Israel & Palestine

There isn't any serious argument about the Jewish people having originated in the Middle East and having established political entities several centuries BCE, with a brief period where an independent kingdom won it's independence from the Seleucids before being absorbed by Rome. What is being argued (by supporters of Israel) is that the Jews originated there and had a continuous presence there. Some Jews claim that the land is theirs due to divine promises. Others argue that Israel is a colonialist entity that supplanted the indigenous population. Still others argued that Ashkenazi Jews (Yiddish-speaking Jews from Eastern Europe) were not descended from Biblical Jews, but from the Khazars, a Turkic people whose ruling aristocracy may have converted to Judaism in the 8th Century. 

I'm going to argue that the Jewish people are indigenous to what is now the State of Israel, the modern nation carved out of the Palestinian Mandate which was in turn part of a province of the Ottoman Empire, and that the immigration and the creation of a Jewish state there was consistent with how most of the other nations in the region were created. Nothing I write should be interpreted as support either for the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians or the wholesale destruction and civilian deaths in Gaza and the abuse by Settlers in The West Bank. 

[I will use the term "Jewish" throughout. Technically, in some historical contexts, "Hebrews" or "Israelites" or "Judeans" are more appropriate terms. I am aware of the differences in nuance and what the proper terms are, but will use "Jewish" to maintain consistency. I will also refer to the geographic area as "Palestine" in contexts where the area is under the control of another polity, such as the Roman or Ottoman Empires or the U.K. League of Nations Mandate, again, this is for consistency, even if the term is not always strictly correct]

Historic Jewish Polities in Palestine

The last independent Jewish entity prior to the establishment of the modern state of Israel was the Hasmonaean Kingdom, which ceased to be independent in 63 BCE and was displaced completely in 37 BCE by King Herod, who was installed by Rome. Herod's client Kingdom of Judea ceased to exist upon Herod's death around 4 BCE. After Herod's death no independent Jewish political entity existed in Palestine, or anywhere else, until 1948. Despite there being no independent Jewish state post-Herod, Judea and the surrounding area continued to be the cultural and religious home of the Jews. There were Jewish communities in many cities of the Roman and Persian Empires, but Jerusalem and Judea were still regarded as "home". In around 70 CE the Romans defeated a Jewish r

evolt, destroyed the Temple and deported hundreds of thousands. After successive revolts, Jews were banned from Jerusalem, but not Judea, which was renamed Syria Palaestina. The name Palaestina derived from "Philistia", i.e. the land of the Philistines. 

Continuous Jewish Presence in Palestine

Nonetheless, Jews were never completely driven from Palestine. The population totals and percentages are unreliable and appear to to have waxed and waned in cycles before the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, but there were always at least some Jewish presence in what had previously been Judea. Not only native-born Jews, but immigrants from Europe fleeing persecution as well. Population figures become more reliable during the reign of the Ottomans, 1516 through the end of World War I. (1516 was when the Ottomans conquered Jerusalem — the empire existed before that date) Jewish population according to Ottoman censuses remained a steady 5,000 from the 1530's through the 1800 census. The total population was around 156,000, increasing to 275,000 in 1800. The Ottoman Palestine region roughly corresponded to modern Israel, plus the occupied Palestinian territories and the Kingdom of Jordan. There are no reliable figures for that area excluding what is now Jordan. (Throughout this time Palestine, including what is now Jordan, was simply a geographical term, like "The Midwest U.S." that is descriptive, but has no legal or political meaning. Palestine at this time was part of the Ottoman province of Syria.)

Palestine As the Ancestral Home of the Jews

During this time, although there was recognition that Palestine was the location of their ancestral home, it doesn't appear that there was any indication that the area was a political Jewish homeland of any sort. On the contrary, Palestinian Jews were a religious minority living amid a Muslim majority in a Muslim-ruled empire, similar to how European Jews at the time were a religious minority living amid a Christian majority in Christian-ruled lands. 

The Ottoman Empire

It must be emphasized the Ottomans did not view their various provinces as potential independent nations, or even as "homelands" of various ethnic groups, but as simply administrative divisions, analogous to counties within an American state. Individual subjects were categorized according to their religion with Muslims at the top, with "Greeks" and "Armenians" next and Jews last. In the 1500's the Catholic rulers of Spain and Portugal expelled Jews from their realm. These Jews, known as Sephardim, were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire. Once welcomed into  Ottoman lands, many Sephardim settled in the center of the empire, in what is now Turkey, although many spread throughout other Ottoman lands, including Palestine. 

During the 19th Century Jews continued to relocate from other parts of the empire and immigration into Palestine from outside the empire continued. Much of the immigration was driven by persecution that occurred not only in Europe, but in the empire itself and other Muslim nations such as Egypt. During the 1800's Jews continued to be a presence in Palestine, although never more than a small minority. This was the situation in the late 1800's as Zionism cohered and established itself. Despite the lack of a Jewish state, there had been a continuous Jewish presence in the area that is now Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories. Though a minority, Jews were clearly a people indigenous to the area. 

A detail that is often overlooked when considering the political situation in the former Ottoman lands is that the Ottomans, though Muslim, were not Arabs, but Turks. The various peoples whose descendants are today's Arabs were a variety of tribes, nations and nomads mainly from the Arabian peninsula and Syrian desert.  Over the centuries various kingdoms and nations rose and fell until the Muslim conquests united the disparate peoples around the Muslim religion and the Arabic language. 

