War-weary extremists who compromise become hated more than enemies

Evidence

Exhaustion with the war and the incentives and pressures of tertiary parties compel changes in the secondary and primary parties. Either moderates replace extremists in power or extremists, like Milosevic, find it in their interest to become moderate. They do so, however, at some risk. Those perceived as traitors arouse far more passionate hatred than enemies. Leaders of the Kashmiri Muslims, Chechens, and Sri Lankan Sinhalese suffered the fate of Sadat and Rabin for betraying the cause and attempting to work out compromise solutions with the archfoe. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 824

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to pattern of peace-process leaders assassinated by their own side (Rabin, Sadat) discussed in histories of conflict resolution and negotiation. — connects to: Attempting to quit extremism can itself escalate a person into a worse group — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 366; Threat-hardened nationalist groups brand all peace advocates as traitorous enemies. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist…, 207
• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — traitors arouse more passionate hatred than enemies — is a genuinely counterintuitive mechanism with wide explanatory reach beyond just fault line wars.