Journal of Public Law

Kelley Kidd, October 13, 2025

Recently there has been a dramatic rise of worldwide support for creating an Islamic State of Palestine. Opposition to the Jewish State of Israel has grown with the widely publicized sufferings of the Palestinian population of Gaza. The one element of this historic struggle against Israel has been the absence of acknowledgement that an independent Palestinian government has existed since 2006, nearly 20 years. That Palestinian State has been Gaza, a nation of more than a two million souls, not a single one of them being a Jew or representative of either Israel or any other Jewish entity. During all that time the enemies of Israel have claimed falsely that Gaza has been “occupied” by Israel.

In 2005 the government of Israel removed every Jew then living in the Gaza area, leaving it to be administered by the Palestinian Authority, all members of which were Palestinians. In the next year an election within Gaza led to political victory for Hamas, an explicitly Islamic jihad organization whose slogan was “Death to America, Death to Israel, a Curse upon the Jews”. In 2007 the leaders of the political opposition within Gaza were murdered, exiled or executed by the government of Gaza, the Hamas government of Gaza. There has been no election since.

The policy of the government of Gaza has continued to reflect its slogan. Dissidents have been murdered or executed, and the priority of the government has been to use whatever means it could to kill Jews and to attack Israelis. October 7. 2023 marked the most conspicuous demonstration of the the foreign policy of Gaza, the murder of over 1200 Jews of all ages and the taking of 20 more hostages from the civilian population of Israel.

I have been sad to see the course of the first Palestinian state. Today i rejoice to witness the end of that State.

KELLEY KIDD August 24, 2025

Two days ago a United Nations’ organization made the statement that many thousands of Palestinians in Gaza are suffering so severely that the situation deserves the label “famine”. The blame was levelled at the country of Israel, and the head of the UN organization called for the world to express rage at Israel. There was immediate and widespread compliance with that suggestion. Weeks ago I posted on Facebook that the Israel-Hamas conflict has obviously led to widespread hunger in Gaza, and that there could be no excuse for the US and Israel not solving the problem by delivering sufficient to Gazans to reverse the shortage of food that is obviously causing immense suffering of civilians, including many children. I will stick by that conclusion.

Lately the Israeli government has announced its intention to require the inhabitants of Gaza city to evacuate to the south, thereby leaving the area open to a full scale military operation to eliminate the Hamas terrorists located primarily in tunnels under the city. This decision has been denounced by the leadership of the Israeli Defense Force, as well as many leaders and journalists in many different nations and organizations. Apparently the remaining Israeli hostages are also located in those tunnels. Large crowds of Israelis have protested, and demanded that Netanyahu instead prioritize seeking the release of the remaining hostages and an end to this war. Simultaneously many Arab countries have publicly disassociated themselves from Hamas’ stated intention to continue the war.

There are other complicating factors. For reasons I will explore in other postings, there is no reliable source of information about what is actually happening in Gaza. The combatants, Israel and the various parties to the “resistance”, are not reliable reporters on either the extent nor the causes of the suffering in Gaza. The United Nations and its various agencies are reliably deeply biased against Israel. Much more on that topic later in another post. Nowhere is there an agency with both the enormous fact gathering apparatus needed to keep track of the lives of the people of Gaza and the objectivity needed to translate the needed data into coherent narratives. But one fact is both disturbingly clear and heart rending urgent–there is widespread hunger among the most vulnerable civilians. Children and old folks and the sick and injured people are suffering most. If the United States and Israel place highest priority on solving that problem, it can and will be solved.

Recently I saw an article announcing the death of a prominent poet whose work was completely unknown to me. What caught my attention was the use throughout the article of plural pronouns to refer to the deceased. I went online to find pictures of the poet, which showed me a rather young looking person of ambiguous sexuality. The cause of death, however, gave me the answer to my curiosity about the sex of the poet. She had died of ovarian cancer. Males don’t have ovarian anything. The poet’s sex was clearly female.

So what was the poet’s gender? I turned to a good dictionary for a definition of the word “gender”. Webster’s New World Dictionary 4th Edition, published in 2010 by Wiley Publishers in Cleveland, Ohio. That volume ot 1770 pages is on my home reference shelf. In refence to being persons its definition of gender is “the fact of being either a male or female human being.” The same dictionary distinguishes singular pronouns to denote the person referred to being either a male or female. “They and their and them refers to two or more persons without refence to sex. That dictionary and I agreed in 2010 that the poet was a female person or a male, therefore a he/him or a she/her, but could not be correctly designated as either “they” or “them.”