Arabs in Palestine

There have been Muslim (and Christian) Arabs in the area known as Palestine for centuries. Following the takeover of the area by Rome in the first century BCE it was a Jewish enclave ruled by Rome. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire the Eastern (Byzantine) Roman Empire continued to rule, although the area was disputed with the various Persian Empires and passed back and forth between them and Rome along with the Syria and the rest of the Levant. Even after the Arab conquests of the seventh century, the borderlands that comprised present-day Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Jordan sometimes reverted to Roman rule. In the eleventh century the Crusaders conquered parts of "The Holy Land", but after several centuries of back-and-forth with various Muslim armies they permanently lost control to a Muslim Caliphate, securing a permanent Muslim majority presence among the population, with Christian and Jewish minorities. Eventually the Arab Caliphs were displaced by the Turkish Ottomans, who ruled the area until the end of World War I. 

While there was definitely an uninterrupted presence of Muslim Arabs in Palestine for at least 500 years, that is not to say that every modern Palestinian is  descended from Islamic Conquest Era Arabs. While this may be true, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there was significant immigration into Palestine from other parts of the empire. There were significant waves of immigration from Egypt due to famines and internal conflict. One study suggests that approximately one sixth of the population of Egypt relocated to Palestine by the nineteenth century. Maghrebis, i.e. Algerians, emigrated after a rebellion. Many Palestinians are descended from Albanians, Bosnians or Kosovars from the Ottoman European regions as the Empire resettled various groups. There are even suggestions that many of today's Palestinian Muslims are descendants of Jews or Christians whose ancestors had converted centuries previously.  

A claim that is sometimes made is that today's Palestinians (and sometimes today's Jews) are descendants of the Biblical era Canaanites, who were the inhabitants of the land before the Exodus according to the Bible. The Bible, as well as archeology, identifies Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites (Herod was an Edomite) and Midianites. This is possible, however Canaanites (and their subgroups) ceased to be an identifiable ethnic group as the Muslim conquests subsumed conquered peoples into "Arabs". 

In the land that makes up modern Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories, both Jews and Muslim Arabs have had an uninterrupted presence and had been ruled by foreign empires for centuries. The Arabs were a large majority, but the Jews never disappeared. Both should be considered indigenous. 

Zionism

Zionism is a movement that originated in the late 1800's that supported the creation of a political homeland for the Jews as a solution for the ongoing persecutions, expulsions, and pogroms that bedeviled them throughout their modern history. Not all Zionists saw Palestine as the home they were seeking to establish. Alternatives in Argentina, Cyprus and East Africa were considered and eventually rejected.  As the twentieth century began, the focus was on Palestine. The 1880's saw the first wave of wholesale immigration of Jews into Palestine from Eastern Europe with a second wave from Russia and Poland in the first decade of the twentieth century. Jews began to buy land throughout Palestine, and continued to emigrate from Europe and from other parts of the Ottoman Empire, increasing their numbers substantially, but were still a minority of around 30-35%. 

League of Nations Mandates

Things changed in November 1918. The Ottoman Empire was on the losing side in the First World War and was dismembered with the allies, particularly The United Kingdom and France, dividing up the empire into various "mandates" under the aegis of the newly formed League of Nations. The end goal was to form independent nations from the various parts of the former empire. The British were responsible for the Mandate of Palestine, which included what is now the State of Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and briefly the Emirate of Transjordan which was immediately broken off as a British Protectorate as a payback to the Hashemite family. 

Prior to First World War many constituent ethnicities in the multinational empires began to agitate for independence. In Europe, most of these achieved independence after World War I as ethno-states, including Yugoslavia,  Czechoslovakia, and Romania, carved out from Austria Hungary, and Poland, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia from Germany and Russia. In the Ottoman Empire, their European territories, Greece and Bulgaria, were granted national status. In the eastern regions, it was different. 

Pan-Arab Independence Movement

The Arabs had begun to push for independence from the Turkish Ottoman Empire before the war. Arab leaders worked with the allies, who promised them independence if they worked with them to defeat the Ottomans.  Many Arab leaders envisioned a Pan-Arab state, which would include all the Arab lands, but Britain and France divided the Arab lands into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Palestine and Transjordan under League of Nations Mandates.

Hashemites

The House of Hashim, also known as the Hashemites, worked with the Europeans during the war. After the defeat of the Ottomans the head of the family was installed as King of Hejaz. Hejaz was a region of what is now Saudi Arabia. The Hejaz was later forcibly incorporated by the rival Saud family into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Other Hashemites were installed as Kings of Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan as reward for their wartime assistance and as partial compensation for their loss of Hejaz. 

Nation Building by France and the United Kingdom

The borders of the new nations were drawn up with little or no consultation with the inhabitants. Despite being majority Muslim and majority Arab, these territories were not homogenous. Sunni and Shi'a Muslim populations were thrown together even though they had few commonalities. Large ethnic groups such as the Kurds, among others, were incorporated into majority Arab nations. I doubt that pre-independence anyone in these nations thought of themselves as an Iraqi, a Syrian, a Jordanian, but likely identified simply as an Arab, a Turkmen, an Assyrian, or a Kurd. The borders drawn by the Europeans imposed nationalities upon these people that they had not decided for themselves. 

