A Game Theoretic Approach to Analyzing the Israel-Palestinian Conflict

Seeking Understanding and Improvement through Mathematics

The Israel-Palestinian conflict, stretching back to the early 20th century, has been one of the most intractable geopolitical conflicts. Rooted in territorial disputes, religious significance, and nationalistic aspirations, this conflict is deeply emotional and heavily political. And with the recent attacks, analyzing and understanding it from a place without bias seems harder than ever.

Introduction

I attempt to analyze it through the lens of game theory, a branch of mathematics that studies interactions with formalized incentive structures (games). And with that, we can perhaps understand why we are in the situation we are — and what should be done not to see the same type of aggression happen again.

Photo by Dave Herring on Unsplash

The Game’s Players:

For simplification, consider two primary players:

• Israel (I)
• Palestinians (P)

Each player has a set of strategies to choose from and receives payoffs depending on both their choice and their opponent’s choice.

Strategies:

1. Cooperate ( C ) — Pursue peace…