Fears for the Israeli and Palestinian Peoples, as well as the rest of the Middle East

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei‘s call to all Muslims around the world to support Hamas in its fight against Israel could be the beginning of far greater troubles for the region.  Because Khamenei is such a staunch supporter of Hamas, this announcement likely means his words will soon become deeds while any broad base support from other entities will only lead to more violence.  This writer has long warned Hamas was setting a trap for Israel in order get the support it needs to destroy Israel.  Although Israel has every right to defend itself against security threats and actual attacks, even as its Iron Dome missile defense system does a fanatic job of keeping the Israelis safe, the tendency of the Israeli government to engage Hamas in a heavy-handed, largely indiscriminate manner only destroys the lives of civilian Palestinians, which cannot be easily legitimized when the world is seeing the burnt, mutilated bodies of babies and children on a daily basis.

Instead of finding ways to engage Hamas in a long-term strategy that involves targeted strikes of confirmed Hamas targets, the Israeli government consistently tries to bomb its way to peace while striking targets with little regard to what, or who, gets in its way before rapidly accelerating its military operations in vein attempts to root out Hamas before the International Community convinces Hamas to agrees to a armistice.  Given Israel’s stepped-up bombing campaign is creating a thorough humanity disaster by targeting critical infrastructure, such as the only power plant in the Gaza Strip, and killing scores of Palestinian, despite Israel’s halfhearted attempts to warn Palestinians moments before attacks, Khamenei’s call may well resonant thorough a globalizing Middle East trying to revolt against the status quo.  Although this will help Hamas survive and pursue its pointless long-term goal of destroying Israel, the violence from the support of Iran and Jihadist terrorists is sure to devastate both the Palestinian and Israeli Peoples, especially since Iron Dome cannot protect against suicide bombers.

That said, it is important to remember the West and Iran, under the leadership of moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, are trying to normalize relations, starting with negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.  Not only will the Israeli-Hamas conflict now likely derail this effort and further efforts, the loss of the diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program means Israel will see an enhanced threat in a potential Iranian nuclear weapon, thus Israeli leadership will start feeling the pressure to strike Iranian targets.  Meanwhile, Iran’s intervention in Iraq’s struggles with the ISIS militant group creates even greater issues for the US as America attempts to assist Iraq in taking control of the situation.  This likely means the US will have to abandon Iran-dependent Iraq very soon while it also further limits America’s options when it comes to engaging these conflict zones.  More importantly, we are likely watching the merging of several national conflicts turn into a regional conflict that is far more likely to spread and destabilize the Middle East.