West Bank

The actions of Israeli settlers in the West Bank must be truly horrific for Mike Huckabee, Trump’s ambassador in Israel, to call them “terrorists” and denounce their actions in Qusra as an “horrific act of terror.”

In the past, Ambassador Huckabee, has been the chief American cheerleader for Israeli settlement of the West Bank. In 2017, before his ambassadorial days, Huckabee said: “There is no West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria.” Later he added: “I think Israel has the title deeds to Judea and Samaria.”

After he was nominated ambassador in 2024, Huckabee was asked if Israeli annexation was possible in Trump’s second term. “Well, of course,” he replied.

It is quite possible for Huckabee to approve of West Bank annexation while disapproving of the tactics being used to achieve that end. But it is unusual.

Those tactics are indeed the tactics of terrorists. Settlers lay siege to a Palestinian home; cut off the water and electricity; pelt the property with stones and threaten to kill the occupants. When the terrified Palestinians flee for their lives, the settlers simply move in and occupy the home.

Their actions are illegal under international law. In fact the Israeli settlements are illegal and almost every country in the world has called for their withdrawal. The Israeli government, however, is committed to supporting the 600,000 West Bank settlers. In fact, some of the Cabinet are settlers themselves.

But the violence is growing. Some observers believe that the settlers are increasing the pressure on the Palestinians—and the Netanyahu government—because they fear that an anti-settlement government may emerge from the October general election and this is their last chance to establish facts on the ground.

The United Nations has reported that in recent months the number of attacks on Palestinians has grown to six a day.

The Israeli government has ordered the army into the West Bank, allegedly to try and reduce tensions and restore order. But Palestinians are reporting that, in some instances, the army appears to be helping the settlers. In one instance, the IDF ordered a besieged Palestinian family out of their home and then occupied it themselves.

What does Ambassador Huckabee have to say about that?

US water supplies

No one is dead—yet. They are, however, seriously worried that hackers have hacked into computers controlling the water supplies in at least a dozen American states. Even more worrying is that the FBI’s lead suspect is Iran.

In theory, control of the company computers could enable the hackers to poison water supplies. One thing the computers do is regulate the chemicals used to treat drinking water. So far, there has been no sign they have done so, but one Minnesota water authority reported some flooding and loss of water pressure.

America’s water supply industry is a hacker’s dream. It is comprised of tens of thousands of separate companies and water authorities—all hooked up to the internet. There is no federal law governing cybersecurity at these companies. The Environmental Protection Agency  tried to impose one in 2023 but was blocked in the courts.

Neither, does it seem, that any federal authority responsible for the cyber security of the country’s critical infrastructure. At the moment a fistful of Washington acronyms –led by the FBI—are involved in investigating the breach.

There is, however, a wider and potentially more dangerous issue at stake. NATO has explicitly said that a cyberattack constitutes an “armed attack” for Article 5 purposes. Article 5 says an attack on one member is an attack on all.

This means that a cyber attack by Iran on the US could drag its European allies into a deeply unpopular war started by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

There are some get-outs. NATO says that a decision on how to respond to cyber attacks has to be made on a case by case basis. Furthermore, each member of the alliance decides on how they respond, Is it with troops or perhaps with supplies or logistics?

But the point is that the nature of the internet means that the war in Iran can easily be moved to American soil. And, if it does, Canada and  European NATO could face an American call to arms.

US midterm elections

It is just over two weeks before the starting gun is fired for the American mid-term election campaign, and all the signs are pointing to bad news for the Republican candidates.  This in turn spells big trouble for President Donald J. Trump.

The problem that Republican candidates for all the seats in the House of Representatives and a third in the senate, is that The Republican Party has become the personal political vehicle for Donald Trump and Trump has a low approval rating of 32 percent.

The president  does not have history’s lowest approval ratings. Not even close. Since Gallup started monitoring approvals in 1952, there have been four presidents who have been below Trump’s 32 percent—Harry Truman in 1952 at 22 percent; Richard Nixon during Watergate at 24 percent; George W. Bush at 25 percent during the 2008 financial crisis and his father George H. Bush at 29 percent.

But Trump has the distinction of being the most consistently unpopular president since polls started. Unlike any of his predecessors, Trump’s approval rating has never topped 50 percent.

And then, of course, there is Trump himself. In 2018 his approval rating was 41 percent—six points higher than now. The Republicans lost 40 seats in the House and control. Trump was subsequently impeached—twice.

So, what does this mean for Republicans battling it out for seats in the US House of Representatives and Senate. Well,  Gallup calculates that presidents with an approval rating below 50 percent have historically suffered an average loss of a three dozen seats in the House of Representatives at the mid-terms.

This has been proven by historical statistics. The approval rating of Ronald Reagan—the great communicator—was 42 percent in the August before the mid-terms. The Republicans lost 26 House seats. Clinton’s approval rating was 42 percent at the same time in his presidency in 1994. He lost 53 House seats and 8 Senate seats.

It is easy to report the reasons for Trump’s low approval ratings—the war in Iran, reports of corruption, and rising inflation. Americans are especially aggrieved that an unnecessary war on the other side of the world has pushed up gasoline prices. Americans love their cars.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. He also contributes to “The New World” magazine and lectures on world affairs. He is the author of “America Made in Britain,” two editions of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “The Falklands Crisis.”