So you're saying that there are motivations that would make you perform suicide bombings?

There are incentives by which you would sacrifice your children?

The vast majority of Iranians and Palestinians are good people. Same as everyone. The leadership and nutcases are vastly different than normal people.

I have friends in Gaza and the west bank. They are victims of these nutcases, this sort of mentality is tolerance of intolerance. They are victims of Hamas as the Iranian people are victims of their leadership.

> but to consistently act surprised when people act “irrationally” is to suggest either your definition of rational is wrong or your understanding of the circumstances are wrong

It isn't that they're irrational. Their decisions don't match western rationality which is based on different standards.

If you think that the death of your child will send him on a fast track to heaven that can seriously impact the rational choices you make down the line. It doesn't mean you can't speak calmly or even pretend to have a different set of objectives.

Their definition of reality leads them to a very different set of incentives and decisions. I understand exactly why the leadership wants nuclear weapons. They're paranoid and they aren't wrong in their paranoia, but that goes both ways. If Israel had listened to voices like this in the past then Saddam Husein and Assad would have had nuclear weapons. Luckily they don't and now we don't have to know what the Iranian leadership would have done. That's a good thing for everyone, especially for the Iranian people in the long term.

Assuming you're from the states, imagine the Mexican president calling death to America constantly, claiming it's their religious prerogative to destroy America and launch multiple terrorist cells against America... Then imagine them developing nuclear weapons... The USA would be justifiably paranoid.