Palestinian terror parallels negotiations. Again.

Upsurges in Palestinian terrorism have often accompanied progress—and eventual breakdowns—in Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations over the past 20 years. The latest round of talks, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is proving to be no different.

Palestinian attacks on Jewish military and civilian targets have been on the rise since a Lebanese sniper killed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier in mid-December. A civilian hired by the IDF was murdered Dec. 24 while repairing the Israel-Gaza border fence.

A bomb exploded on an evacuated bus in the heavily populated city of Bat Yam, just south of Tel Aviv, on Dec. 22.

A police officer was stabbed and moderately injured Dec. 23 while directing traffic at a busy intersection along the Ramallah bypass road in Samaria, and Jewish drivers have reported several potentially deadly stoning attacks. In one of several recent Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza that provoked Israeli retaliatory airstrikes, one rocket landed near a bus stop used by schoolchildren near Ashkelon.

“Unfortunately and regrettably, it’s quite typical to the junctures in which political decisions and painful compromises are expected to be taken by the negotiating parties,” Gilead Sher, who served as chief of staff and policy coordinator to Israel’s former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak, told JNS.org regarding the uptick in Palestinian terror.

“Time and time again, we see the leash loosening for these kinds of acts, that typically characterize the Palestinian response to the kind of progress that seemingly is what is happening within the negotiating room,” said Sher, who was a chief peace negotiator at the Camp David summit in 2000 and at the Taba summit in 2001, in addition to taking part in several other extensive rounds of covert negotiations with the Palestinians.