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On June 30, the day that three missing Israeli teens were confirmed dead I wrote a short post titled "After three Israeli teens found dead will the revenge cycle be ratcheted up?"

I suggested that calls for revenge from Israeli politicians and citizens, the roundup of hundreds of Hamas members and other Palestinians, and the deaths of at least five Palestinians during the Israeli hunt for the abductees would lead to an increase in violence. The post received a flood of condemnation via emails and social media, calling me an Israel hater, an anti-semite, and pretty much a callous monster.

What struck these respondents as particularly outrageous was my breakdown of the death toll on both sides in recent years. How dare I analyze the long-running conflict by suggesting that Israeli and Palestinian lives are somehow comparable? And the notion that Israelis might pursue revenge indiscriminately against Palestinians was cited as proof of my bias and lack of regard for the facts. 

Here is the offending section:

I have absolutely no regrets about pointing to these facts.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is filled with hate on both sides. This is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. And yet, to point out that one side suffers disproportionately – the side that is the weaker of the two and doesn't have a state of its own – is treated by many in Israel and among its friends abroad as the height of bias.

This attitude is one of the reasons why the revenge cycle I highlighted a week ago is now heading into overdrive. Here's how it works. Palestinians in the West Bank hate the occupation, particularly mass arrests by Israeli forces and Israel's use of collective punishment. That hatred fueled the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teens who were hitchhiking in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli response was to blame collectively Fatah and Hamas, arrest hundreds in the West Bank, and kill at least five more Palestinians as it sought for the teens' killers. An expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank was also announced as a form of punishment. Then, as we know now, a Palestinian teen was kidnapped from his home in East Jerusalem and apparently burned to death by Israelis.

And as Israel has continued to turn the screws on Hamas, the Islamist movement has lashed out with rocket strikes from Gaza, which have so far killed no Israelis. The Israeli military response has killed at least 11 Palestinians so far – most, but not all, militants. The focus among Palestinians will be on the latest civilian casualties, driving more anger, more ineffectual Palestinian attacks, and deadlier Israeli responses.

There is a sort of an addiction to the revenge cycle in Israel and the Palestinian territories, and with each rotation the hatred grows deeper and the risk of escalation reaching true breaking point increases. 

One former Israeli security chief, Yuval Diskin, thinks that time may be near. Diskin was the head of the Shin Bet from 2005-2011 and pulls no punches in a post he made on his public Facebook page about Israel's role in its own insecurity.