News analysis

TEL AVIV, Israel - For Israel, the good news on the West Bank was that in 2012 for the first time in 39 years terrorism claimed not one Israeli victim.

But in a region where events can overtake expectations with neck-snapping speed, that is not a sign of peace to come. The question occupying Israelis and Palestinians is: Has the third intifada begun?

For weeks Palestinians have been confronting Israeli troops in numerous areas of the West Bank, sometimes as a result of local grievances, sometimes sparked by attacks by Jewish settlers, and most recently, by the death in detention of a Palestinian, who Palestinian officials claim was tortured to death.

Arafat Shalish Jaradat, a 30-year-old Palestinian who was arrested for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, was arrested Feb. 18 and died in prison for no clear reason five days later. He is a Palestinian hero, a rallying call for angry young men and women.

Israeli analysts, however, believe that the protests are being carefully managed by Palestinian military officials, whose aim is to turn up the heat on the West Bank before President Barack Obama’s March 20 visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah. The theory is that the Palestinians want to make sure that their struggle with Israel tops the agenda, and not Iran or Syria.

If true, it’s a dangerous ploy. Amos Gilad, the Director of the Political-Security Staff in the Defense Ministry, told Army Radio, “It looks as if the Palestinian Authority is trying to walk a delicate tightrope: both raising unrest and displays of violence and not wanting the matter to spin out of control.  The problem is that in this game, you never know when things are spinning out of control.”

Related: Rocket explodes in Israel, first attack from Gaza since truce

Tension in the West Bank has been rising for about the last six months, partly because the United States and Israel have withheld promised funds, causing the Palestinian Authority to say there is no money to pay the salaries of Palestinian police and civil servants. Unemployment has also soared at the same time.  The resulting anger and frustration fuel protests against Israel.

The first intifada, or popular uprising against Israel, was sparked by anger at a traffic accident in Gaza in which an Israeli truck driver killed four Palestinians in Dec. 1987.  According to many, the second intifada was provoked by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to the holiest place in Judaisim and the third holiest place in Islam -- known as the Temple Mount or al-Aksa Mosque, respectively. It led to riots and arrests.  

Each initial incident, relatively small in itself, tapped into a cauldron of spontaneous rage, deep-seated anger and frustration and, ultimately, support from the Palestinian leadership, albeit covert, and led to years of violence, arrests and deaths.

So what’s up now? Among Palestinians there is again deep anger at the plight of their roughly five thousand prisoner in Israeli jails, which threatens the rule of Fatah in the West Bank. In Gaza, Hamas managed to free more than a thousand of their prisoners from Israeli jails in return for the release of their one Israeli captive, Sgt. Gilad Shalit, who they held for five years. Now Hamas appeals to voters in the West Bank: Give us control of the West Bank and we’ll soon free your prisoners.

The Palestinian Authority government led by President Abu Mazen has to look as if it is doing something, so it is supporting the prisoner protests, even while warning the protesters that it will not tolerate serious violence against Israel -- an explosive contradiction.

One thing that Palestinian and Israeli analysts do agree on: Obama wants to encourage the peace process, but the danger is that the West Bank will explode before he even gets here.

Martin Fletcher is the author of "The List," "Breaking News" and "Walking Israel."

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Atef Safadi / EPA

Palestinians hurl stones at an Israeli police vehicle during clashes next to the Ofer military prison, south of the West Bank town of Ramallah, on Feb. 25, 2013. Palestinians clashed with Israeli soldiers after the funeral of a Palestinian who died in an Israeli jail.

Darren Whiteside / Reuters

Palestinians carry the body of Arafat Jaradat during his funeral in the West Bank village of Se'eer, near Hebron, on Feb. 25, 2013. Jaradat's death in an Israeli jail on Saturday and a hunger strike by four other prisoners have raised tension in the West Bank, where stone-throwers have clashed repeatedly with Israeli soldiers in recent days.

Ammar Awad / Reuters

A relative mourns during the funeral of Arafat Jaradat in Se'eer on Feb. 25, 2013.

The Associated Press reports — A Palestinian man who died under disputed circumstances in Israeli custody was given a hero's funeral Monday, with thousands thronging his gravesite and Palestinian police firing a 21-gun salute.

Palestinian officials, citing an autopsy, say Arafat Jaradat was tortured during Israeli interrogation, while Israeli officials said more tests are needed to determine the cause of death.

