Dimi Reider: "It’s a nationalist government elected to pursue nationalist objectives"

Dimi Reider, Israeli journalist and associate fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations told MEE that he saw tensions rising, but not to a "full-fledged" war.

"Jerusalem is obviously on the brink, but probably not on the brink of a full-fledged intifada, for many reasons.

"It’s likely we’re entering a period of sustained community violence, especially grassroots violence on the part of the Palestinians and state violence on the part of the Israelis.

"I don’t see a proper civil war breaking out, for many reasons. There isn’t the infrastructure for that.

"I don’t think there’ll be a sharp escalation in construction [in occupied territories], but we’ll keep seeing the sporadic construction of a thousand houses here, a thousand houses there. Its hard for me to see the current government sobering up. It’s a nationalist government elected to pursue nationalist objectives and that’s what they’re going to do."