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. […]

I don’t think I’ve ever written a stranger headline than the one for this blog post. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a bizarre and disturbing story.
In standard Al Jazeera style, the news network ran a May 5 story on Gazans having to burn baby chicks due to power shortages. The […]

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: Internet Cafe in Cairo. Paul Nendick, flickr. 
Facebook could be an Arab leader’s worst nightmare. An open forum for discussion, networking and planning that’s not easily controlled? The prospect would make the most ruthless dictator shudder.
That’s what Egyptian officials did recently when they detained Esraa Abdel-Fattah, a Facebook user and founder of the site’s group “6 […]

PHOTO: Palestinian hip hop group DAM performs at a party. From left to right, Tamer Naffar, Mahmoud Jreiri. Agnes Varnum, flickr.
Hip hop blasts and booms from the clubs young Americans frequent on weekends. Besides for dancing, however, hip hop and its cousin, rap, have served as ways to transmit political, cultural and societal commentary.
The Chicago Palestine Film Festival at […]

PHOTO: Stray dog in Saqqara, Egypt, Matt Handy, flickr 
SPARE, the Society of Protecting Animal Rights in Egypt, protects animals that are often the targets of poison and killing campaigns to reduce their numbers. The site arranges adoptions of rescued pets, usually to Europeans who take the animals home with them.
Some of the animals are abused […]

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 […]