From Thierry Meyssan:

Donald Trump, for whom regional peace can only be possible if each party accepts its own defeats, considers Iran to be a danger because it refuses to recognise the State of Israël. It is precisely in order to force all regional actors to accept reality as it is that he is moving the US embassy to Jerusalem…

From the Russian point of view, the deployment of the Revolutionary Guard alongside the Chiite populations of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, is more or less comparable to that of the Russian soldiers protecting Russian citizens living in Transnistria, Abkhazia, Ossetia and Ukraine. But the presence of the Revolutionary Guard in Gaza – where they supervise the Islamic Jihad and a faction of Hamas – can not be justified in the same way, not to mention their infiltration in Africa and Latin America…

Indeed, as soon as the United States had withdrawn from the nuclear agreement, President Hassan Rohani appeared on television to declare that the JCPoA was a multilateral agreement, and could not be blocked by a single party. He tried in particular to reassure his citizens by affirming that the country had prepared for this eventuality, and that their quality of life would not be affected. He was not believed. Within a day, Iranian money collapsed, losing close to a third of its value.

From Zero Hedge:

The Israeli military continued its violent repression of Palestinian protesters on Monday when soldiers once again gunned down unarmed demonstrators whom it claimed were trying to penetrate the border fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip….

The IDF murdering unarmed Palestinians using a Gandhiesque tactic of showing how venal Nuttyyahoo’s regime is… like Britain in India… there is no way to make this slaughter seem justified, and attempting to keep it out of the public consciousness has not worked…

From Sputnik News:

In response to Israel’s ongoing violent suppression of Palestinian protesters in Gaza, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has recalled his country’s ambassadors to both the US and Israel, accusing Israel of “state terror” and “genocide.”

From MoA:

On Saturday the people of Iraq voted for a new parliament.

The surprising winner is the Sairoon coalition of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Communist Party of Iraq. According to the preliminary results it gained 54 parliament seats. There are a total of 320 seats in the Iraqi parliament and complicate multiparty coalitions are necessary to gain a majority and to elect a new Prime Minister…

Muqtada and his followers in the Mahdi Army viciously fought the U.S. occupiers as well as sectarian Sunni gangs. In 2006 the U.S. planned to kill him and al-Sadr fled to Iran. U.S. media called him “anti-American” but Sadr is simply an Iraqi nationalist.

From Joe Lauria:

A New York Times headline on Monday said: “Dozens of Palestinians have died in protests as the U.S. prepares to open its Jerusalem Embassy.” Journalist Glenn Greenwald responded: “Most western media outlets have become quite skilled – through years of practice – at writing headlines and describing Israeli massacres using the passive tense so as to hide the culprit. But the all-time champion has long been, and remains, the New York Times.#HaveDied.”..

Moshe Dayan, one of the Israel’s Founding Fathers, who said in 1956:

“What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.” He went on: “We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house. . . . Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.”

From Caitlin Johnstone:

The only way to spin this as the fault of the Palestinians is to dehumanize them, to attribute behaviors and motives to them that we all know are contrary to human nature…

Sheldon Adelson was present at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy, getting what he paid for…

It isn’t nations and governments pulling the strings of real power in the world, it’s a class of plutocrats who aren’t ultimately answerable to any government.

From Russia Today:

The European Union is planning to switch payments to the euro for its oil purchases from Iran, eliminating US dollar transactions, a diplomatic source told RIA Novosti.

Brussels has been at odds with Washington over the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which was reached during the administration of Barack Obama. President Donald Trump has pledged to re-impose sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

From Zero Hedge:

European Council President and former Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, has set the bar high for Trump rebuttals with his latest tweet, blasting that:

” Looking at latest decisions of @realDonaldTrump someone could even think: with friends like that who needs enemies….

But frankly, EU should be grateful. Thanks to him we got rid of all illusions. We realise that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm. “

From MoA:

One condition North Korea had asked for at the beginning of the negotiation cycle was a freeze of ‘strategic’ military exercises by South Korea and the U.S. in exchange for a freeze of nuclear and missile tests by North Korea. This was understood by both sides. The condition had held for a while but a few days ago the U.S. and South Korea announced a new exercise:

SEOUL, May 10 (Yonhap) — South Korea and the United States will begin massive combined air force drills this week, officials here said Thursday, in an apparent move to strengthen their hand ahead of denuclearization talks with North Korea.The two-week Max Thunder exercise will begin on Friday, involving some 100 warplanes, including eight F-22 radar-evading fighters as well as an unspecified number of B-52 bombers and F-15K jets, the officials said.

