mideastmessenger.com

 Steve Rhodes, flickr.
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spoke yesterday at the UNITY conference of minority journalists about his recent overseas trip to the Middle East and Europe.
 I covered the talk! Check out what he had to say.

 PHOTO: Lebanese youth hoist up Hezbollah flag. Paul Keller, flickr.
Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah swapped the remains of Israeli soldiers captured in a summer war two years ago for five Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.
Shortly after being released, the five Lebanese prisoners prayed at a slain Hezbollah leader’s grave, vowing to continue their fight against Israel. […]

PHOTO: The Israel Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem, Francisco Martins, flickr. 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” Israeli leaders have nuclear weapons all but aimed at Iran and have spoken menacingly about their dislike of the country’s leadership.
This is the kind of political environment in which Iranian Jews exist.
The Iranian Jewish leader […]

PHOTO: Nof Zion, an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, Franz Elzenbaumer, flickr
Israeli President Ehud Olmert just gave the OK for 750 housing units to be built in the West Bank settlement of Givat Ze’ev.
Olmert has barred ministries from approving new settlements without his approval, but this expansion will not likely go over well with Palestinians. Settlements are a […]

PHOTO: Abu Ghraib torture stencil, Duncan C, flickr 
Abu Ghraib sticks out as one of the most shocking moments of the Iraq War. When pictures of the torture and humiliation that took place at the prison were released in 2004, the world was dumbfounded.
A new film by American filmmaker Errol Morris revisits the incident in a film he has […]

PHOTO: Hamas supporters, eremi, flickr
Hamas’ current control of Gaza made the Bush administration extremely unhappy. When the group wrenched power from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a coup last year in the summer, sanctions were imposed on Gazans, supplies were stopped, funding from nations across the world stopped flowing in and the tiny territory was […]

PHOTO: Palestinians march in Tulkarem in support of prisoners, International Solidarity Movement-North Carolina, flickr.
Al Jazeera reported that Palestinian prisoners have complained of torture by the Palestinian Authority after the death of a Hamas religious leader, Majd al Barghouthi. PA authorities deny this claim, but four men who were arrested with al Barghouthi say they were […]

 PHOTO: Israelis protest the deportation of Liberian refugees, Shachaf Polakow, flickr.
Israel has detained about 200 asylum seekers after a raid in Tel Aviv. Many of them are from Darfur, an area of Sudan that has been in the grips of war and a situation many have labeled genocide. The raid followed a statement made by […]

PHOTO: Jerusalem, Premasagar, flickr
Even board games can’t escape the contentious Arab-Israel conflict. Hasbro recently found that out  the hard way. An employee reacted to complaints from people who said the “Jerusalem, Israel” label unfairly omitted Palestinian rights to the city. The removal of Israel made Jerusalem the only city on the board without a country.
Soon thereafter, people […]

PHOTO: Pakistan’s Parliament, Shubert Ciencia, flickr. 
Results from Pakistan’s parliamentary elections are in, and they are not in president Pervez Musharraf’s favor.
Musharraf’s supporters in the parliament were booted out by voters who cast their ballots in favor of smaller parties and independent candidates. The slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s party also did well, along with […]