United Nations Partition Plan

By the onset of World War II all the former Ottoman territories had become independent, except for Palestine (other than the portion split off to form Transjordan). The government of the United Kingdom had promised the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. This was violently opposed by much of the Arab population. Eventually Britain abandoned its oversight of Palestine and the United Nations took over the task of deciding the fate of the territory. By this time Jews were still a minority, less than a third of the total population, but they had bought up large amounts of the land and were the majority all along the Mediterranean coast and in the highlands adjacent to Syria. 

The United Nations presented a partition plan that allocated the coastal areas and a few other areas where Jews were a majority to a Jewish state, as well as the Negev desert, which was sparsely populated. The Arab state would include what we now call the West Bank, Gaza and other lands bordering Egypt, as well as the Golan Heights next to Lebanon. Including the Negev, the Jewish portion was around 55% of the total land and included most major cities; the 45% Arab portion included more arable land. You can see on the accompanying map that other than the Negev Desert (that large triangular area in the south) that the Jewish part of the partition was mostly a thin sliver along the coast. 

Arab Rejection of the Partition and Civil War

The Arab leadership rejected the partition plan, arguing against several details that they thought were unfair, as well as the very idea of a Jewish state. In the aftermath of the United Nations Resolution endorsing the partition, violence broke out. Gangs and what can be described as terrorist groups from both the Arab and Jewish population began attacks upon each other and upon the British. The Jewish groups received financial support from Jewish groups in the United States and other nations — Arab militias from Arab nations, and even from Bosnia. Former SS officers from Germany joined the Palestinian cause; several hundred British deserters did as well. The ubiquitous violence caused civilians, mostly Palestinians, to flee to neighboring countries. Initially around 100,000 Arab civilians left, mostly people of means or with connections abroad. As the civil war continued throughout 1947 and early 1948 there was discussion among Jewish leaders, the United Kingdom and King Abdullah of Transjordan for Transjordan to annex Palestine and offer Jews autonomy within the Hashemite Kingdom. This plan was adjusted to annexing only the Arab part of Palestine. No action was taken at that time. 

By early 1948 there was an exodus of another 350,000 Palestinians. By the end of the Arab nations' invasion after the declaration of independence of Israel a total of around 700,000 Palestinians had fled from their homes, about 80-90% of the Arab population of the Jewish region of Palestine. People left for a variety of reasons: simple fear of being caught in the crossfire of the two armed militias; Arab leaders evacuating their people in order to use their villages as military bases; and expulsion by the Jewish militias. In contrast to the later Israeli Law of Return, Palestinian refugees were not accorded the right to return to their homes and cities after the war. Palestinian homes and other property were appropriated by Jews or by the state.

Israel Declares Independence

After decisively defeating the various Arab forces in the civil war Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948 and was immediately attacked by the armies of its Arab neighbors. Israel won that brief war, which lasted until March 1949, repelling the attackers. When the dust settled, Israel was independent, but the Palestinian State was not; it's assigned territory had been occupied, not by Israel, but by Jordan and Egypt. This is a detail that many supporters of a free Palestine miss or ignore. The opportunity for a Palestinian State was rejected by the Arabs in 1948 in favor of an attempt to take over 100% of Palestine. When the brief war ended, the Arabs still could have formed a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, but those lands were occupied by Jordan and Egypt for 19 years. In the aftermath, Israel captured additional territory. The map on the right shows a comparison between the partition plan and the status after the war. The pink areas represent territory Israel acquired after defeating the Arab armies. The green indicates Palestinian territory occupied by Transjordan and Egypt.  

Expulsion of Palestinians

There is no question that there was an exodus of Palestinians from Jewish territory, representing by some estimates, 75-80% of the pre-independence Arab population. Palestinian supporters paint it as unambiguously the result of forced expulsions by the Israeli military or by Jewish militias. Those sympathetic to Israel tend to ignore the question. As outlined in the civil war section above, there were many reasons. Many well-to-do Arab families left for neighboring Arab countries in order to avoid the violence that they saw coming after the Partition Plan was announced. As the civil war raged not only did many Palestinians flee ahead of the violence, but Arab militias cleared villages to use as military staging points. Forced expulsions by the Israeli military was often the consequence of a local Palestinian militia being defeated and the area cleared. In the map above, the pink areas indicate territory that was allocated to a Palestinian State by the U.N. Partition Plan, but was taken by Israel in the War of Independence. It was from these areas primarily that depopulation of Palestinians took place. Once the dust settled, Palestinian refugees were not afforded a right of return to their former homes. It should be noted that even after the war there was still a sizable Arab population within Israel's borders, approximately 20% of the total population. 

Identity: Palestinian vs. Arab

The reason that Palestine was even considered as a potential separate Arab nation had nothing to do with any supposed uniqueness or separate identity of the Palestinian people, and everything to do with the caprices of the European powers that carved up the Arab world with no regard to affinities or differences among the populations. There was no unique "Palestinian People" as an identity distinct from "Arab People" until borders were drawn that eventually left them on the outside. (Same for the absence of any pre-existing Iraqi, Syrian, Kuwaiti etc. identity) The promise of Britain to create a national home for Jews, as well as their awarding their Hashemite ally his own kingdom, left what we now consider Palestine out in the cold. But that U.N. Partition Plan nonetheless provided for a Palestinian State and it was rejected by the Arab leadership. 