The weekend death of the 30-year-old gas station attendant and father of two comes amid rising West Bank tensions that have prompted talk in Israel about the possibility of a new Palestinian uprising. There have also been daily protests in support of some 4,600 Palestinians held by Israel. Read the full story.

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Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

Palestinians mourn over the body of Arafat Jaradat during his funeral on Feb. 25, 2013.

Atef Safadi / EPA

An Israeli soldier fires tear gas and rubber bullets at Palestinian stone throwers during clashes next to the Ofer military prison on Feb. 25, 2013.

Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

A stone-throwing Palestinian protester uses a sling to throw back a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops during clashes outside the Ofer military prison on Feb. 25, 2013.

Uriel Sinai / Getty Images, file

A donkey roams at a Bedouin camp in the E1 area at the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumimin in the West Bank.

TEL AVIV -- To the outsider, it looks like a poor piece of land to fight over: A sand and scrub hillside where, on a winter’s day, a chill wind whips over the boulders and blows through to the bone.

On one side stand the minarets of Arab East Jerusalem, hemmed in by Israel’s security wall. Ahead, across a valley, lies the Jewish settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, a sprawling suburb of neat streets and anonymous housing blocks.

Between the two feels like a bleak no-man’s land despite the presence of many Bedouin families.

But that is deceptive: No patch of ground in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is more bitterly contested, or more important to White House hopes of restarting peace talks.

At the heart of the dispute is Israel’s policy of building homes for Jewish settlers building communities built on land that the Palestinians feel is vital to a future state.

“We are a force to be reckoned with,” said Yigal Dilmony, deputy general manager of the Yesha Council which represents 360,000 Jews who have settled in East Jerusalem and the West Bank (what they call Judea and Samaria). “The reality on this territory is that we can’t be ignored.”

Late last year, the Israeli government announced it would speed up the start of construction of around 3,500 homes for settlers, connecting Ma’aleh Adumim to Jerusalem in an area known as E1 on the planners’ maps. 

The settlers’ progress appeared unstoppable. But in 2013, the political landscape at home and abroad shifted.

Shifting balance
In December, in a rare public show of unity, every member of the United Nations Security Council except the United States condemned the expansion plans. In January, U.N, human rights investigators said Israel must stop settlement expansion and remove all Jewish settlers from the occupied West Bank, saying that its practices could be subject to prosecution as possible war crimes.

Ariel Schalit / AP, file

A Palestinian man works at a new housing development in the Jewish West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim.

President Barack Obama’s impending visit to Israel and the West Bank in March will only highlight the issue of the legality of settlements.

And within Israel, January’s elections saw the balance of politics shift, if not decisively then certainly significantly, toward the center and away from reflexively supporting the settlements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still struggling to knit these disparate strands into a governing alliance, but it is likely he will need to bring together his traditional right-wing supporters and the new more moderate voices.

And few issues divide the Israeli establishment more than that of settlements.

Here’s the outgoing Deputy Prime Minister, Dan Meridor, speaking on Israeli radio on Feb. 7:

"There is a discrepancy between our claim that we are willing to accept a two-state solution and the fact that we don't limit the construction in the settlements to the settlement blocs.”

Meridor is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party who failed to win re-election. But his voice has always tended toward the pragmatic.

"I'm not saying we should stop construction in Jerusalem and in the settlement blocs, but we must not build beyond them, because by doing so we promote a very dangerous situation to Zionism, of one state from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, which endangers us more than anything else," he said.

Israeli media cite anonymous sources in Netanyahu’s office to say he’s not planning another freeze on settlements. On Monday he reiterated his support for two state-solution, albeit unenthusiastically.

The battle over settlements centers around mutually exclusive visions of Israel’s future – a two-state solution versus an Israel decisively laying claim to land captured in the 1967 war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.

Clouds gathering
For Palestinians, settlements and an eventual Palestinian state cannot be seen as separate issues. E1, the plot of land near East Jerusalem, is a vital corridor without which their territory would be severed, north from south. 

Abir Sultan / EPA, file

A Bedouin shepherd puts a newborn lamb in a bag on his donkey in the E1 area between Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The construction of the thousands of homes would render impractical if not impossible the foundation of a meaningful state of their own.

“My family has been here for 80 years,” said an Arab farmer tending his sheep and chickens on the disputed parcel of land known as E1.

