Focal points are definitely extremely important for determining the escalation of crises – and would be a good tool for analysing the specific conflict the Israel and Palestine have just fallen into. However, I am not sure that focal point arguments are sufficient for describing the longer-term choices by the agents – given that over a long-time horizon the “information problem” associated with these choices is likely to be overcome.

However, I definitely think you are onto something in the way you are describing the crisis as a “co-ordination failure” as well as a “prisoner’s dilemma”. The “co-ordination failure” you are describing is what we fundamentally require to prevent the standard infinite horizon co-operation solution to a prisoner’s dilemma.

Thanks for the pointer 🙂

Maybe its how we’ve been trained to think dant03 😛

I remember hearing it said (I can’t remember by whom) that the further a person is willing to go in supporting one side over another in terms of relative ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’ reveals the extent of their ideology [or you could say bias or racism I guess, but I wouldn’t ;o)]

That was sort of what I was saying – however, I think I left the question of a “rights based” justification for international conflict relatively open – as there is little way to find a pareto optimal solution in this case without pulling a whole lot of value judgments out of somewhere 😛