Israel's "Right To Exist"

Completely separate from Israel's subsequent treatment of Palestinians and government policy regarding the administration of the occupied Palestinian territories, a recurring theme of many pro-Palestinians is that Israel has no right to exist. This was the reason that Arabs in Palestine violently opposed the creation of a Jewish state, why Arab nations' militaries attacked Israel in 1948, and the mission of the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Palestinian groups for many years was to cause Israel to cease to exist. The issue is often framed as the Jews stole Palestinian land", or that the Jews who emigrated from Europe were colonizers. This view ignores the context of Israel's creation. All of the nations in what we call the Middle East (with the exception of Iran and Saudi Arabia) had their boundaries drawn and their leaders installed by the European powers. Sunnis ruled over majority Shi'a populations, Alawites reigned over Sunnis, Kurds were subsumed into Arab nations, a family from Saudi Arabia was rewarded with three separate kingdoms, yet a narrow strip of Mediterranean coastland and a wedge of desert assigned to one ethno-religious group was a problem that couldn't be tolerated. I suspect that even if a tiny square the size of Washington D.C., set in the south of the Negev had been set aside as a Jewish state, there would have been objections.  

1967 Six Day War

In 1967 outright war broke out again after 19 years of tensions, including border conflicts and attacks by Palestinian groups. Israel struck first, a pre-emptive attack on Egypt in response to financial pressure and a partial blockade. After six days the militaries of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were in shambles and Israel had occupied Sinai, Gaza, The West Bank and the Golan Heights. Eventually Golan was returned to Syria and Sinai to Egypt, but it was the beginning of what has been almost 60 years of occupation of the Palestinian Territories by Israel.

Post 1967

Supporters of a Palestinian State usually gloss over the fact that Israeli occupation of The West Bank and Gaza only began in 1967 and that prior to that year Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan occupied The West Bank. But the reality starting in 1967 was that these territories became occupied by Israel, and have been for almost 60 years. 

"Apartheid" is not an inaccurate description of how Israel treated its non-Jewish population. Until 1966 the Arab residents of Israel were under martial law, which the Jewish population was not. Although legally, Arab citizens have the same rights as Jewish citizens, discrimination against Arabs is a fact of life in Israel. Now, after the Six-Day War Israel had taken control of The West Bank and Gaza — the  territory for a hypothetical independent Palestinian State. Millions of Palestinians who have no rights as citizens of Israel. Israel occupies these territories, but they are not part of Israel. Palestinians are effectively in limbo and have been since 1967. 

It's inarguable that by occupying these territories Israel caused as many problems as they solved. Taking these regions from neighboring Arab states gave them more control over their borders, but now they had a hostile population under their authority. A significant faction within Israel referred to The West Bank as "Judea and Samaria", indicating that they saw this territory, not as Palestinian at all, but part of a Greater Israel. 

Attitude Forged By Conflict

From the moment that Israel became an independent nation, and even before, they were under constant attack from Palestinian groups and from neighboring Arab nations. This naturally caused Israelis to adopt a constant defensive mentality as they were surrounded by, and in some cases infiltrated by, people who didn't believe they had the right to be there and used violence to achieve their ends. It shouldn't come as a surprise that constant defensiveness would turn into aggressive offensiveness. The Palestinians, of course, viewed Israel as the entity that had stolen their land and driven their people out of their homes and were not going to acquiesce easily. Realistically there was no middle ground. 

Palestinian political violence, or terrorism, against Israel and Israelis versus Israeli suppression of and violence is a kind of chicken or the egg question. Was the violence perpetrated against Israel by Palestinians a reasonable response to Israel's treatment of Palestinians? Was Israel's treatment of and violence against Palestinians justified in light of the recurring threat from neighboring Arab nations as well as internal threats from Palestinian groups whose founding documents claimed that Israel had to basis for its very existence?  Once again, there is no middle ground. 

Both sides have arguably solid points in favor of their position. But the difference between the two in 2026 is that only one side has, as Trump might say, all the cards. The government of Israel has the means to keep the Palestinians in limbo, in a stateless condition. Theoretically forever. The neighboring Arab nations are not likely to ever attack them in order to erase them from the map as they tried to do in 1948, or even to force the creation of a Palestinian State. There is international pressure, which Israel ignores. Attacks by Palestinians or by sympathetic groups in other countries is met by disproportionate force. The war against Gaza illustrates this perfectly as horrific as the October 7^th attacks were, thousands of innocent civilians were killed as Israel's bombing made Gaza virtually uninhabitable. The West Bank, ostensibly the heart of a hypothetical Palestinian state is being systematically "Judaized" as Jewish settlers move in, appropriating Palestinian land and attacking Palestinians. Although this is technically illegal, the government does nothing to prevent this. 

The Never-Ending "Peace Process"

Beginning in the early 1970's the United States encouraged Israel and The Palestine Liberation Organization to agree to peace talks. It seems like every United States president believes he has the answers to a peaceful resolution. Various "solutions" over the years have been suggested. Borders are naturally the major obstacle. This issue has been muddied by the existence of Jewish "settlements" in The West Bank. Until 1982 the official Palestinian position was that Israel did not have a right to exist. This naturally was a position that Israel would never accept. Once that stumbling block was eliminated various peace proposals became bogged down as what appeared to be small details ballooned into major issues. Complicating it all was the unavoidable truth that representatives of both sides benefitted from the status quo. 

