The reports of the terror attacks came one after the other – Jerusalem, Petah Tikva, Jaffa, again Jerusalem, a roadblock in the territories, more than a dozen wounded, some of them serious. And that was just on Tuesday.

These attacks do not pose an existential threat to the state. People die in them, but we can live with them without the State of Israel being destroyed. Still, these attacks are intolerable. We cannot reconcile ourselves to this deadly phenomenon. They are the work of human beings, and they can be ended – or at least reduced – by human beings, particularly those currently in government.

Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister for the first time 20 years ago, when buses were being blown up in Israel’s cities. The Hamas attacks and the passivity shown by the Palestinian leadership headed by Yasser Arafat spurred the Israeli public to try a tougher – albeit not revolutionary – alternative to the Oslo process. Netanyahu tried and failed. His verbal bravado did not stand the test of reality. Netanyahu lost the leadership to Ehud Barak. He returned to government a decade later, but lacked a more effective formula for achieving peace and security for Israelis.

Since 2009, talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have stalled, while there have been several rounds of violence in Gaza. The only things that have progressed since Netanyahu returned to the premiership in 2009 are the number of settlers, Palestinian hopelessness, and international alienation from Israel and its policies.

This was the situation before last October, when the latest wave of terror began, but the attacks by individuals remind us daily that the assumption by Netanyahu, the settlers and their supporters that the newer troubles (Iran, Islamic State, Syria and its refugees) will make people forget the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is groundless.

The small bill is being presented to Israelis every day and all over the country, while the big bill, being written in Washington, the United Nations and other international forums, will be submitted at a time more likely to be determined by Abbas’ despair than Netanyahu’s bluster.

The diplomatic failure of the prime minister and his ministers is especially outrageous when compared to the sobriety of the security establishment. The latter is not deluded by the promise of a forcible solution, which offers the momentary satisfaction of revenge at the cost of constant escalation. Netanyahu knows that Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and his colleagues are right, but he is afraid of the settlers and politicians like Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman.

In light of this bloody reality, the Israeli public ought to draw the obvious conclusions about Netanyahu.