AP – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Sunday that despite intense international pressure from the “entire world,” he is still not willing to start direct negotiations with Israel.
AFP – Four years after a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah, the UN forces keeping them apart in southern Lebanon are under mounting strain amid fears of a fresh conflict and hostility from villagers.
A ship with supplies for the Gaza Strip will dock in Egypt, officials say, following pressure by Israel not to allow it to break the blockade.
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The Bangladesh government fears 'undue pressure' from Middle East countries, including a risk to jobs of millions of its citizens working there, as it prepares to try Islamists accused of 'war crimes' during the 1971 freedom movement, says a report.
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The experience of the Free Gaza Movement over the past few years, which sent half a dozen boat expeditions to deliver humanitarian aid to Gazans, suggests to many that in-your-face confrontation is the most effective way to challenge Israel and force it to change its policies. Israel’s reduced siege of Gaza is the fourth example of its changing a policy under pressure. The three other cases were the withdrawals from south Lebanon and Gaza’s heartland in the face of Hizbullah- and Hamas-led resistance, and the partial suspension of some settlements for 10 months last year in response to American government pressure.
So the question now is: How will people and states in the Arab world and nearby lands, like Iran and Turkey, react to the latest lesson in challenging Israel with forceful action, over making only meek pleas?
Israel is already initiating two new aggressive acts that will quickly test the mettle of both its friends and foes. It will destroy several dozen Palestinian Arab homes in occupied East Jerusalem to build an Israeli tourism facility, and it will initiate work on the ground to build another 600 homes for settler-colonial Zionists in the Jerusalem area.
The fascinating issue today is not whether Israel is making any major changes in its policies: it is not. Its changes are only cosmetic, to ward off foreign pressures. The really important new development is the growing Arab and international realization that the criminal and inhuman excesses of Zionism – colonialism, discrimination, collective punishment, racism, siege and starvation, murder on the high seas, mass incarcerations, and more – can best be confronted using the same tactics that finally brought down the two major examples of racism and inequity in modern times: the civil rights movement that broke the back of official racism in the United States, and the anti-Apartheid movement that forced the white minority government in South Africa to accept a fully democratic system.
Reuters – Israel’s security cabinet met on Wednesday to consider easing the Gaza blockade, officials said, in the face of world pressure following a deadly raid on an aid flotilla to the territory last month.
Richard Dreyfuss Via RFI in the 
“The vote by the UN Security Council today to impose a fourth round of UN-backed sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program—the first three were enacted under pressure from President Bush and his administration, including Ambassador John Bolton—are a sign that President Obama has no idea what to do about Iran.
Hint: sanctions ain’t it.
You’ll hear a lot from the Iran-bashing, neoconservative crowd and from the Obama administration itself, especially the State Department, about what a great victory this is. In particular, you’ll hear Obama and the State Department tout the fact that it was Obama’s brilliant effort to win over Russia and China for the sanctions vote that made all the difference. They’ll tell you that Obama contrived to isolate Iran and to persuade Moscow and Beijing to go along with the new sanctions on Iran, when in fact Russia and China succeeded in ensuring that the sanctions imposed by the UNSC are meaningless. And, of course, President Bush did the same thing, three times: despite Bush’s cowboy approach to unilateral hegemonism and unchecked wars abroad, Bush, too, managed to get Russian and Chinese support for three previous votes at the UNSC for sanctions on Iran between 2006 and 2008……
So, according to the State Department, the sanctions in Res. 1929 ban nuclear and missile investment abroad, ban Iranian access to a range of conventional arms, restrict Iran’s access to ballistic missile technology, provide for nations to inspect ships carrying cargo to Iran, target the Iran’s shipping firm IRISL and its airline for increased “vigilance,” and include various measures dealing with finance, including calling on all nations to “prohibit on their territories new banking relationships with Iran, including the opening of any new branches of Iranian banks, joint ventures and correspondent banking relationships, if there is a suspected link to proliferation.” In response, Iran is likely to pretend to be outraged, but in fact Tehran is well aware that the sanctions are merely a political statement. No doubt, Iran is unhappy with the fact that neither Russia nor China acted to block or veto Res. 1929. But they won’t accomplish their objective.
