an eye for an eyelash

i'm reading "the lion of jordan", a biography about king hussein bin talal bin abdullah, the late king of jordan. the author used this phrase, "an eye for an eyelash" as a description of israel's foreign policy. i promptly wrote it on my hand and considered the implications of such a statement. i wrote a blog about this before, during a more close-to-home conflict between israel and palestine. but i didn't have the words for it.
an eye for an eyelash. over-reaction. i live in a world that espouses this philosophy. my school takes an eye for an eyelash every time they fire somebody. i take an eye for an eyelash every time i lose my temper towards someone because they don't act in a way that i understand. my country takes an eye for an eyelash whenever someone doesn't play by their "rules".
i don't want to take an eye for an eyelash. i don't want to take an eye for an eye. i don't want to respond with violence to violence towards me. i don't want to sarcastically respond to sarcasm. but i do. i do it all the time. the only way for another world to emerge is for us to love those who hate us; to learn the way of forgiveness.
at this point, it seems appropriate for me to quote one of my biggest heroes, dr. martin luther king, jr. :

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction....The chain reaction of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

may we break the eye for an eye, and especially the eye for an eyelash, philosophies that are prevalent in our world and replace them with the light that drives out the darkness, if for any reason to avoid our own annihilation.