"I responded in kind."

That's the normal commonsense thing to do. And it's the reason conflicts build and build and seem impossible to get out of.

In the tragedy in the Holy Land that is especially evident.

Responding in kind, whether that means returning sarcasm for sarcasm, or anger for anger, or in response to verbal abuse, just doesn't work, except as a way of building antagonism. Yes, there are situations where a forceful response can work, a response strong enough to make an attacker back off, but that doesn't apply here in this thread.

And I don't think it applies in the case of the conflict in Palestine and Israel either. I'd like to hope that there could be a move away from suicidal murder among Palestinians, and towards a non-violent struggle with the same willingness to die if necessary, but without the willingness to kill. I think that this could have been a far far more effective way of challenging the Israeli occupation and expansion.

But it is hard to imagine how this can come about. Far more likely is another wave of freelance suicide attacks, fuelled by the onslaught that was presented as a way of stopping them.

The truth is, if there were to be acts of radical non-violent resistance in the present climate, is there any likelihood that they would even be reported?