President Ahmadinejad is heading to China [2]soon for a high-profile visit to Shanghai, where he may meet with President Hu Jintao. And Iran has been meeting this week in Turkey with the Turks and the Russians. Not that there isn’t some bad blood between Iran and its Asian allies …….Even so, the two big Asian powers aren’t about to let the United States impose harsh new penalties on Iran, and the Iranians know it.
At the security summit in Turkey on Tuesday, the leaders of Iran, Turkey and Russia—including Ahmadinejad and Vladimir Putin—engaged in what the New York Times called [4]a “display of regional power that appeared to be calculated to test the United States just one day before a scheduled American-backed debate in the UN Security Council.” At the meeting, Ahmadinejad and Putin held private talks, and Putin said publicly that the UNSC action “should not put Iran’s leadership or the Iranian people into difficulty.”
Brazil and Turkey voted against Res. 1929. ….. The United States is angry at both countries for doing that, …..
More sanctions are indeed coming, but it’s an open question as to whether they will be “meaningful.” Both the United States and the European Union intend to use the UNSC resolution as the starting point for imposing unilateral, non-UN sanctions on Iran, including Treasury Department-sponsored financial sanctions that could target Iran’s Central Bank. And Congress, in its infinite nonwisdom, is likely to pass legislation that will put enormous pressure on the White House to restrict Iran’s supply of imported gasoline and refined petroleum products.
Perhaps the saddest reaction to the provocative but useless sanctions resolution came from J Street, the supposedly pro-peace, anti-AIPAC Jewish lobby, which gushed over the resolution [7]:
J Street welcomes the passage of enhanced multilateral and broad-based sanctions on Iran…..
The fact is that the resolution will make it harder, not easier to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough on Iran’s nuclear program. That’s because it will make it more difficult for Iran’s fractious leadership to make any conciliatory move without appearing to be caving in to international pressure.
For Obama, who tried to open the door for dialogue with Iran, Res. 1929 is a symbol of his failure. Since military action has been ruled out, the choice are between diplomacy and containment of a post-nuclear Iran. In that choice, the sanctions are irrelevant. But they do make the diplomacy a lot harder. For the administration, the best that can be said is that the sanctions are an effort to buy time, to stave off the Congressional crazies who demand actions such as naval embargos of Iran and the neoconservative lunatics who want to bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb-bomb Iran. Unfortunately, President Obama, it only encourages them.”
The Iranian newspaper Tabnak reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a speech on Wednesday, took a hard line with Russia and also pressured the US to accept the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil on Iranian low enriched uranium (the “Tehran Declaration.”)
Ahmadinejad, speaking in the city of Kerman, said that Iran and Russia had been friends for centuries. He addressed Dimitry Medvedev, president of the Russian Federation, saying that there was some danger if Russia continued on its present path that Iranians would switch, and begin considering Russia a historical enemy. He added, “We are both neighbors, and two neighbors cannot but be friends with one another. But this friendship has prerequisites. The first prerequisite is honoring reciprocal rights, and defense of them, and mutual respect.”
He continued, “Today, explaining the behavior of Medvedev toward the nation of Iran is very difficult for us . . . The people of Iran do not know if the Russians are our friends or are against us.” He advised President Medvedev to speak with more caution and forethought about such a large and capable nation as Iran.
“We must not perceive that our neighbor, on sensitive positions, has taken the side of those [the United States] who have for 30 years with all their might acted with enmity toward the nation of Iran . . . This matter is unacceptable. The Tehran Declaration is the greatest opportunity and there is no longer any pretext.” He said that if, before, the Russians could say that the West was putting pressure and wanted to see Iran take some significant step and make an important announcement, well, it had now done so.
He said, “We are also under pressure. But can we, just because of that pressure, act against the Russian nation?”
He warned, “They must not permit the Iranian nation to begin considering them as being on the level of historical enemies.”
Ahmadinejad went on to warn President Barack Obama of the US that the Tehran Declaration represents a “historic opportunity for him” should he genuinely want “change,” — an opportunity to begin respecting the rights of other nations and to abandon wrong and inhumane policies, treating other countries instead with justice and fairness.
