>DOUGH
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230114-ehud-barak-calls-for-street-battles-to-oust-netanyahu-government/
Ehud Barak calls for 'street battles' to oust Netanyahu government
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has called for Israelis to become involved in street battles to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In an article published by Yedioth Ahronoth on Wednesday, Barak asserted: "This is an elected government. It is legitimate, but its actions and plans revolve around a coup. This makes it illegitimate."
He added: "Therefore, it is the duty of every citizen to join the fight for the sake of the country, its security and its safety, as well as for the sake of the values of the Declaration of Independence, for the sake of equality, for the sake of human fraternity, dignity, rights and freedom."
The article, published only in Hebrew, also stated that the: "Struggle will be resolved through demonstrations in the streets, squares, workplaces and the spaces of high education as millions are slated to take to the streets. This wicked government will collapse."
In another article published by the same newspaper the next day, Barak warned: "I will start from the end. The fight has started. This is a real warning."
He added: "This is an imminent danger for the collapse of Israel's democracy. Bad things happen when good citizens stay silent. Every good citizen looking for life in this community must ask themselves: Where am I standing amidst this struggle?"
Barak continued: "For many among us, this battle will be the most important thing we would have carried out in our life. It will be difficult."
He said this has happened many times through hundreds of years when nations revolted against the "darkness of dictators", stating, "we will win this time."
Barak concluded: "It has been said before: democracy must know how to defend itself from within against those who use its rule and freedoms to destroy it. This is exactly what is happening to us. We must recognise it. It is a coup."
>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/01/cover-house-oversight-chair-james-comer-says-national-archives-ignoring-request-records-subpoenas-table-video/
Comer demanded the following documents and information:
1. All documents retrieved from President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center;
2. All internal documents and communications regarding the documents retrieved from President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center;
3. A list of all people who had access to President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center;
4. All documents and communications related to the handling of the classified material by President Biden’s personal lawyers — including but not limited to their security clearance status; and
5. All documents and communications between or among the White House and the Department of Justice or NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] regarding the documents retrieved from President Biden’s personal office at the Penn Biden Center.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/christmas-truce-ukraine/
Calls Grow for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine
Inspired by the Christmas Truce of 1914, more than 1,000 faith leaders are urging the United States to use diplomatic channels to seek a cessation of violence in Ukraine.
By John Nichols
December 23, 2022
A Christmas tree made of camouflage nets draws a small crowd in Mykolaiv, on December 19, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP via Getty Images)
Fifty-three years ago this month, as US troops were fighting in Vietnam, John Lennon and Yoko Ono paid for billboards in cities across the United States that declared, “WAR IS OVER! If You Want It—Happy Christmas from John & Yoko.” The pair would continue their anti-war activism in the years that followed, eventually releasing the 1971 single “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” which has since become something of a holiday standard with its enduring message that peace is always more possible than the presidents and the prime ministers, the media moguls and the war profiteers, would have us believe.
The desire for peace is sometimes so strong that it can forestall conflict, or even bring a brief cessation of violence in the midst of a war. This is one of the reasons why the hope for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine persists, even as the fighting continues amid the rapid approach of the holiday.
More than 1,000 faith leaders, representing every major religious tradition in the United States and around the world, have signed onto a call for a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine.
They recognize the wisdom of the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, who planned to devote his Christmas Eve sermon to a moral call for a Christmas Truce. And of Medea Benjamin, a cofounder of the peace group CodePink, who reminds us, “Negotiation is not a euphemism for capitulation, nor is it a rationalization of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s aggression. It is simply a recognition that the end of this war cannot be achieved by more war. Any prospect for a pause in hostilities should be acted on.”
CodePink joined with the Fellowship of Reconciliation USA, the National Council of Elders, and the Peace in Ukraine Coalition to initiate the call for a Christmas Truce. The coalition is encouraging the Biden administration to take the lead in seeking a negotiated settlement—and the groups suggest that a Christmas Truce could serve as a place of beginning for the process of ending the war.
