On November 17, Haaretz military correspondent Anshel Pfeffer gave his opinion that the "current upsurge in stabbings, terror attacks using cars, Jewish vigilante reprisals, and clashes between police and rock-throwing youths at the usual flash points" is not an intifada because neither Fatah nor Hamas has decided to back it, as the PLO did with the two previous intifadas. Writing in the wake of the November 18, synagogue massacre, Pfeffer made a second distinction. Whereas the suicide bombers of the Second Intifada were sent by handlers from towns and villages in the West Bank to attack targets with which they were not familiar, the perpetrators of the summer and fall of 2014 are self-motivating lone wolves who carry residency status that entitles them to move freely around the city. They often attack targets in the neighborhoods where they work; in Pfeffer's words, "they know when and where to do it," and this makes them hard to stop.