Conclusion

Israel has a right to exist just as every other nation in that region has a right to exist. Israel, Syria, Iraq — all of them are on the map today because of  European nations' drawing of borders with little consideration for the people who lived there. Israel ended up occupying in 1967, not independent Palestinian territories, but territories that had been occupied by other Arab nations since 1948. There could have been, should have been, a Palestinian state starting in 1948, but the Palestinians and other Arabs did not allow it, holding out for the territory allotted to a Jewish state as well. By the time the Palestinian leadership ended their opposition to Israel's existence Israel itself had evolved into a paranoid entity, convinced that they had to ensure security at all costs, with no regard for the Palestinian people. Humanitarian considerations took a back seat to ensuring their own safety. 

There is no question that Israel has become in many respects what many Jews fled from in Europe. It's a haven for Jews, but a Hell for the Palestinians. In my view we should be treating them like we treat any other state that abuses the people within their borders as Israel does. Sadly, the United States has scant aversion to cozying up to dictatorships, or allying with them militarily or economically (this hasn't been only under Trump either). Rationales for unquestioning support for Israel have been several: Israel is one of the few nations with democratic institutions, during the Cold War many of the Arab nations had alliances with the Soviet Union, financial support from Jewish organizations, right wing Christians who are convinced that the establishment of a Jewish state will usher in the End Times have become very influential, as well as mutual military and political goals (such as we have seen with Iran). But we should re-assess whether it is in the best interest of the United States to continue to write Israel a blank check. 

Epilogue: Antisemitism

Despite there being legitimate reasons to oppose our alliance with Israel, and to deplore their actions in Gaza and the West Bank, for many people the opposition to Israel is based on antisemitism. (Yes, I know Arabs, including Palestinians are also Semites, but the term "antisemite" has come to mean anti-Jewish bigotry). Many of these bigots depend on debunked anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and frankly, some crazy shit to justify it. Jews are not secretly running the world; Jews don't believe that non-Jews are subhuman and exist simply to be the slaves of Jews; Epstein wasn't an agent of Mossad; Netanyahu isn't blackmailing Trump with evidence of pedophilia; and Jews don't eat Christian children. 

Toddler-In-Chief

One of the things that I cannot understand is the concept of boredom. Sure, I can look up the definition:

A state characterized by a lack of interest, difficulty concentrating, and a restless desire for a more engaging activity. It is a psychological signal that one's current situation or environment is not providing meaning or mental stimulation.  

I always have something to do, things to occupy my time. Even if I am in a situation where I'm just sitting waiting, I run through my mind ideas for blog articles, think through household finances or make plans for future adventures. My mind is always busy. I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to be bored. I just don't get it.

Yet we have a president, who has one of the most stimulating and arguably the most engaging and interesting jobs that you could have, who frequently complains about being bored with aspects of his job: intelligence briefings, details of the economy, and now the negotiations to end the war that he started. 

Last year Trump was given the nickname "TACO", which stood for Trump Always Chickens Out, referring to his constant backing off from his insane tariff "policy". He gets an idea, makes a threat, and then backs off when confronted either with serious pushback, or if the process drags on too long he loses interest. He's like a toddler who always needs to be entertained. 

I've written often about how Trump has functioned as an authoritarian and governed more like a dictator than a chief executive. And that has certainly been his preference. He has said that as president he can do whatever he wants. He has suggested that any action he takes is, by definition, legal. He barreled back into Washington with a pile of executive orders and an illegal, unaccountable, off-the-books deputy who purged the government agencies of anything he didn't like, as well as a Department of Justice that functions as his personal attack lawyers. He started a war without input from Congress that the majority of the country is against. The Department of Homeland Security has been transformed into a secret police. Yet he appears to lack the attention span to cement his rule.

Despite his administration's early moves to conduct end runs around court rulings, lately he has seemed indifferent to setbacks, and a lack of interest in fighting back is more common that the fight, fight, fight, attitude exemplified in the photo op from the staged assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. He grumbles and posts on Truth Social about corrupt judges, or endorses primary challengers for recalcitrant Republicans, but then he gets bored and moves on to the next shiny object. His incompetent and unqualified appointees are what's keeping the autocracy train on the rails — they're either true believers or are enthusiastic ass-kissers. They'll keep implementing what they think their master wants, until they make him look bad. 

What all of this tells me is that even though Trump believed that he had unrestrained power, and could act without Congress, he could have been restrained if Congress as a body had resisted him. There was no way he could have primaried every Republican. But none of them wanted to be the few that he succeeded in getting rid off — they were afraid of his influence with a significant percentage of Republican voters. Part of it was that many, if not most, Republicans agreed with the ends, if not the means. They were willing to forgo constitutional principles to get what they wanted. 

So, while I haven't changed my assessment that Trump is an authoritarian who is governing as a dictator, he lacks the attention span to stay focused on any meaningful plan. He is easily distracted and is more concerned with decorating than leading the nation. 

Why Does The Myth Persist That Congress Raided Social Security?

Periodically somewhere in the media there's an article or a story about how the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted by 2033 and if nothing is done Social Security beneficiaries will see their benefits reduced to 75-80% of currently calculated amounts. 

