Crazy On Tap - Is it okay to retaliate nowadays?

Crazy On Tap - Is it okay to retaliate nowadays?: "Here's the thing. The strategy both Israelis and Palestinians were playing was Tit-for-Tat: do whatever the other guy does. If the other guy kills, then you kill. If the other guy plays nice, you play nice.

This is the game every two countries (and even individuals) play.

Unfortunately the functor or callback for the Israeli-Palestinian game was 'kill the other guy.' Then the Israelis pulled out of S Lebanon and last summer out of Gaza strip.

Some may see this breaking of the Tit-for-Tat cycle, as an unnatural or spiritual or 'God-inspired' act. But I think the Israelis made an exception because they were just too tired. Killing is not good for the killer - it wears you down (something suicide bombers don't have to worry about).

But here's the key ... this was a one time change of strategy. Israel is still playing by the Tit-for-Tat game. But by doing something unilaterally 'nice' it expected Hamas and Hezbollah to CONTINUE playing Tit-for-Tat too, that is, to repeat Israel's last action, that is, to play nice.

Instead Hamas and Hezbollah didn't repeat Israel's last action - they didn't renounce violence, they didn't stop shooting rockets into Israel, they didn't play nice.

Is it because it takes more than one act to re-polarize a game? Is it because human memory isn't so easily erased, but is an exponentially weighted sum of the past (one nice act doesn't outweigh the sins of 50 years)? Is it because Palestinian passion is being stoked by Arab (and Iranian and Pakistani) leaders as an excuse for local problems? Is it that Hamas and Hezbollah are addicted to the pity and the international attention - like some wife-beating victims?

With its current military actions, Israel is showing that it's still playing the Tit-for-Tat strategy. This is a good thing!

Because the other two strategies - be unconditionally aggressive, or be unconditionally passive - are instantiations of one absolutist and highly unstable strategy. Untethered to real world conditions, it doesn't take much to switch from total passivity to total aggression."