“This is our land but they’ve told us we’ll have to go,” said the farmer, who preferred his name not be used. “I don’t know what will happen to us.”

So upon this seemingly barren corridor rests America’s chances of reviving a peace process that has been comatose for two years.

Leaders of the settler movement see clouds gathering as Obama’s visit draws closer. But they remain defiant.

"We understand that Obama as a second term president is much more dangerous to the settlements than the first term Obama and we need to keep our eyes wide open,’’ Dilmony said.

"When he comes here he should meet us, the settlers, and see the situation for himself,” Dilmony said.

On only point is Dilmony likely to be in agreement with the US administration.

“Peace can only come from the people who live here,’’ he said.

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Abed Al Hashlamoun / EPA

An Israeli soldier covers a small video camera that a Palestinian man was using to film a clash in El Aroub, in the southern West Bank, on Wednesday. Israeli soldiers were reportedly attacked with rocks and molotov cocktails, and responded using "crowd control" methods. Lubna Hanash, a Palestinian woman, was killed when shot in the head with live ammunition.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israel is breaking its own rules of engagement by using deadly force to disperse unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli rights group B'Tselem reported on Monday.

Israeli forces have killed 56 people since 2005 in clashes with rock-throwing Palestinians, said B'Tselem, which accused the military of having "extensively and systematically violated" rules barring deadly retaliation for non-lethal assault.

"The Israeli military's standing orders explicitly state that live ammunition may not be fired at stone-throwers," it said.

In the past two weeks, Israeli forces have shot dead two Palestinians in unrest that Israeli officials said may foreshadow a third Palestinian uprising. Peace talks have been frozen since 2010 and Palestinian anger is running high against expanding Jewish settlement in the West Bank, captured along with East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights in a 1967 war.

'Biased narrative'
The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said the B'Tselem report "presents a biased narrative, relying primarily on incidents that are either old or still under investigation by the Military Police."

"The IDF does everything in its power to ensure that the use of riot dispersal means is done in accordance with the rules of engagement," the IDF said in a written response sent to Reuters.

Bernat Armangue / AP

Relatives and friends of Palestinian Lubna Hanash, who Israeli soldiers shot and killed, mourn during her funeral in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Wednesday. The Israeli military said soldiers were attacked with firebombs and fired back. Hanash was driving in a car when she was shot.

Of the Palestinian fatalities since 2005, six were killed by rubber-coated metal bullets and two by teargas canisters, both supposedly non-lethal weapons which were fired directly at protesters, B'Tselem said.

"In practice, members of the security forces make almost routine use of these weapons in unlawful, dangerous ways, and the relevant Israeli authorities do too little to prevent the recurrence of this conduct," the report said.

The other 48 protesters killed where hit by live ammunition, according to the group.

The protests come as sanctions imposed by Israel after Palestinians won de facto statehood recognition at the United Nations have crippled the Palestinian government in the West Bank and deepened economic malaise.

Faced with the threat of a general strike by the government workers union, top Palestinian officials have encouraged protesters to direct their anger against Israel instead.

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Palestinians cross a road flooded and swept away by heavy rains in the northern West Bank village of Kabatyeh, on Jan. 9. A Palestinian official says the fiercest storm to hit the area in a decade has claimed the lives of two West Bank women who drowned after their car was caught in a flash flood unleashed by torrential rains.

AMMAN, Jordan -- The fiercest winter storm to hit the Mideast in years has unleashed deadly flash flooding in the West Bank, dumped a rare foot of snow on the desert in Jordan and disrupted traffic on the Suez Canal in Egypt.

The unusual weather was a particularly harsh blow for the vulnerable Syrian refugees, especially about 50,000 sheltering in the Zaatari tent camp in Jordan's northern desert. Torrential rains over the past four days have flooded 200 tents and forced women and infants to evacuate their tents in temperatures below freezing at night, whipping wind and lashing rain.

"It's been freezing cold and constant rain for the past four days," lamented Ahmad Tobara, 44, who evacuated his tent when its shafts submerged in flood water in Zaatari camp.

In the West Bank town of Ramallah, a Palestinian official said on Wednesday two West Bank women drowned after their car was caught in a flash flood a day earlier. Nablus Deputy Governor Annan Atirah said the women abandoned their vehicle after it got stuck on a flooded road and their bodies were found apparently swept away by surging waters. Their driver was hospitalized in critical condition.

