Jerusalem struggles to understand the drive behind Palestinians’ attacks on Jews

Israelis and Palestinians are struggling to understand the minds and motivations of the attackers who awake one morning to wield a kitchen knife against Jews.

After three weeks and dozens of assaults with screwdrivers, guns, meat cleavers and cars, it is becoming clear there is no single, neat profile. Nor is there any single reason for the growing number of Palestinian attacks.

Instead, there is a list of possible motivations – political, religious, personal – by assailants who range from Hamas militants to a middle-aged Palestinian telephone technician who used his car as a battering ram against an elderly Jew to a 13-year-old Palestinian who attacked an Israeli kid with a knife at a candy store.

One relative of a slain attacker believed the root of his anger was simply the “humiliation of occupation”.

The father of an attacker who stabbed to death an ultra-orthodox Jew wheeling his two children in a stroller in Jerusalem's Old City said his son was upset by a viral video showing a Palestinian girl shot dead by Israeli troops at a Hebron checkpoint and left to die on the street. The attacker was a law school student.

A relative of another Palestinian assailant said his cousin attacked Israelis because of threats against the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Asked if the Palestinian youth who slashed at an Israeli soldier was a devout Muslim, the relative said: “Not really.”

Instead, he explained, the mosque is a symbol of Palestinian pride, and Palestinians are outraged by provocative visits by Israeli ministers and right-wing members of parliament, who arrive surrounded by armed Israeli police and say the site should be shared with Jews who want to pray.