City of Brass

City of Brass

City of Brass Archives

The view from inside Israel

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

This is a pretty depressing assessment by Joel Rubin at Democracy Arsenal, who just returned from the Herzliya conference in Israel (the premier security summit attended by all major Israeli politicians). It was clear, after attending this conference, that the [...]

the lesson of 1989: Mr. Netanyahu, tear down this wall

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

Today is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Today will see many hagiographic pieces about Reagan from the right, but there’s real value in learning about the complex historical context, and not enough credit I think [...]

Israel: the one-state solution

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

As I’ve argued before, the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will entail only two of Democracy, Greater Israel, and Jewishness. In terms of the settlements policy, it seems that Israel has essentially picked the first two. President Obama’s insistence that [...]

human shields in Gaza for the IDF?

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

One of the central rationalizations for the permissibility of “collateral damage” in warfare is that the enemy uses “human shields” – that militants are deliberately hiding among civilian populations so as to force the attacker to kill innocents if they [...]

Previous Posts

American barbarism, civilization, and decadence (and Star Trek)
I came across a lengthy excerpt online from the book, "The Next Hundred Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman and found it quite insightful. I say this as someone who probably is indeed an American barbarian by the definition of the passage; I do believe that there do exist u

posted 3:11:36pm May. 15, 2013 | read full post »

Bishnu Shrestha and the 40 thieves (and one khukuri)
This is a khukuri, a curved Nepalese-style blade issued as standard equipment to members of the Gurkha, which are famed Nepali units of the Indian Army (and the British Army of India before Independence): [caption id="attachment_1982" align="aligncenter" width="600"] khukuri knife of the Gurkha[/

posted 9:56:17am May. 08, 2013 | read full post »

Muslims in Bradford, UK rally to save synagogue
This is one of those great stories that often gets overlooked by the mainstream press and deliberately ignored by the Islamophobes: With only just over thirty members and an extravagant Grade II listed Moorish building, the tiny Jewish community of Bradford have for many years been in despair abo

posted 11:47:45am May. 04, 2013 | read full post »

Obama still wants to close Guantanamo #Gitmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vy-fsgXR4jw From today's press conference: 8:15 AM PT: Bill Plante of CBS asks about the Guantanamo hunger strike. Obama says he still wants to close it. "It's not necessary to keep America safe. It's expensive. It's inefficient. It hu

posted 11:44:18am Apr. 30, 2013 | read full post »

open-source, lone wolf terrorism: different ideologies, shared methodologies
To summarize what is known at this time, the main suspects for the Boston marathon bombing are two brothers who immigrated from Chechnya to America years ago and have gro

posted 1:34:11pm Apr. 19, 2013 | read full post »


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