The storm dumped at least a foot of snow on many parts of Jordan, shutting schools, stranding motorists and delaying international flights, Jordanian weatherman Mohammed Samawi said. He called it the "fiercest storm to hit the Mideast in the month of January in at least 30 years."

Muhammad Hamed / Reuters

Men play in the snow after a heavy snowstorm in Amman on Jan. 9. Snowstorm and heavy rains caused the closure of main streets in the capital Amman and other cities over the past two days.

The rare, heavy snowfall blocked all streets in Jordan's capital, Amman, and isolated remote villages, prompting warnings from authorities for people to stay home as snow ploughs tried to reopen clogged roads. The country's Meteorology Department said the storm, accompanied by lashing wind, lightning and thunder, dumped the most snow in northern regions and some parts of usually arid southern Jordan.

The snowstorm followed four days of torrential rain, which caused flooding in many areas across the country.

In Egypt, torrential rains, strong winds and low visibility disrupted Suez Canal operations over the past three days and also closed down several ports. The number of ships moving through the Suez Canal dropped by half because of poor visibility, the official MENA news agency reported. A canal official said that by Wednesday, operations had returned to normal. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

PhotoBlog: On the move again, Syrian refugees flee flooding

MENA also reported that ports in the northern Mediterranean city of Alexandria and Dakhila were shut down, while cities in the Nile Delta suffered power outages and fishing stopped in cities like Damietta, northeast of Cairo.

MENA also reported ten fishermen went missing after their boat capsized near Marsa Matrouh on the Mediterranean.

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Majdi Mohammed / AP

Surrounded by Israeli border police, Jewish settlers from the Esh Kodesh settlement outpost sit in a field in an attempt to prevent Palestinians from farming land in the northern West Bank, on Jan. 2. Both the settlers and Palestinians living in the area claim ownership of the disputed land.

Reports state that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insists that talks cannot proceed without a construction freeze on Israeli West Bank settlements, a precondition that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects.

-- The Associated Press, European Pressphoto Agency

Alaa Badarneh / EPA

An Israeli soldier runs to stop a Jewish settler as she tries to prevent a Palestinian farmer from ploughing his fields near the West Bank village of Jaloud on Jan. 2.

Alaa Badarneh / EPA

Israeli soldiers prepare to remove a Jewish settler as she tries to stop a Palestinian farmer from ploughing his fields near the West Bank village of Jaloud near Nablus on Jan. 2.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Palestinians rally, celebrate as UN upgrades their status
• Palestinians clash with Israeli soldiers over prisoners
• Israel authorizes additional permits for Palestinian workers
• West Bank cities erupt in violent protests over escalating prices
• Jewish settlers voluntarily evacuate West Bank enclave

Ammar Awad / Reuters

A worshipper prays in the Church of the Nativity, the site revered as the birthplace of Jesus, ahead of Christmas in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Dec. 21, 2012.

Jim Hollander / EPA

Pilgrims from Italy join a procession through the Church of the Nativity down into the 'Grotto,' traditionally accepted as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Dec. 21. The church is one of the oldest in the world and pilgrims, tourists and Christian faithful are flocking to the town where Jesus was born in the lead-up to the Christmas festivities.

Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

Palestinians surround a cart carrying a wooden statue of baby Jesus before a march in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on Dec. 20, 2012.

Slideshow: Holiday season lights up

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HEBRON, West Bank -- Israeli soldiers have been accused of punching two Reuters cameramen and forcing them to strip in the street, before letting off a tear gas canister in front of them, leaving one of them needing hospital treatment.

Israel's military said Thursday it took the allegations seriously. 

"The regional brigade commander was ordered to open an investigation," Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said in an email.

Yousri Al Jamal and Ma'amoun Wazwaz said a foot patrol stopped them on Wednesday in the heart of Hebron as they were driving to a nearby checkpoint where a Palestinian teenager had just been shot dead by an Israeli border guard.

Their car was clearly marked "TV" and they were both wearing blue flak jackets with "Press" emblazoned on the front.

The soldiers forced them to leave the vehicle and punched them, striking them with the butts of their guns. They accused the journalists of working for an Israeli NGO, B'Tselem, which documents human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, the Reuters cameramen said.

Locals say B'Tselem has given a number of Palestinians video cameras so they can film soldiers and settlers who live in this divided city. The NGO was not immediately available for comment.

The soldiers did not let the men produce their official ID papers and forced them to strip down to their underwear, making them kneel on the road with their hands behind their heads, the cameramen said.