Ah, but that was way back in 2010, fifteen long years ago. Back then I was unfamiliar with any argument to the effect that a person could change his or her gender. In searching the internet for refences to this poet, I found nary a refence to “she” or “her”; all of the pronouns referring to her were plural. I find the change disturbing. Worse perhaps I am disinclined to refer to “transgender” folks by different pronouns than those tha apply to their sex. When and if science figures ou how sexual males can get pregnant by having sexualized encouners with sexual females, then and only then am I open to pretending that self described trans individuals have actually changed their identity from male to female or the opposite. My experience has included watching a self-alleged trans female sexually molest a female who trusted the molester’s apparent identity as being that of someone without any sexual interest in her. Yes NPR fans, trans females may be more interested in aggressive sexual encounters with women and girls than consensual sex with the males they allegedly “used to be”. Since the first such incident I have encountered several more incidents of trans women who had been arrested for extremely aggressive behavior towards either females or towards males who the trans women called “whore” or “bitch”. I am a criminal lawyer who has also represented many other sexual aggression cases involving folks who had no trans issues. But my experience leaves me with very negative feelings about the Biden administration insistence on forcing schools to endorse demands for males to be inserted in the private spaces the public pays to provide for women. I have also learned that several European countries have had negative results from endorsing transgender “care” for adolescents who identify with the opposite sex. Adolescents frequently have sexual interests and fantasies which change later. Blocking puberty and medically reinforcing those interests and fantasies frequently has led to regret in later life.

The play is coming to Statesboro this weekend. I will go with my granddaughter and her boyfriend to see it on the sabbath.

KELLEY KIDD

Recently the comments of a friend have led me to do a little research about the State of Israel. She said she thought Israel was either a one race state or a one religion state. Eitherwhere a smaller percentage way she did not approve. A true democracy cannot consist of a citizenship or electorate that excludes all but one race, for example the Jewish race. It also cannot exclude from citizenship all but the followers of one religion, for example Judaism. I agreed with her, the n did a bit of research to find that Israel fits neither the one race nor the one religion mold.

Arabs compose 18 percent of the citizens of Israel and 11 out of 70 members of the Israeli one house legislature known as the Knesset. Eighteen percent of Israeli citizens are Muslims. Please contrast that with the United States where only seven percent of the citizens are members of some religion other than Christian, and neither house of congress has as strong minority representation as Israel. By the way, Hitler categorized Jews as a distinct “race”. Neither Judaism nor Jewish custom has ever described Jews as a distinct biological group. There are Jews who are black , brown, white , and yellow.

KELLEY KIDD February

My favorite American president had a famous nickname. He was called Honest Abe throughout his entire legal and political career. One of the many reasons he remains the most admired leader of his country is the fact he deserved that nickname. The current president has been equally dishonest throughout his business and political life. He deserves the nickname “Dishonest Don.”

Yesterday President Trump posted on social media and said in televised remarks statements so blatantly false and harmful that no one who has followed the past four years of news from Ukraine can call the President anything but a liar of the worst sort. He has been criticized widely both here and in foreign capitols for negotiating with Russia about ending a war that Russia began by an unprovoked attack from the country’s north and east. The war that attack ignited has continued every day since. ts clear objective has been to subjugate the sovereign nation of Ukraine by overwhelming force.

Trump had already been scolded for negotiating without representatives of Ukraine being part of the talks between Trump’s surrogates and those of the aggressor, Putin’s Russia. European allies of the United States had become alarmed as Elon Musk campaigned for far right parties that were hostile or indifferent to Ukraine’s need for help against its much larger attacker. But yesterday’s personal attack on the president of Ukraine went far beyond the blustering of Hegseth, Musk and Vance. He falsely alleged that Zelensky was a dictator, demanded Ukrainian elections now while 20 percent of Ukraine is in the hands of Russian forces and millions of Ukrainians are refugees from the attacks on their home districts, and the country is under a necessary wartime martial law. Trump lied in claiming that Zelensky’s popularity was less than 5 percent with Ukrainian voters, while polls show his real support as about 10 times that, which surpasses Trump’s own support in the United States.

BUT THE WORST LIE YESTERDAY WAS HIS CLAIM THAT UKRAINE HAD STARTED THE WAR. A WISE WOMAN ONCE TOLD ME THAT THE WORST LIE OF ALL IS THE CLAIM THAT THE INNOCENT VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE BROUGHT IT ON THEMSELVEES BY NOT BOWING TO THEIR ATTACKER. HERE TRUMP HAS GONE ONE STEP EVEN LOWER BY CLAIMING THAT UKRAINE ACTUALLY STARTED THE WAR ON RUSSIA. SO DISHONEST DON HE IS AND SHALL BE HENCEFORTH.

