Israelis, Palestinians and Sibling Fights

While I'm sympathetic to the plight of Palestinian victims of the latest Israeli incursion into Gaza, I place the blame on the Hamas leadership. The dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remind of the fights between pre-teen siblings. In these fights, the younger or weaker sibling will pester the stronger sibling. Since the stronger sibling knows that a fight would not be fair, he holds back. The problem is that the entire point of the weaker sibling's attack is to provoke a response, so the weaker sibling escalates until he gets a response. The stronger sibling doesn't really like having to respond, so he makes sure that the response is sufficiently forceful so the attacks will stop. How does the weaker sibling respond? "Mommy, my older brother is hitting me again"!

I don't know much about game theory, but I'd be interested to know when theorists think the optimal time is to respond. The stronger sibling knows that he will have to respond at some time because the attacker will not relent until he gets the desired response. However, the stronger sibling does not want to expend unnecessary effort responding to every provocation and also wants to keep his parents (the world community) happy.

My dream is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could evolve to the more adult form of sibling rivalry. At present, the Palestinians wouldn't do so well on the equivalent of competitions over who has the higher salary, the nicer car or the hotter spouse; however, their interest in competing on that level (instead of the six-year old level) would be welcomed by most of the world and impress the Israelis as well (as it did when they so briefly showed signs of building a real nation in the mid-90s).

For an exceptionally enlightening view on the conflict from the Israeli side, check out today's op-ed by Yossi Klein Halevi.