On Sunday, Dec. 29, Doctors Against Genocide held an emergency livestream in response to Israel’s destruction of Kamal Adwan, the last remaining hospital operating in northern Gaza. Physicians, historians, experts, activists, and a UN official spoke of the devastating situation, the illegality in all cases of assaults on health workers, the extensive evidence that Israel is conducting a deliberately genocidal policy, and how people can act to force a change in Israeli (and U.S.) policy. The group called for health care providers to declare themselves “sick of genocide” on January 6, 2025 and for everyone to join in the group’s lobbying that week in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, the outrageous annulment of the Nov. 24, 2024 first round of the presidential election in Romania is being challenged in court, in a hearing that was just rescheduled for Dec. 30. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in his speech on Dec. 27 in which he announced he was dismissing the German parliament, spoke of Romania as an example of how outside interference threatens “democracy and stability.” Is he announcing the possibility that the will of the voters may similarly be overturned in Germany?
If you’re waiting for democracy in Syria, don’t hold your breath. The country’s current de facto leader has said that elections are four years away.
The issue of free speech, including political speech, is coming to a head in the United States, with the upcoming Jan. 19, 2025 ban of TikTok and the Jan. 10, 2025 expedited hearing of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the ban. Donald Trump, who in 2020 signed an executive order demanding the divestment of TikTok parent company ByteDance, has added his voice to those calling for the Supreme Court to delay the ban. Trump’s top-notch negotiating skills and social media savvy put him in a unique position to negotiate a resolution of the impasse, without the Supreme Court having to come to a decision on the tricky First Amendment issues, he says.
Speaking of negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that Russia is “not satisfied” with the proposal to postpone Ukrainian NATO membership by 20 years while introducing European forces as peacekeepers. Regarding the Oreshnik and changing strategic weapon environment, he said that Russia continues to adhere to certain aspects of now-defunct missile limitation treaties, but may revise that policy in light of U.S. and NATO actions.
The latest tension affecting Russia is the crash landing of Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 in Kazakhstan after a failure to land in Grozny, Russia, which continues to present more questions than answers. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has said that the crash was definitely caused by Russian air-defense systems and has demanded a more direct apology from his Russian counterpart.
Civilization hangs by a thread; a new paradigm of security, development, science, and culture is desperately needed if we are to ensure our ability to wish each other a happy new year.
Our beautiful human species is capable, because of its free will, of committing atrocities. Friedrich Schiller addresses the danger of raving madness in his poem The Bell.
Gefährlich ist’s, den Leu zu wecken,
Verderblich ist des Tigers Zahn,
Jedoch der schrecklichste der Schrecken,
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn.
Dangerous it is to rouse the lion,
Fatal the tiger’s teeth do gnash,
Yet most terrible of all terrors,
Is man consumed by frenzied wrath.
We must ascend from madness to reason, to spend our mental efforts to overcome, not each other, but rather the plentiful paradoxes the universe presents us, as opportunities to understand, ever less imperfectly, the universal.
