While Paris does its best to recover from last Friday’s terrorist attack, Palestinian terrorism is a sad fact of life in Israel. A sad fact of life that has escalated in recent months mostly with Israelis being randomly and wantonly stabbed.

Today is yet another one of those days. Two Jews were stabbed to death by a Palestinian while in prayer at a Tel Aviv office complex. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, a Palestinian gunman opened fire at motorists stuck in a traffic jam in Gush Etzion killing three people one of whom is an American teenager. The second victim was an Israeli man in his 50’s while the third was a Palestinian bystander. The gunman fled the scene, but was captured by Israeli security forces. Seven other people including five Americans were wounded but did not sustain life threatening injuries.

The American teenager has not been identified, but he was in Israel as part of a nine month volunteer program. On this particular day, he was part of a group of Yeshiva students handing out food to Israeli soldiers.

While the State Department condemned the attack, its spokesman delivered the usual mealy-mouthed preening and called upon “all sides to take affirmative steps to restore calm and prevent actions that would further escalate tensions.” How much do you want to bet the Palestinian Authority will name a street, a school or a soccer field after this gunman?

UPDATE: The teenager killed in the attack has been identified as Ezra Schwartz of Sharon, Massachusetts. The 18-year old had graduated from Maimonides High School in Brookline earlier this year before travelling to Israel.