“As people of faith and conscience, believing in the sanctity of all life on this planet, we call for a Christmas Truce in Ukraine. In the spirit of the truce that occurred in 1914 during the First World War, we urge our government to take a leadership role in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end through supporting calls for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement, before the conflict results in a nuclear war that could devastate the world’s ecosystems and annihilate all of God’s creation,” reads the statement. The list of prominent religious and a social justice leaders who have signed on includes the Rev. Barber, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dr. Cornel West, the Rev. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center for Religion, Mary Novak of the NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, the Rev. Jim Wallis of the Georgetown Center on Faith and Justice, Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Jewish Renewal movement, Dr. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, Thay Phap An of the Plum Village Buddhist community, and the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson of the Reformed Church in America.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who on Wednesday visited Washington and addressed the US Congress, has spoken in recent weeks about the Christmas season as a time for dialing down tensions. “The holidays are ahead, celebrated by billions of people around the world: Christmas of the Gregorian calendar, New Year, Christmas of the Julian calendar,” he told a G7 gathering on December 12. “This is the time when normal people think about peace, not about aggression. I offer Russia the opportunity to at least try to demonstrate that they can abandon the way of aggression. It would be a right step to start withdrawing troops from internationally recognized borders of Ukraine this Christmas.”
But officials in Moscow have been dismissive of calls for troop withdrawals or a holiday ceasefire. And Ukrainians are understandably fearful that, without Russian approval, a truce could not take hold.
Despite the hurdles, however, advocacy for a Christmas Truce has gained traction with faith leaders and historians who recall past truces. “Whether it’s Christians around the world preparing for Christmas or Jews getting ready to celebrate the commemoration of the miracle of Hanukkah, all of the Abrahamic faiths embrace the prophetic voice of Isaiah who exhorted us to transform swords into plowshares,” says Dr. Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, a veteran civil rights activist and professor emerita from the University of Florida, who has been active with the National Council of Elders. “As we enter this winter holiday filled with prayers for peace and liberation, we are praying and acting for the same kind of miracle that over a century ago compelled the soldiers of WWI to put down their weapons and celebrate peace.”
The story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 is an inspiring one that I’ve written about before. It was for many years left out of the official histories of World War I. The British and German governments denied that the truce even took place. War historians neglected it. But those who participated remembered.
The last to recall the truce was Alfred Anderson, who died in 2005 at age 109. Younger generations turned to Anderson, who in 1914 was an 18-year-old soldier with the British Army, for confirmation of what was called “a short peace in a terrible war.”
Anderson spoke in interviews before his death about how, on December 25, 1914, “there was a dead silence that morning, right across the land as far as you could see. We shouted ‘Merry Christmas,’ even though nobody felt merry.”
The calls of “Merry Christmas” from the Brits were answered by Germans singing their traditional Christmas song, “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.” The Brits responded by singing “Silent Night” in English. Then, from the opposite trenches climbed a German soldier who held a small tree lit with candles and shouted in broken English, “Merry Christmas. We not shoot. You not shoot.”
Thus began the Christmas Truce of 1914. Initiated by the soldiers themselves, it saw combatants from both armies—more than a million in all—climb from the trenches to exchange cigarettes and military badges. To play soccer, they used the helmets as goalposts. And they did not rush to again take up arms. Along some stretches of the Western Front, the truce lasted into January 1915.
Eventually, distant commanders forced the fighting to begin anew. Thus it has ever been with wars: Politicians and power brokers maintain them long after they should have ended.
But in this holiday season, as Christians mark the birth of the Prince of Peace, religious leaders and honest historians maintain the memory of the Christmas Truce of 1914, and the faith that there might yet be a Christmas Truce of 2022.
John NicholsJohn Nichols is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and the author of the new book Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis (Verso). He’s also the author of The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace’s Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics, from Verso; Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America, from Nation Books; and co-author, with Robert W. McChesney, of People Get Ready: The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy.
>By John Nichols
>Trump Bread Slicers
>Ultraviolet Irradiation of Blood: “The Cure That Time Forgot”?
Come outside
And see it
But pack your heart
You might need it