T

Kelley Kidd May 14,2024

Lately as I follow news broadcasts and the views of various pundits I often reflect that important facts are being omitted. Perhaps these facts are not as significant as I believe, but this short posting will tell a few of them to the reader and let him or her decide. In no particular order here are some of them.

COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES WHERE STUDENTS ARE NOT DEMONSTRATING AGAINST U.S AID TO ISRAEL The steady drumbeat of headlines about “student demonstrations at colleges and universities across the country” never seems to get around to telling us how many such colleges and universities are proceeding with their educational work WITHOUT such demonstrations. various media estimates place between 130 and 155 campuses as sites of these protests. What is not said is that about 3, 800 degree granting colleges and universities have NOT had any such activity! My math skills are not great, but I think that means that more than 19 out of every 20 are not embroiled in these protests.

“HARD CORE “CONSERVATIVES” JOIN HANDS WITH “PROGRESSIVES” TO EFFORT TO DUMP SPEAKER WHO ALLOWS VOTE ON AID TO ISRAEL AND UKRAINE Last week the Speaker of the House was faced with a miserably unsuccessful effort to fire him because he had allowed a vote to give substantial aid to the Ukraine and Israel, both tasked with the need to defend themselves from vicious efforts to destroy them. The press has usually characterized the dumping effort as the work of “hard core conservatives” and its author was Marjorie Taylor Greene. Ms. Greene has referred to temporary business closures during the Covid 19 epidemic as Nazi government oppression and accused Jews of using satellite lazers to start California wildfires so those Jews could collect insurance money! But she was joined in her dump Johnson push by 26 “progressive” Democrats like Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who accuse Israel of genocide for its efforts to eliminate a truly genocidal organization called Hamas. My Father used to say that frequently you can’t tell much difference between the far right nd the far left. This vote is a demonstration of my Father’s wisdom. Noam Chomsky and Tucker Carlson sound alike when talking about NATO or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

FORGOTTEN BENEFITS OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING UNDER TRUMP President Trump’s name was on checks that were sent to virtually every family and citizen in the USA during the many months that the COVID 19 pandemic was justifying millions of layoffs and business closings. Those checks dramatically increased bank balances and savings accounts. No wonder many of us are less happy with Biden’s economic performance. He isn’t sending us monthly checks! The Democrats never get around to reminding he electorate of that very pertinent fact. No wonder so many of us are unhappy with Biden’s perceived lack of help for our families and our financial health.

NETANYAHU GOVERNS WITH SMALL MAJORITY Israel is governed through the parliamentary system in which the single legislative body votes on the executive head of government, The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is the chief of the most right wing government in Israel’s history. He is presently very unpopular and was selected by very small majority of only 64 out of 120 votes in the Knesset, the legislative body that governs Israel.

Kelley Kidd

I am an American liberal and a Jew. Until recently I have only very seldom experienced any inner conflict between those two identities. But in the middle of the conflict between Israel and its enemies, I have witnessed a growing tendency of my many fellow American liberals to disparage both Israel and those Jews who are supportive of Israel. Many American progressives have blamed the current bloodshed in the Middle East on Israel, and many have called upon the Biden administration to punish Israel by withholding any aid to Israel and they have also demanded that public and private institutions to withdraw from any dealings with Israel. They have called Israel a genocidal state and Biden a genocidal president. I find these positions to be betrayals of the principles American liberals have stood for in the past. I believe many who hold those views do so more out of ignorance than deep seated hatred for Jews. Many mistakenly have reached conclusions based on false premises and assumptions.

The roots of Western liberal thought lie in the religious values of Jews which they developed in what is now Palestine and Israel. Authors of many different persuasions have often noted the huge role that Jews have played in creating the best values of Europeans and Americans, values held most dearly by self styled liberals and progressives. But the truth of those Jewish roots has often escaped the education of the people who adhere to those values. The realities of both Western and Eastern life for Jews has been soaked in contempt, persecution and persecution.

For many long decades the Jews themselves were often omitted in the actual policies of would-be liberal republics. Only after the genocide of the Nazis and their collaborators had become visible to the world did the United States begin to become a nation whose Jews were accepted as welcome participants in virtually all political and social institutions. The holocaust also elevated the suffering of Jews to become a wrong that merited actions to support Jewish efforts to free themselves from anti-Jewish exclusion and discrimination. But during and after that murder of millions of Jews the United States still failed to expand its permission for the immigration of Jews which could have saved hundreds of thousands. The rest of the world turned its back on fleeing Jewish refugees.