This is true.

These articles typically attract a number of commenters who suggest that the Trust Fund wouldn't be facing a shortfall if Congress would pay back what the borrowed, or raided, or stole. 

That's not true.

But why do people think it is?

The first myth to dispel is that the money that we all "paid in" (more accurately, taxed) is in accounts with our names on them from which benefits are paid out of. The benefits that are paid to retirees come directly from what current workers are being taxed. If those two numbers happened to be equal, then no money would be deposited into the Trust Fund. If they were always equal there would never be a Trust Fund balance. Until 2020, however, the amount coming in every year exceeded what was being paid out, so there was an annual surplus of funds. Were those funds deposited in a vault or bank account? No, by law they were required to be invested in Special Issue, interest-bearing, Treasury Bonds. This is where it gets confusing for many people. 

Let's say the Social Security surplus for a given year is $20 billion. The Social Security Trust Fund buys $20 billion in Special Issue Treasury Bonds. The other side of that transaction is $20 billion goes into the federal government general fund. But — this is the important part — the ledger for the Trust Fund still shows that it has received $20 billion. 

Most people have heard about the federal deficit. The deficit is the amount each year by which expenditures exceed revenue. The government makes up that difference by selling various types of interest-paying Treasury bonds — it's borrowing to close the gap. Let's say the deficit for the year is $100 billion. The government will need to borrow $100 billion — but they effectively borrowed $20 billion from Social Security, so they only need to go outside the government for $80 billion. Once again, this transaction does not reduce the Social Security Trust Fund balance. 

Now it may look like the government is taking Social Security funds and using it for other purposes, and in one respect they are. But think about it like your deposits at your local bank. You may have a checking account balance of $2,000, but the bank is using that money to lend to its other customers. But you will never see a ledger entry indicating that $1,500 of your money went to Joe Smith in the form of a car loan. The federal government likewise is using the accumulated surpluses to finance the annual budget deficits, but there will never be a ledger entry indicating that money is coming out of the Social Security Trust Fund. 

Since 2020 the amount being paid in benefits each year has exceeded what is being collected via payroll taxes. The difference, the deficit, is made up by cashing in some of those Treasury bonds, including the accrued interest. Let's say the difference is $15 billion. The trustees go to the Treasury and cash in $15 billion in bonds. That $15 billion comes out of the federal government general fund and flows to the Trust Fund briefly before it is disbursed to beneficiaries. The Trust Fund balance is then reduced by $15 billion (I have not accounted for interest in this example in order to keep it simple). 

Without any changes to the system the Trust Fund balance will decrease each year as bonds are cashed in to cover the annual deficits. That is what is causing the projected shortfall, not "raiding", just the simple fact of demographics fewer — workers per retiree and retirees living longer. 

A related subject that you hear about is how the general fund budget and the Social Security Trust Fund were combined during the Johnson administration. All this did was allow Congress to list the deficit as the combination of the two figures. If the general fund deficit was $100 billion and the Social Security surplus was $20 billion, the deficit would be $80 billion. The practice of using the surpluses to reduce borrowing is not new, and did not start with Johnson, but was a feature of the system since 1937, when the first payroll taxes were collected. 

Some action will have to be taken in order to avoid the catastrophe of having to reduce benefit payments by 25% or more. Removing the income cap is one suggestion that is thrown around. Increasing the withholding percentage is another. Raising the retirement age is also discussed. There is borrowed money that has to be paid back, but that it will be paid back, with interest, is fully reflected in the Trust Fund balance.

So yes, money that was "paid in" to Social Security was used by Congress and various presidents. But not to "fund wars" or any other pet projects. It was used to reduce outside borrowing to fund deficits, but only in years when Social Security revenue exceeded benefits, and did not reduce the Trust Fund balance by doing so. 

We Have A Dumb (with a "B") Governor

I spend a lot of time writing about Trump and the federal government, but what about Nebraska state government?

Once upon a time Nebraskans were just as likely to elect Democrats as Republicans to statewide office. At one time we had two Democrats from Nebraska in the U.S. Senate. Liberal Democrat Bob Kerrey was elected to the governorship and the Senate. No more. In statewide elections the Republican typically receives around 60% of the votes. The closest it's been in recent years was in 2024, when Senator Deb Fischer received 53% of the votes in her campaign where her opponent was Dan Osborn, an unknown Independent. It makes a certain kind of sense for elections to the Senate and House of Representatives to mirror the presidential elections — after all, they're positions that set national policy. But in state specific elections: for governor and other state officers, as well as the theoretically nonpartisan unicameral legislature, the majority keeps electing Republicans even though they are demonstrably failures at governing. 

Once upon a time you could count on Nebraska governors to concern themselves with "meat and potatoes" issues, roads, infrastructure, property taxes. Sure, there were differences between Democrats and Republicans, but governors from both parties were not primarily focussed on taking sides in national political battles. During Governor Heinemann's time he and the Republican legislators became more concerned with culture war issues and aligning themselves with national Republicans. It accelerated under Governor Ricketts. Even though the legislature is nominally nonpartisan, Ricketts expected party loyalty from Republican senators and financed primary opponents against Republicans who did not toe the party line. Ricketts made no secret that he was toeing the party line himself, since he was quite obviously planning on moving to the Senate after his two terms as governor were up. 

