Palestinians are now talking about a new intifada, and the Israeli military says it sees no sign of an end to the violence. This new uprising is very much the work of young men, whose numbers and grievances have grown markedly since the first uprising. PNS associate editor Franz Schurmann, who has studied and traveled widely in the Muslim world, is a professor emeritus of history and sociology at UC-Berkeley.

Until Thursday, September 28, the odds that Israelis and Palestinians would sign some sort of peace accords still seemed fair.

But on that day, Ariel Sharon strode onto the Dome of the Rock and the odds went down. The next day, Palestinians dropped rocks at Jews worshipping at the Wailing Wall below. Israeli soldiers rushed onto the Noble Sanctuary and started shooting at Palestinian worshippers as they emerged from Friday prayers, killing four young men.

The odds went down to zero.

What the Palestinians are now calling the Ultimate Intifada began that Friday. Israeli police said they only fired rubber bullets. Palestinians said it was live ammunition. Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims everywhere believe the latter.

Everywhere, too, newspapers and television show pictures of Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers in full war gear. Frequently they shout Allahu Akbar, "God is the Greatest." Some kids come home on a litter, injured or dead.

The word "intifada" means tremor--as in an earthquake. It connotes a human upheaval from below. The first Intifada a decade ago was such an upheaval and so is this one.

The Arabic word rendered as "ultimate" is "aqsa" which means the farthest, as in "Far East." When people believed the Earth was flat, they thought of the Far East as "ultimate" places on the edge of the world.

The Mosque on the Rock is also called Aqsa. Muslims believe Prophet Muhammad ascended into Heaven on a white steed from this site. The mosque was built not many years after the Prophet died in 632.

There are two big differences between the two intifadas. First, this current one is much more linked to religion than the previous one. Second, young men, especially boys, are the centerpieces of the current intifada--about a fourth of the hundred-plus Palestinians killed were under 18.

By now the great majority of Palestinians are Muslim. Muslim birth rates almost everywhere in the developing world are high. Among secular Israelis, on the other hand, birth rates are low as in most developed countries. Religious Israelis have high birth rates but not enough to challenge the Palestinians. And Arabs living in Israel as citizens now number over a million, one fifth of the total population.

Upheavals, like revolutions and intifadas, take place at two levels. One is at the bottom, where humans risk their lives in direct struggle. The other is in minds. Few mind-sets in human history have as much strength as those that come from sacred books. Jews, Christians and Muslims share one such mind-set. In was on the Rock that Abraham prepared to plunge the knife into his beloved son Isaac's heart as a sacrifice to God. God stayed his hand and told him, despite his advanced age, to be fruitful and multiply.

When American, Israeli and Arab leaders were making plans for a peaceful and prosperous Middle East, they forgot about the huge numbers of unemployed young Palestinian men. Some traveled many miles every day to get jobs in booming Israel. Others hung around towns and refugee camps spread over the Occupied Territories and neighboring countries. Kuwait had lots of jobs until the Palestinians welcomed Saddam Hussein's troops in late 1990. After Desert Storm all Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait.

Religion and prayers come easily to the young men and boys of the Palestinian Dispersion, and they welcome the many social services offered by associations like the Hamas or the Islamic Jihad.

On Friday, September 29, they crowded around Israeli police seeking authorization to climb to the Noble Sanctuary. All knew about the clashes the day before when Sharon climbed the same stairs. And they knew there would be many Jewish worshippers below the old Roman wall on the day before the Jewish New Year.

Soon enough, four young men had been shot dead and many more wounded. Waves of rage erupted and moved with the speed of light all over Palestine, Israel and the world. And when French television happened to record 12-year-old Muhammad Dura dying in his father's arms, the Ultimate Intifada exploded.

The first intifada gave rise to a "two-track" peace process that offered the hope, someday, of jobs for the young Palestinian Miserables. Those tracks are now just rubble. This second intifada has given the Palestinians lasting respect in their own eyes and the eyes of their enemies.