The latest decision signed by U.S. President Donald Trump in which he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and promised to relocate his country's embassy to Jerusalem ignited widespread Islamic and Arab anger with hundreds of protests staged in dozens of capitals against the move they deemed to be totally reckless.

Inside the occupied Palestinian territories, Trump's decision, which caused much anger, was not surprising at all for Palestinians who are used to the U.S.'s stark bias on Israeli occupation and Washington's silence when it comes to Israel's discriminatory policies.The official Palestinian leadership voiced their exasperation with the U.S. move, calling it contrary to UN resolutions and the international community's striving to find a two-state solution for the decades-long conflict.

For their part, Palestinian resistance movements, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Public Front, embraced a stronger position in this regard by considering that the move could transform the whole region into a state of chaos and turmoil. They confirmed that Trump's decision is antagonizing not only Palestinians, but also components of Arab countries and the ummah and free people around the world.

Ismael Haniyya, head of the biggest Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, said in a press conference that he held to respond to the U.S. move that Trump's step would be a flame for Palestinians waiting to detonate their third intifada. Haniyya called on his own people, Arabs and Muslims, to launch a third intifada starting Friday, Dec. 8 and called it the "Intifada for Jerusalem's Freedom."

What was really exciting on the day Haniyya designated for the beginning of the third intifada was that it coincided with the 30th anniversary of the first intifada Palestinians conducted in 1987, called the Intifada of Stones, for which Palestinians offered big sacrifices in its long six years. The Intifada of Stones culminated in the return of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) leadership from abroad to establish the first ever self-governing Palestinian Authority (PA) following the signing of the infamous Oslo accords.

Haniyya's call for the intifada had been answered by large Palestinian actions on the ground in which hundreds of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets on the Friday of Rage where they reused the same symbolic and peaceful methods in resisting Israeli occupation. Palestinian youth only threw stones against Israeli tanks and armored jeeps with a view to proving to the world that they are disarmed people and peacefully confronting one of the most ruthless powers in the world, a power that has committed the highest record of war crimes and crimes against humanity in recent history.

Palestinian youth's rapid reaction to Haniyya's call to wage a new intifada put the Palestinian cause to the serious question of whether Palestinians are ready and able for another intifada in this sensitive stage of their history since current circumstances differ to a large extent from those they experienced during the first and second intifadas.

The local Palestinian situation, especially in the West Bank, is the first challenge to a third Palestinian intifada. Hence, during the first and the second intifadas, there was large support and participation from one of the biggest Palestinian factions at that time, the Fatah movement. Fatah, which had huge popularity among Palestinians, had a major interest in increasing protests in the Gaza Strip and West Bank during both intifadas with a view to putting pressure on Israel in the peace negotiations brokered by the U.S. secretly in the 1980s and in Camp David in 2000. Now, Fatah has yet to apparently back the protests on West Bank streets, and its leaders are not motivated enough for a new intifada. Since 1993 when the PA was established, Fatah's leaders have been seizing its key positions, which made their personal interests to a big extent linked to the survival of the PA despite the lack of its sovereignty on the ground. Actually, they know very well that a new intifada threatens the existence of the PA because Palestinians are totally annoyed due to the political deadlock in the U.S.-sponsored peace process and Israel's expansionist and apartheid policies on the West Bank, and there is no realistic need for it to remain.

Keeping the PA, unfortunately, is in Fatah's interest before being an Israeli one as its leaders are keen not to lose the privileges they get from it, which puts the whole Palestinian cause in real danger.The situation in the Gaza Strip is not encouraging for launching another intifada either since Palestinians there are totally exhausted from the decade-long siege Israel imposed on the coastal enclave. Gaza-based Palestinians did not only suffer a siege, but three destructive Israeli wars in just six years that led to the killing of thousands of civilians and completely demolishing tens of thousands of homes, farms and factories. It is noteworthy that in Gaza, Israel had somehow achieved the equation of deterrence; thus, any bullet or small rocket fired from Gaza toward Israel is responded to by shelling from air, sea and land, the last of which happened Friday evening, killing four Palestinians. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 made it difficult for Palestinians there to resume their peaceful methods of throwing stones in their struggle as, in Gaza, there are no points for Palestinian popular confrontation with the Israeli occupation, which make an intifada lose its popular feature there.

The current Arab situation seems unable to help play a backing role for Palestinians in a third intifada. Many of the big Arab states, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, have been rocked by a state of unrest since 2011. Arabs now are totally busy with their own local causes, and sadly, they are unable to create a continued supportive strategy for the steadfastness of Palestinians in any intifada as they did in the ones in the 2000s. Arabs and non-governmental organizations were the biggest supporters for intifadas through their generous financial support in addition to the political support they shaped via the pressure they put on their regimes.

It is true that local, regional or international dynamics are not now in favor of Palestinians and cannot be helping factors for them in these sensitive moments, and protests in the occupied territories have yet to become a big intifada, but we have gotten used to the uncertainty and unpredictability of the Palestinian scene, which is full of surprises as usual, and a small incident could turn the situation upside down there. Let's wait and see.

* Egypt-based journalist