The one place where Jews were welcomed was in the British controlled former province of Turkey–Palestine. That welcome came from the half million Jews who lived there, most of whom had moved from other countries under the banner of an aspiration called “Zionism”. Earlier persecution of Jews in both Western and Eastern Europe had led to a political movement which sought a political expression of the continuing religious yearning for Jews to live in perfect peace in “the Holy Land” In other words Zionism sought to restore to Jews freedom in the “Promised Land” stolen from them by successive imperialisms from ancient Babylon and Greece and Rome to later Turkey and Britain, After 1939 even the previously friendly attitude of Britain turned to efforts to severely restrict Jewish immigration from the holocaust. Nevertheless by the end of World War II Palestine’s Zionist Jews gave refugees the one place in the world where other Jews eagerly welcomed them

At this moment the nation of Israel represents both that national aspiration and the descendants of those Jewish refugees from that genocide. Israel’s citizens also include millions of Jews from other nations, including over 700,000 from Arab countries and their descendants. Strong opposition to the existence of a Jewish state in Palestine has been evident and extremely violent since before the holocaust. Its organized expression has come in recent years from several Arab states and from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Moslem Brotherhood, the Houthis, ISIS, Islamic Jihad and the government of Iran.

About half of the Jews on this planet live in the “Zionist” state of Israel. Any violent threat to the existence and military potency of Israel is of course a threat to the survival of those Jews. Zionism of course was simply the advocacy for the creation of a government which would be both democratic and majority Jewish. Today Zionism is simply advocacy for the survival and potency of Israel. A self styled liberal who advocates for the destruction of Israel is also calling for the genocide of Israel’s Jews. There i nothing liberal or compassionate in any sense of demonizing Zionists.

I

Kelley Kidd March 2024

Many TV and print political sites continue to refer to ex president Donald Trump and the Republican party that follows him as “conservative.” That adjective has never described Donald Trump. And as his party is ceasing to be conservative as it becomes ever more dominated by his personality and policies. A reasonable definition of “conservative’ is “a person who upholds traditions and institutions, and who resists changes in those traditions and institutions.” Neither Trump nor the Republican Party now fit that description.

The 2020 national election year was characterized by the struggle of the Republican Party to re-elect then President Donald Trump, to maintain control of the Senate, and to achieve as much political clout as might come from the election of Republicans to “down ballot” offices in Congress and in state and local elections. Trump was defeated by exactly the same electoral college majority that he had amazed most observers by winning four years earlier. The Senate was lost by narrow runoff elections in my home state of Georgia. Otherwise the Republicans did very well, although not quite well enough to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Democrats.

The most momentous result of the last presidential election, however, was not the identity of the winning candidates or the party of his affiliation. What makes the 2020 elections most significant is the fact that the losing candidate and many million of his supporters refused to accept the result. Trump took the position that he had actually won the election, and was being prevented from remaining the president because the electoral process had been “rigged, stolen and fraudulently manipulated by Democrats in at least the six states which he he had previously won but whose electoral votes were now being cast for his opponent. No presidential candidate in American history had ever taken such a position. Trump and most of the leaders of his party not only took that position, but have continued to maintain it for nearly four years.

Although virtually all of the previous 58 presidential elections were contested. Only George Washington was chosen by the electoral college after an election in which the winner was swept into office without a process in which at least one other aspirant received widespread support. But after the reenactment of the constitutional electoral process in every instance the losing candidate or candidates acknowledged the winner certified by a peaceful meeting of Congress for the purpose. In two elections there was a tie vote in the initial certifying meeting, and the tie necessitated further processes stipulated by the constitution. But there was no overt violence within the Congress nor any outside effort to use violence to prevent the final outcome. In 2000 the crucial electoral votes of Florida were held up by the Florida courts until the Supreme Court of the United States decided the result. Several times the electoral college vote reached the opposite conclusion than that which would have prevailed if the nationwide majority vote had been decisive. And in 1860 after acknowledging that Abraham Lincoln was the newly elected president, eleven states rebelled against the United States by declaring that they had seceded.

What makes the 2020 election unique is that the sitting president claimed that he had be cheated out of reelection by the fraudulent activities of his opponent. He followed up on that claim by efforts to persuade the chief of U.S. military forces to seize ballot boxes, asking his Attorney General to begin immediate prosecution of electoral process supervisors, encouraged the filing of baseless law suites intended to prevent states from completing their electoral responsibilities. The capstone of this defiance was the storming of the Capital to prevent Congress from doing its constitutional job of counting the electoral college votes and making an official announcement of the election of the elected next president. Trump has not only stuck to his false claim that he is the rightfully elected presidential candidate, but he has promised to free all of those who he inspired to attack the Congress. And the Republican Party has backed him by making him its choice for president again for the 2024 election. He threatens to retaliate against the sitting president and his supporters and to be “a dictator from day one” when he becomes the president again. This is anything but conservative.

Kelley Kidd, March 2024