Israel Should Beware the Fire Next Time

Power and impunity on one side, hopelessness and desperation on the other, the failure of leadership everywhere: The latest flare-up between Israelis and Palestinians is a distillation of everything that makes their decades-old conflict so combustible. Although the fires in East Jerusalem are unlikely to spark the conflagration everyone fears most, a third Palestinian “intifada,” or uprising, that engulfs all of the West Bank and Gaza, the events of recent days are a reminder that the tinder is dangerously dry.

And there are altogether too many arsonists standing ready to set it alight.