Middle East People

Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel (born October 4, 1946) is a former United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002. In 2009, he was elected as Chairman...

Hezbollah - or the Party of God - is a powerful political and military organisation in Lebanon made up mainly of Shia Muslims. It emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive...

Profile: Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Hezbollah - or Party of God - has re-positioned the Shia organisation as a major player in Lebanese politics. Viewed by many Israelis as a terrorist and religious fanatic, Sheikh Nasrallah...

Aahoo Jahansouz "Sarah" Shahi (Persian: آهو جهانسوز شاهی‎; born January 10, 1980) is an American-born actress of Spanish and Iranian descent. A former NFL Cheerleader, Shahi was named #90 on the Maxim magazine "Hot 100 of 2005" list; she moved...

Ali Abdullah Saleh is the president of Yemen. In power since 1978, he is one of the Arab world’s longest-serving leaders. Ostensibly reelected several times, Saleh ruthlessly controls Yemen’s dysfunctional and nominal democracy and uses internal conflicts—with Houthi rebels...

A populist hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has often courted controversy since becoming the sixth president of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2005. His strong rhetoric against the United States and Israel and unbending stance on Iran's nuclear programme has proved...

Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (Arabic: محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني‎‎; 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat (Arabic: ياسر عرفات‎) or by his kunya Abu Ammar (Arabic: أبو...

Raed Salah, Arabic: رائد صلاح‎, is the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel. First known among Arab citizens of Israel as a poet and father of eight children, Salah also served as the mayor of...

Juliano Mer Khamis, born 1958 in Nazareth to a Jewish mother and Arab father. Lives in Haifa-Jenin, Israel/Palestine. Has acted in Canadian, Israeli, British and American films and theatre productions. His mother Arna Mer Khamis, a Palestinian rights activist, founded...

Ismail Haniyeh (Arabic: إسماعيل هنية‎, Ismaʻīl Haniyya; sometimes transliterated as Ismail Haniya, Ismail Haniyah) ( Arabic pronunciation (help·info)); (born January 29, 1963) is a senior political leader of Hamas and one of two disputed Prime Ministers of the Palestinian National...