Palestine has always been a proxy war with the Palestinians representing the Middle East and the Israelis representing the West. The Israelis have been consistently supported by the dominant force of the West - the United States. The Palestinians have been variously supported by whomever it is that wants to be the dominant force in the Middle East. Saddam gave $20k a pop to the families of suicide bombers. More recently Iran has flooded the Hamas faction of Palestinians with lawyers (to stall the UN), guns, and money because Iran is a would be king.
Even [the much hated right wing] Fox News is reporting that Fatah might not have fallen if the West and the UN hadn't stopped giving it money. Fatah fighters were unpaid and Hamas fighters got their weekly checks. That goes a long way in a country that has no industry other than foreign aid and violent death.
The idea that Fatah could have won the civil war if we had just spent more money is small comfort. I would much rather that Iran support groups calling for the death of the West than we in the West support a group calling for the death of the West. Maybe I'm funny that way but if we couldn't co-opt the Palestinians with 50 years of cash perhaps it wasn't possible in the first place.
The UN and Old Europe have invested all their hopes that solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem is the key to world peace (well, there is always Africa but there has always been Africa. In the beginning, in fact). There will be a strong pull to blame the current mini-war on Ourselves or the Others at the US and Israel. I have a small hope that Palestine will now be perceived in its proper place with all the other failed states in the region as stewing enemies.
The last pretence of a Western client state in the Middle East has failed (for the UN'ers - for the neocons Iraq is still alive and Palestine was never on our side anyway). I live in the West so I can only hope that the toll will be small but even if it isn't that like the Fatah/Hamas *ahem* disagreement the casualties will be kept local to the region.
I don't think I've said it on the blog before but I do think tens of millions of people will die for certain and possibly many more. The West has lost all stomach for perpetrating in any deaths so my main hope is that we have the stomach to confine it to the region.
We owe these people nothing. They would rather we died than lived. I hate to be a realist but if Iran could stomach leaving us alone they can have their empire of sand. If not then I'm happy to let them rule an empire of glass.