Whose the instigators of terror.
The "cycle" in practice works like this: Palestinian terrorists conduct random, murderous attacks targeting Israeli civilian populations in public buses, shopping malls, cafe's disco's, sbarro's pizzeria's, Bar Mitzvah's, shoe stores, schools and restaurants. The Palestinians goal is to massacre as many Israeli civilians as possible. The Israeli military pursues strikes against military or terrorist targets in response, attempting to disable terrorist networks that Arafat won't stop himself, since he is no different from them.

In the one case, Palestinian terrorists set out to murder as many Israeli civilians as possible. Israel responds to these terrorists acts, by targeting Palestinian terrorists who sponsor these murderous acts against Israeli civilians. The Palestinians then hide these terrorists in civilian areas, wanting Israel to fire back, so civilians are killed, so this looks good on TV.

The attempt to draw a moral equivalence between the Palestinians' deliberate attempts to kill innocents and inspire terror and Israel's military responses to these attacks is not far different from describing the U.S. airstrikes on Afghanistan as "perpetuating the cycle of violence between al Qaeda and the United States."

Terrorism is the DELIBERATE targeting of innocent civilians and noncombatants for political or religious purposes.

Pretty simple!

The Palestinians are terrorists because they deliberately target innocent Israeli men, women and children going about their daily lifes

The Israelis do not deliberately target Palestinian civilians/non combatants. Israelis Defence Forces only target Palestinian terrorists who are engaged in the execution and commissioning of terrorist acts. The IDF goes to amazing lengths to reduce Palestinian "collateral damage" but this is often hampered by the terrorists usage of civilian human shields.

The poverty of such comparisons was made painfully clear last week by a statement from Ahmed Abdel Rahman, secretary of the Palestinian cabinet, who blamed a recent Israeli raid on a Palestinian bomb factory in Nablus for the current spate of attacks. If one side is making the bombs ( destined to be strapped to suicidal terrorists to massacre Israeli civilians) and the other side conducting raids to prevent their manufacture, there is little room to question who is in the right. Is it any wonder, why Palestinians find moral equivalence, between Palestinian terrorists who blow up Sbarros pizzeria's and discos filled with teenagers and Israeli commandos, who preemptively kill terrorist ringleaders, before they send their suicide bombers into Israel on a mission to kill Jewish civilians.