Two other Palestinian journalists working for local news organizations, including a satellite television station affiliated to the Islamist group Hamas, were also stopped and forced to the ground.

One of the soldiers then dropped a tear gas canister between the men and the IDF patrol ran away, according to the cameramen. The four journalists scrambled clear and Jamal and Wazwaz got to their car, which had rapidly filled up with tear gas, they said.

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They tried to drive away, but said they only got around 200 meters before they had to stop and exit the vehicle because of the gas. The soldiers then fired more tear gas in their direction, the cameramen said.

Wazwaz was overcome by the fumes and was taken to hospital by ambulance. He was released later the same night.

'Mistreatment'
The Israeli soldiers allegedly took two gas masks and a video camera from their car. The undamaged camera was later found abandoned further up the road, according to the Reuters journalists.

"We deplore the mistreatment of our journalists and have registered our extreme dismay with the Israeli military authorities," said Stephen J. Adler, editor-in-chief of Reuters News.

Paul Danahar, the chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Israel, said on Twitter that the organization would soon issue a statement on the attack.

There “must be a limit (on) how many times (the) IDF can say this stuff is usual behavior,” he wrote.

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Tensions have been running particularly high in Hebron in the past week following repeated clashes between stone-throwing youths and soldiers.

Muhammad al-Salameh, 17, was shot dead close to his house in the heart of Hebron on Wednesday evening after an altercation with border guards at a nearby checkpoint. Israeli police said he had brandished a gun, which later proved to be a toy gun.

Some 800 Jewish settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians in the parts of the old city that are under Israeli control.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Ariel Schalit / AP

Benny Kasriel, the mayor of Israeli settlement Maaleh Adumim (above) told NBC News that he was happy that his government decided to expand settlement building because his community needed more space.

TEL AVIV -- Israel faced sharp criticism Monday from several European governments over its decision to expand settlement building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem following U.N. de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood.

In London, the British government summoned the Israeli ambassador to express disapproval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision.

"We deplore the recent Israeli government decision to build 3,000 new housing units and unfreeze development in the E1 block (of East Jerusalem). This threatens the viability of the two-state solution," Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office said in a statement.

"The Israeli Ambassador to London, Daniel Taub, has been formally summoned to the Foreign Office this morning by the Minister for the Middle East, Alistair Burt," the statement said.

Stung by the U.N. General Assembly's upgrading of the Palestinians' status from "observer entity" to "non-member state," Israel said Friday it would build 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Palestinians want for a future state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, the governments of France and Sweden summoned Israel's ambassadors in their respective capitals to discuss the issue, Reuters said.

Germany also urged Israel to refrain from expanding settlements and Russia said it viewed plans to put more new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem with serious concern.

The motion was backed by 138 nations, opposed by nine, while 41 members abstained -- a resounding defeat that exposed Israel's growing diplomatic isolation.

US slams Israel's decision to expand settlements

Britain and Germany were among those to abstain from the motion. France, Russian and Sweden all voted in favor of the Palestinians' upgraded status. The United States was one of nine countries to vote against the upgraded status.

Despair over state of negotiations
In most part the controversy centers on Israel's threat to build on the five square-mile area of dusty hillside east of Jerusalem known, in unprepossessing planning speak, as E1.

What makes it important is that the land, between Jerusalem and the existing Jewish settlement at Maaleh Adumim, would in effect sever the West Bank in half. It would make impossible the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state and has furthered despair at the prospects of a negotiated peace.

UN Palestinian statehood vote to be a personal political victory for Abbas 

Ariel Schalit / AP

A Palestinian man works at a new housing development in the Jewish West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim on Sunday.

In another blow to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, Israel announced Sunday it would withhold Palestinian tax revenues for December, which are worth about $100 million.

Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank -- lands that Palestinians want for a future state -- in a 1967 war. Settlements built there have routinely drawn almost pro forma world condemnation.

While many international leaders, including U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, decried Netanyahu's decision, the mayor of Maaleh Adumim, the Israeli settlement and a city in the West Bank, told NBC News that he was "delighted" about the decision because his community really needed more space. 

Benny Kasriel said he did not expect the government to cave in to international pressure, and invited Ban Ki-moon to visit Israel and the West Bank to see the facts on the ground. 

NBC News' John Ray and Reuters contributed to this report.

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