Then came Pillen. Jim Pillen was a former Nebraska Cornhuskers football player, a veterinarian and owner of several large pig farms. He had the backing of outgoing Governor Ricketts, who financially supported him. Pillen's main primary opponent was billionaire Charles Herbster, who didn't even live in Nebraska! Herbster was kneecapped by a woman legislator and Ricketts ally who revealed that Herbster sexually harassed her. Pillen won the Republican primary with around 35% of the vote and since Nebraskans don't elect Democrats any more, he was elected as governor. 

One of the biggest ongoing issues in Nebraska is high property taxes. Since we don't have any industry such as natural resources or tourism or entertainment to serve as a tax base, property tax is all that's available for local government. It's high. It was high last decade and the decade before that. Every governor ran on a platform of lowering property taxes. None of them have. All of them have been Republicans, yet we keep electing Republicans. Why? It all goes back to the nineties when local government got caught up in national politics and national politics became primarily about demonizing the other guys. The Republicans painted the Democrats as communists who were out to take their guns, kill their babies, and turn them all gay. A Democrat, no matter how moderate or even conservative, was portrayed this way. And a reliable 60% of Nebraska voters believed enough of it to keep voting for Republicans no matter how incompetent an individual Republican might be. 

Pillen, just like every other Republican, campaigned on lowering property taxes. The problem was that in addition to repeating all the culture war bullshit he was as dumb as a box of rocks. Ricketts was dangerous because he was smart. He knew how to use his money and influence to get what he wanted. (Except for property tax relief of course). Pillen is in way over his head. During his first year in office he floated ideas (I use the term loosely) to reduce property taxes by 40%. His math was suspect and wildly optimistic. He was full of unwarranted confidence in his "plan". The only thing he and his allies managed to do was turn a previously enacted property tax credit that had to be claimed on a taxpayer's income tax return into an automatic credit that would come off the property tax bill. Three and a half years later and there's no property tax relief. And there won't be. Even smart, rich, and powerful Ricketts barely made a dent. Pillen is too dumb (with a "B") to realize how incompetent that he is. Instead he rails against "libtards", "woke garbage", musing that Palestinian babies are born with hatred for Jews, and pushes to redistrict the second congressional district. 

Despite the problems that Republican gubernatorial candidates identify every election cycle persisting until the next over and over again, around 60% of voters will re-elect this moron. His opponent is former State Senator Lynn Walz, a relatively moderate, if not conservative, Democrat. Instead of considering that it might be time for a change, the most common comment I hear about Ms. Walz is that her surname is all that's needed to disallow her from consideration (she is a distant relative to Minnesota Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz). And property taxes will still be sky high. 

The Iran War And The Shifting Cult Mindset

Does anyone really believe that the Trump Cult will turn on him because of rising gas prices?

I have heard from a few Trump voters who say they're against the war, or think it's a bad idea, but still believe that he's overall a good president. None of the other things that Trump has done, not the corruption, not the end runs around the Constitution, not the unraveling of our international alliances, not the tariffs that have caused inflation to remain high, not his obvious connection to Epstein, not the adjudication that he was a rapist (technically guilty of sexual assault because the New York criminal code did not cover the exact method of his rape), not the fact that he is a convicted felon — none of those things turned the core Trump cult against him. Even the so-called bi-partisan House vote to force him to end the war only garnered four Republican votes. 

I'm not going to delve too deeply into whether this war is a national security necessity, but how people react to the changing political landscape. 

One of the hallmarks of cult behavior is that cult members' beliefs will shift as the cult leader's beliefs change. At first they might be surprised or shocked at the change. Some might even speak up and express disagreement with the leader's new stance. But sooner or later their views will align with the leader's, even if tucked away in a corner of their minds is a sliver of doubt. In the end they will still support him. 

One of Trump's campaign promises was that he would not involve us in foreign wars. He falsely claimed that he was the only president in 40 years who didn't start a war. (That was half true — he did send our military on several engagements, even assassinating an Iranian general, but not a full fledged war; the inaccurate part was that several previous presidents also had not started any new wars). He even lobbied extensively for a Nobel Peace Prize and is still falsely claiming that he ended eight wars. Part of his campaign strategy was painting the Democrats as "warmongers". His supporters enthusiastically supported this position. Until Trump stopped supporting his own position. 

Iran has been a problem in that part of the world for the last almost 50 years. It is a theocratic dictatorship that abuses its own people, and its proxies are a constant threat throughout the region. Our allies are nervous that a nuclear armed Iran would be an existential threat. During President Obama's second term the United States, along with Russia, China, Germany, the United Kingdom and the European Union, negotiated an agreement with Iran that they would submit to monitoring of the nuclear energy program and would continue to forswear any ambition to possess nuclear weapons. In exchange various sanctions would be lifted and frozen assets would be unfrozen. Iran appeared to be abiding by the terms. Trump cancelled the agreement during his first term with nothing to replace it. Naturally Iran no longer felt bound by the agreement. 

Last year Israel was involved in a short-lived shooting war with Iran and wanted to neutralize their nuclear capacity, but did not have powerful enough bombs to destroy the underground facility. Trump sent our military to do the job, "obliterating" it, in his words. Eight months later, claiming that Iran was "weeks away" from constructing a nuclear bomb, he started a war with them. 

