Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Photo: Wikipedia.

The past five months of Palestinian attacks on Israeli Jews have undermined the already weak political position of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, who rules ineffectively over a divided people and failing institutions.

The attacks that have killed more than two dozen Israelis and several others are an angry, frustrated response among Palestinian youth to ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and expansion of its Jewish settlements, even as Mr. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to cooperate with the Israelis on security and other matters.

Read full story at The New York Times.