and Israel is escalating, for the first time since the war between Israel and Gaza ended early in 2009.
It began last week, when some Palestinian analysts were saying that Hamas was launching mortar shells into southern Israel in order to provke an Israeli response to end youth protests demanding Hamas/Fatah reconciliation. (See “21-Mar-11 News — March 15 reconciliation movement triggers Hamas attacks on Israel.”)
Al-Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for some of the missile attacks on Israeli towns.
In response, the Israel air Force has been stepping up attacks on Gaza, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israeli airstrikes have targeted smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border, and a Hamas training camp in central Gaza.
Violence in southern Syria escalates
The escalation along this border comes at a time when violence is also escalating in Deraa in southern Syria, near the border to Jordan.
On Wednesday, Syrian security forces attacked a mosque that had been the focus of anti-government demonstrations, according to the Guardian. Syrian security forces opened fire on scores of young protesters from surrounding towns as they offered support to the protests. At least 15 protesters were shot dead on Wednesday, and dozens more were injured.
Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a new war, re-fighting the genocidal war between Arabs and Jews that followed the partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
A couple of weeks ago I pointed out that it was the periphery of the Mideast (Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya) that was becoming unstable first, and I suggested that the instability would begin to spread toward the “center.”
That now appears to be happening, as the instability is spreading to Palestine and Jerusalem, with Israel in conflict with Hamas, and the United States and Europe involved in Libya.
Everyone is expecting all of these conflicts and revolutions to simmer down after a while, and possibly they will. But the US, Europe and the Mideast are in a generational Crisis era, which makes this time quite different from the 1990s.
In the 1990s, with the Silent Generation still in place, people were much more conciliatory and willing to compromise. But today, with the Boomers and Gen-Xers in positions of power, people are “attracted” towards confrontation and conflict, rather than conciliation and compromise. This means that a conflict that might have fizzled out in the 1990s is more likely to escalate in 2011.
So it’s possible that the various Arab Revolutions and border conflicts will simmer down, but in a generational Crisis era, it’s more likely that they continue to escalate and reach full scale war.