Forget about the fact that the rationale for the war changed on an almost daily basis, or that the justifications sometimes were contradictory, or simply made no sense. Now, the Trump cultists who saw peace as the thing most desired on the international stage, who were convinced that Trump really was a "president of peace", now saw a nuclear Iran, no matter how unlikely it was, as the most important consideration, and were willing to put up with higher costs, including ballooning gas prices, in order to "be safe from the Iranian threat". 

The thing that they were vehemently against because their guy was against it are now enthusiastically for it because their guy capriciously changed his mind. 

My friends, that's the definition of a cult.

Trump Corruption

One of the more ridiculous political truisms that is not in fact true, is that uber-rich politicians somehow can't be bribed or otherwise corrupted. The rationale seems to be that since they already have more money than they could ever spend in 100 lifetimes, they don't need any more and would laugh at attempts to buy them. Of course this isn't how the 1% think. Money is a way of keeping score, of amassing even more power, and there is never enough. Trump has taken political graft and corruption to new depths. Here are a few examples.

• The so-called Board of Peace is a private organization masquerading as a government agency. It sprung from the negotiations to end Israel's bombing of Gaza and is supposed to not only be tasked with rebuilding Gaza, but promoting peace throughout the world. Participating nations are required to pay a membership fee of $1 billion. The board is chaired by Donald Trump in perpetuity. Not the president of the United States, but the individual, the person, Donald Trump. He has ultimate control of the funds and veto power of any board actions. 
• The presidential pardon power has never been free from controversy, and presidents of both parties have rewarded their friends and allies, but under Trump it has sunk to a system where any criminal with access to enough money can "contribute" and be pardoned, released from prison and absolved of any consequences of their crime. 
• Trump family, friends and allies are benefitting by being awarded lucrative no-bid contracts
• Qatar gifted the United States a plane that will be refit as an Airforce One, which will be transferred to the Trump library after his term ends
• He's continued to charge the Secret Service full price to lodge his protection detail when he stays at his own properties. 
• The creation of Trump branded crypto currencies has facilitated bribery — just but a few million in TrumpCoin!
• Cabinet members "coincidently" have made large donations to his PAC's
• Criminal and civil investigations against his donors have been dropped
• Allegations that insider trading of energy stocks have been tied to changes in the conduct of the Iran War have been suggested

That's only part of it, but I think you get the idea.

Trump has turned the United States Treasury into his private piggy bank and made bribery the default policy position. 

They Don't Want You To Vote

There's a saying known as Blackstone's ration that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. We can apply this to voting thusly: It's better that ten non-citizens vote than one citizen be disenfranchised. Make no mistake about it the Republican Party wants to make it more difficult for you to vote. This isn't just about gerrymandering, although gerrymandering is a big part of it. 

The elites who run the modern Republican Party are not concerned about what the voters want. In fact they believe that they know better than the voters. The blue collar Americans who support Republican social warfare and its attendant bigotry and misogyny are merely means to an end. When in power they do little or nothing to benefit that demographic. What they are concerned with is holding on to the power that they have. The biggest obstacle that they have to that objective is changing demographics.  Slowly but surely the white Baby Boomers who constituted the largest bloc of voters are dying off. Younger whites tend to have lower birthrates than minority and immigrant groups. Even though no one demographic group is monolithic, the tendency is for Black Americans, Hispanics and first generation children of immigrants to vote for Democrats. Most of the voter suppression strategies executed by Republicans over the last decade have had an outsize effect on Blacks and Hispanics, and therefore Democrats. 

One of the favorite methods that Republicans use to suppress voting is voter I.D. requirements and its cousin, proof of citizenship requirements. Asked without any background or context, most people would say that they think voter I.D. is a good thing — who could object to requiring people to prove who they are before voting? The problem is that it's a "solution" to a problem that doesn't exist. The amount of fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else to vote is infinitesimal. And any attempted fraud is caught somewhere in the system that is designed to do so. The rest of the problem is that many of the recent voter I.D. laws have been paired with closings of DMV offices (where most people get their identification) and restrictions on the types of I.D.'s that are accepted. Laws requiring proof of citizenship to vote are relatively new. They're also a "solution" in search of a problem. It's already a requirement that a voter be a citizen. Kansas passed one of these laws in 2012. This article outlines what a nightmare it turned into, including the disenfranchisement of around 35,000 Kansans. I suspect that was the point. 

Here in Nebraska we are seeing how even referenda that we voted for has been watered down, slow-walked, or effectively overturned by the legislature. Several states that had outgoing Republican governors being replaced by Democrats saw the Republican legislature reduce the governor's powers. Trump and his Republican allies are pushing for federal laws to restrict mail-in and early voting. Every action that they take, while not technically taking away anyone's right to vote, incrementally makes it harder to vote, effectively potentially disenfranchising millions. 

Of course the current gerrymander mania is getting the most attention. The unprecedented mid-decade redistricting fueled by Supreme Court decisions unmoored from fifty years of precedent and hard-to-deny racial gerrymandering disguised as partisan jockeying is designed to do one thing: engineer the system so that some votes simply don't count. Think about who shouts the loudest that we're not a democracy. Some people want you to vote, some don't. 

"I know who I'm voting for—but what about all you zombies?" *



* Apologies to the late great Robert Heinlein