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“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.”
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Author Archives: iPouya
Israel Defense Ministry plan earmarks 10 percent of West Bank for settlement expansion
This is just getting absurd. They aren’t even bothering with the facade of peace anymore. I hope people reading this news brief can make the connection to this policy and the long term ethnic cleansing strategy involved here. Indeed, the … Continue reading
Posted in Palestine, Settlements
5 Comments
South Africans recall their own history during Israeli Apartheid Week
EI: “As a South African who has lived and suffered under apartheid and spent nearly thirty years of my adult life in its jails for resisting it, I can and do humbly claim to know something about the meaning of … Continue reading
Posted in Palestine
2 Comments
Young Israeli Refusers
Never forget that not all Jews are Zionists and that not all Israelis support their government’s ethnic cleansing of the remaining native Palestinians. Indeed, these refuseniks are not a fringe group. I have met countless Israelis and Jewish American critics … Continue reading
Posted in Palestine
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iPouya’s YouTube Channel
By the way, I’ve totally revamped and organized my YouTube channel. Check it out, there are loads of youtube clips that are both informational and entertaining. You can obtain the link to the channel in the tab at the top … Continue reading
Alec Baldwin and Elephants
I’m generally not a big fan of self-righteous celebrities championing a cause they know little about or appropriate because they are “safe” – safe in that there is little in the way of controversy in the US and its a … Continue reading
Posted in Animal Rights
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The Good vs the Bad of “The Shahs of Sunset”
The reality TV showed based on Iranians in LA airs tonight. Lacking in originality as it is a cross between Jersey Shore and the Kardashian show, Iranians all over are talking about it, some nervously. There is some good to … Continue reading
Posted in Iranian Diaspora
3 Comments
Video: Bahrain’s Massive Rally on Friday
After repeated crackdowns, mass arrests, mass firings, torture, tear gas, suffering through a Saudi-led invasion force, the Bahraini uprising endures. See the footage from a massive march last Friday.
Posted in Arab Spring, Bahrain
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Video: Double standards tangle Syria diplomacy
This is a short but amazing video of the double standards to some of the foreign parties to the uprising in Syria.
Posted in Arab Spring, Syria
1 Comment
iPouya: “Depicting Iran: How Western Portrayals Justify Intervention”
Here is my most recent article. It has appeared on PBS’s Tehran Bureau, University of Michigan’s The Michigan Daily, and UC Berkeley’s The Daily Californian: As the ideological groundwork for military strikes on Iran is laid by hawks and certain … Continue reading
Posted in Iran, Iran's Nuclear Program
2 Comments
Asghar Farhad wins Oscar and scores for peace
Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar speech was a small but important victory for the anti-war voice: “At this time, many Iranians all over the world are watching us and I imagine them to be very happy. They are happy not just because … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Iran
2 Comments
Dabashi: “Iran: The garrison state conducts a parliamentary election”
Al-Jazeera English Excerpts: “If Iranian national politics took the centre stage and overshadowed the regional geopolitics shortly after the presidential election of June 2009, it is now the turn of the geopolitics of the region, dominated by the unfolding Arab … Continue reading
Posted in Iran, Saudi Arabia
1 Comment
Video: Afghan teen punches her way into Olympics
The real underdog story… see it here.
Posted in Afghanistan
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Sectarianism in the Middle East
Professor Vali Nasr recently published an important article on Sunni-Shi’ite sectarianism in the Middle East as the “dominant dynamic in the region today.” Although it is an important issue in the Middle East and the wider Muslim world, I disagree … Continue reading
Posted in Arab Spring, Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia
2 Comments
“Israel is using Iran to sidestep Mideast peace talks”
Ha’aretz: The deadline the Quartet gave Israel and the Palestinians for submitting their positions on security and borders – Thursday, January 26 – flew by. It’s as if it never existed. The Quartet’s plan, which was to bring the parties … Continue reading
Hamid Dabashi on the Syrian Veto
Columbia University Professor Hamid Dabashi on the recent UNSC veto: “I agree with the Syrian opposition activists who have branded the Russian and Chinese veto as a ‘license to kill’–I also sympathize with the American UN envoy Susan Rice, who … Continue reading
Posted in Syria
3 Comments