It is the first time that the allies have decided to deploy eight F-22 jets to a combined exercise. Observers said the planned show of formidable air power appears aimed at further pressuring the North to give up its nuclear ambitions.

F-22 stealth fighter and B-52 are nuclear capable and thus strategic assets. Incorporating them in an exercise breaks the previous understanding. In response to the exercise North Korea canceled high level talks with South Korea:

The North’s Korean Central News Agency said the Max Thunder drills between the South Korean and U.S. air forces are a rehearsal for invasion of the North and a provocation amid warming inter-Korean ties.
…
“This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula,” the KCNA report said. “The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities.”..

UPDATE

The North Korean protests helped on both points. The U.S. military exercise was dialed back and the White House disowned the Libya disarmament concept that Bolton introduced to sabotage the talks…

Moon Chung-in, a special security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, said in a lecture at the National Assembly that the decision was made at an emergency meeting between Defense Minister Song Young-moo and Gen. Vincent Brooks, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea.

From EJ Magnier:

[T]he US policy towards Ukraine and its attempt, along with the European Community, to kick Russia out of the country and disrupt its huge economic income from gas selling into Europe was enough to make the Russian bear dive into the Levant…

For Iran, the fall of Bashar al-Assad meant the fall of Iran itself and its Hezbollah strategic ally, and with it Iraq afterwards…

Israel is aware that the Russian stock of anti-tank laser guided missiles “Kornet” found its way to Hezbollah in 2006 and halted the Israeli Merkava during the second war (over 55 tanks were destroyed and damaged)…

The IRGC are in Syria since 1982 and won’t leave unless requested to do so by the Syrian government.

From Chris Hedges:

Nakba Day—“nakba” means catastrophe in Arabic—commemorating the 70th anniversary of the forced removal of some 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 by the Haganah, Jewish paramilitary forces, from their homes in modern-day Israel…

The 2014 assault, perhaps better described as a massacre, was one of eight massacres that Israel has carried out since 2004 against the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, over half of whom are children.

From Zero Hedge:

Reuters reported that the European Commission is set to launch tomorrow the process of activating a law that bans European companies from complying with U.S. sanctions against Iran and does not recognise any court rulings that enforce American penalties.

From Middle East Monitor:

The signatories give the US President “legal notice” of “a massacre beginning at the time of the Nakba anniversary in order for you to register a response and call upon the Israelis to cease and desist in your capacity as President of the United States and a Permanent Member of the Security Council and NATO.”..

This notice, it is pointed out, will be “EXHIBIT 1 in any war crimes investigation and prosecution (past, present, future) relating to this matter.”

From Hassan Nasrallah:

O Lebanese, O Palestinians, O peoples of the region, we can not trust the United States…

(Despite) P5 + 1, Trump did not consult Europe, nor Russia, nor China, nor the Security Council nor the international community…

If you think (O Israel) that you can go on, come in Syria, bomb, kill, destroy, without facing the slightest reaction, and to threaten and intimidate with impunity and see everyone bow, you’re delusional…

After the [Golan] missile attack, Israeli decision-making, this trigger-happy behaviour so to speak, it will disappear…

[T]he enemy government was warned by international intermediaries that if the Israeli response in Syria exceeded the red lines, the second bombing would target the heart of occupied Palestine (Tel Aviv), not the Golan…

[T]hey have not managed to prevent most of the missiles from striking Israeli military positions in the Golan…

One of the most important implications of this event was to prove that the (Israeli) home front is not ready for war…

One of the other implications that was rich in lessons is the need for Israel to conceal the magnitude of what happened by resorting to lies when they spoke of 20 missiles (instead of 55)…

If anyone dared to put his hand on the Golan, advancing only a finger towards the Golan, Israel was willing to cut off his head. But it’s over. It’s all over now.