Thanks for an interesting analysis.

As to October 7 of last year, couldn't an argument be made that Israel, with the apparently pending normalization of relations between it and more and more Islamic nations, was less and less willing to 'play the collaborative game' with Hamas--and Hezbollah? Both of them were slowly losing ground in that 'game', as the "equilibrium" was tilting in the favor of Israel. That essentially ensured an eventual turn by one or both of them to a zero-sum game.

So Israel's 'success' in that 'game' led to Hamas's adoption of the "zero-sum strategy." Perhaps the lesson is that (unless it wanted that turn of events) Israel should have sought to maintain the preexisting equilibrium. That Israel wanted that 'zero-sum' turn seems to me to be belied by the reaction of the Israeli government to what happened on that date--though it was quick to embrace such a conflict after the fact.

Also, that 'game' cannot be viewed in isolation from the 'game' involving the Sunni and Shiite sects within Islam. As was suggested in the article, though, belief-based conflict will ultimately only be a zero-sum "contest of power" (Michel Foucault) because 'compromise' involving our beliefs is counted by people as defeat.