Ahmadinejad’s blunt comments on Russia brought rebukes from that country. According to Interfax, May 26, 2010, as translated by the USG Open Source Center, Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the International Affairs Committee in the Russian parliament, said he was “disappointed by today’s quite harsh statement by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad about the Russian and US presidents.”
The report continues,
‘ “I am quite disappointed that Mr Ahmadinejad resorted to the megaphone diplomacy method instead of relying on a substantial and constructive conversation on an expert level,” Kosachev told Interfax.
“I leave on the conscience of the Iranian leaders their belief that Russia is supporting forces hostile to Iran, but I would like to emphasize that there are very few counties which sought the observance of all norms of international law with respect to Iran’s nuclear programme as consistently as Russia,” Kosachev said, adding that “Russia has always been and will be committed to this position”.
The Russian MP said he was pleased that the Iranian authorities had finally, although after a long delay, sent the agreement on further enrichment of Iran’s nuclear fuel reached with Turkey and supported by Brazil to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] for assessment. “We can only welcome the fact that the day before yesterday the Iranian authorities sent this document to the IAEA for assessment. However, one cannot but regret that this was not done earlier,” Kosachev said.’
Turkey and Brazil negotiated the agreement announced early last week whereby Iran would send over half of its low enriched uranium to Turkey to be held in escrow and would receive from the international community uranium enriched to 19.75% to run its medical reactor, which produces cancer-fighting isotopes. Both Turkey and Brazil are lobbying for United Nations acceptance of the Tehran Declaration.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva is putting pressure on President Obama to accept the agreement and to back off imposing further sanctions on Iran. Brazil is a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council at the moment and its positions have some weight with other non-permanent members.
The USG Open Source Center translated the following news report on Lula’s lobbying of Obama, from the Portuguese press. The article reveals that Obama is insisting that Iran completely cease its uranium enrichment program if it wants to see sanctions lifted and rejoin the international community.
‘ Brazil’s Lula Urges President Obama To Reconsider Iran Sanctions
Report by Denise Chrispim Marin: “Lula Sends Obama Letter To Avoid Sanctions on Iran”
O Estado de Sao Paulo digital
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 …
Document Type: OSC Translated Text …Brasilia – In a letter sent by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to his US counterpart Barack Obama, the Brazilian leader cautions that new UN Security Council sanctions on Iran could provoke the loss of the opportunity created by the Tehran Declaration to reach a negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. Taking the precaution of not using the word “sanction,” Lula insisted on stating in his letter that the declaration elicited support from high-ranking leaders.
Lula sent the above letter in response to one sent to him by Obama late in April in which the US President made it clear that he would not give up its demand for sanctions, unless Iran discontinued its uranium enrichment activities immediately. This warning was not contained in excerpts of the letter leaked to Reuters on Friday.
Lula’s letter suggests between the lines that the United States give a truce to Iran before putting new sanctions to a vote at the UN Security Council. The letter focused on the progress made through the agreement signed by Brazil and Turkey with Iran on 17 May on exchanging slightly enriched uranium with nuclear fuel.
Lula pointed out in his letter that, by signing the Tehran Declaration, the Iranian Government agreed “in writing” to points it had rejected earlier. Lula also emphasized the Iranian decision to notify the agreement to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 24 May within the established deadline.
Lula’s letter to Obama is part of new efforts by the Brazilian Government to prevent a UN draft resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran from being voted and approved. According to the Itamaraty press office, Lula sent similar letters yesterday to Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev and to French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Within the next few days, Lula will also send letters to Mexican President Felipe Calderon — whose country, like Brazil, is a nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council — and to South American leaders. ‘
By the way, Arizona, just a note. Now might not have been an opportune time to anger the Mexicans, if you wanted their support on Iran.
Reuters – Syria defied Western pressure on Sunday over its support for the militant group Hezbollah and said it will not act as a policeman for the Jewish state to prevent weapons from reaching the Lebanese Shi’ite movement.
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“… Egypt has been under pressure to seal off the hundreds of tunnels that are a key economic lifeline for the blockaded Palestinian territory …”
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