The United States faces an incredible dilemma in terms of both internal dissent and relations with the greatest recipient of American military aid, namely Israel.

For administrators of universities across the U.S., the question is at what point to call in the police and get rid of protesters, many of whom are carrying their outcries far beyond simple dissent to calls for "genocide," the death of their enemies. At Columbia University, the target is the Jewish state of Israel, founded in 1948 as a refuge for Jews who had been persecuted most awfully in Nazi Germany. Long before the slaughter of about six million Jews in Nazi death camps in World War II, Jewish leaders in Europe had been calling for the return of Jews to the homeland from which they had been expelled 2,000 or so years earlier.

It's easy for foes of Israel to demand the end of aid to Israel as long as Israeli forces are killing far more civilians than Hamas fighters in Gaza. The Israeli response is that Hamas will return to killing Israelis across the Gaza border inside Israel. The Israeli campaign all along has been to exterminate Hamas, to make sure that "never again" will Hamas terrorists be able to kill 1,200 Israelis as they did last Oct. 7.

The deaths of more than 34,000 people, the majority women and children, in the Israeli campaign to get rid of Hamas has inspired demonstrations calling for the "genocide" of Israelis, the destruction of the major Israeli city of Tel Aviv and the recovery of Israeli territory as part of the State of Palestine, now reduced to fragments of land on what is called the West Bank – west of the River Jordan. The phrase "from the river to the sea" is a Palestinian watchword, meaning the return of Palestinian control from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, and the annihilation of Israel.

That's not going to happen for reasons that are all too obvious. Israel is a bulwark of opposition to Iran, the strongest, most advanced country in the Middle East. Iran is in no position to wage a real war against Israel, but it's got Russia and China on its side, and it can also count on North Korea, with which it's been collaborating on nuclear and missile programs for years.

North Korea can now ship missiles to Iran via Russia while providing the Russians with artillery shells and other munitions for their war in Ukraine. Missiles and drones, either made in North Korea or to designs and technology provided by the North Koreans, were among those fired from Iran against Israel on April 14. Sure, the Israelis and Americans shot most of them down. Jordan, the Arab state east of the river, shot some of them down too in defense of its own territory.

The rise of North Korea as a source of weaponry for Russia and Iran means North Korean weapons are also in the hands of Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy in Lebanon, and would get to Hamas as well if Israel were to lower its guard again, as it had done before the Hamas onslaught on October 7. For this reason alone, the U.S. cannot stop supporting Israel. The North Korean factor makes the defense of Israel an intrinsic element in a much greater confrontation of forces.

"The Iran-Israel War Is Just Getting Started," says the headline over an analysis in Foreign Policy by Raphael Cohen, director of strategy and doctrine for the Rand Corporation's Project Air Force. "As long as the two countries remain engaged in conflict," he writes, "they will trade blows — no matter what their allies counsel." In the contest for superiority over the region, Russia, China and the U.S. all are deeply involved. North Korea's role carries ambivalent implications for South Korea too as an American ally that imports oil from Iran.

On the campus of Columbia University, pro-Palestinian protesters are not interested in the greater ramifications of Israel's war against Hamas. They see the Jewish state as the enemy of all Palestinians while calling for its destruction. They are not talking about the dangers of Iran stoking tensions throughout the region, especially among its proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen who've been harassing shipping traffic on the main route linking Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

The Israeli war against Hamas goes far beyond Gaza, just as the spirit of protest in the U.S. goes far beyond university campuses. Cries of antisemitism, hostility not just against Israel but against Jews in general, permeate the discourse.

Donald Kirk (www.donaldkirk.com) writes about war and peace, mainly from Seoul and Washington.