YnetNews.com reports: “The United States has lost its influence in the Middle East peace process despite the hopes raised by President Barack Obama, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview published Monday.

Assad was quoted as telling the Italian daily La Repubblica that Washington ‘has no influence because they don’t do anything for peace. But they remain the greatest power.’

‘Obama raised hopes but we cannot wait any more,’ he said, adding that a ‘new era has been born’ in the Middle East including an understanding between its major powers that was reshaping the region.

He pointed to a similar phenomenon throughout the world, with countries such as China and Brazil refusing to wait for the United States to ‘hand out roles.’

Assad said there had been a realization that the United States and Europe had failed to resolve the problems of the Middle East, noting that Russia was trying to rebuild its own role in the region…” (This report is interesting. Recently, I reported on television that Russia was working on a nuclear deal with Syria as well as Iran. In the battle of Armageddon – Revelation 16:16, Syria, Isaiah 17:1 and Iran (old Persia) Ezekiel 38:5 align themselves with Russia against Israel – mentioned 18 times in Ezekiel 38 and 39 – Ezekiel 38:8, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19; 39:2, 4, 7 [twice], 9, 11, 12, 17, 22, 23, 25, 29. See also the next two reports.)

BBC News reports: “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said Israel’s raid on the Gaza aid flotilla has increased the chances of war in the Middle East.

In an interview with the BBC’s Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, he said Syria was working to prevent a regional war.

But he added that there was no chance of a peace deal with the current Israeli administration, which he called a ‘pyromaniac government’.

Mr. Assad also rejected claims he was arming Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Nine Turkish activists died during last month’s raid on the Free Gaza ships attempting to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Asked if the Israeli raid had increased the chance of war in the Middle East, Mr. Assad said: ‘Definitely, definitely.’

‘When you don’t have peace, you have to expect war every day, and this is very dangerous,’ he said…”

Israel National News reports: “Terrorists in the de facto Hamas government continue to smuggle weapons into Gaza, and possess 5,000 medium-range rockets with a range of 25 miles, including several that can bomb Tel Aviv, security chief Yuval Diskin said Tuesday.

Speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Diskin warned that lifting the maritime embargo on Hamas would ‘be a huge security breach.’ Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu already has rejected a proposal by the Quartet’s Middle East envoy Tony Blair that Israel allow aid to reach Gaza by sea after it is inspected at Cyprus.

Diskin also informed the committee that 80 percent of the Gaza rockets, or about 4,000, are in the hands of Hamas, while the remainder are scattered among the Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups.

‘Hamas also possesses several rockets that can reach central Israel,’ meaning metropolitan Tel Aviv, he added. During last year’s Cast Lead war against the Hamas terrorist infrastructure, missiles exploded as far north as Ashdod, several miles from Tel Aviv’s suburban communities.

Diskin said that although there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, an easing of the blockade could be implemented in order to allow the supervised transfer of a wider variety of goods and merchandise…”

Asia Times Online reports: “The nuclear standoff on Iran is bound to deepen, aggravated by new United Nations sanctions on the Islamic republic and the United States digging in its heels against an alternative diplomatic plan that was designed to defuse tensions.

The United Nations resolution for a fourth round of sanctions, voted in by the Security Council on Wednesday, calls for the inspection of vessels suspected of carrying materials, setting the stage for military incidents at sea between Iran and the US Navy. With Brazil and Turkey, the architects of a nuclear-swap deal with Iran, voting against it, the resolution also removes any pretense of unified global support for coercive diplomacy on Iran.

‘The sanctions you pass should be thrown into the trash bin like a used tissue,’ Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said immediately after the vote, according to the state-run Iranian Students News Agency. ‘The realm of politics has become one of deception.’

The Security Council, in a resolution supported by all five of the veto-wielding permanent members (the US, the United Kingdom, France, Russia and China) was passed 12-2, with Lebanon abstaining, despite strong US lobbying. Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria and Uganda all backed sanctions. But the members failed to give the US what it needed most in diplomatic terms: a unanimous vote.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva accused the Security Council of acting out of ‘obstinacy’ in accepting the US-drafted sanctions, ‘instead of bringing Iran to the table’, the official Agencia Brasil news agency quoted Lula as saying. The Security Council had ‘thrown away a historic opportunity to negotiate calmly over the Iranian nuclear program’.

Warning of an unwanted spiral reminiscent of the fiasco that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 over its alleged weapons of mass destruction, Brazil’s representative in the council was pointedly critical of the West’s disregard for the opportunity for a breakthrough provided last month by the Tehran declaration between Iran, Turkey and Brazil regarding a swap of fuel for Iran’s medical reactor in the Iranian capital. The agreement to transfer some of Iran’s nuclear fuel to Ankara was not acceptable to the US, despite its similarity to a plan to transfer fuel to Russia and France, which Washington had earlier endorsed and Iran rejected…” (Iran needs heavy sanctions. Protestors against Ahmadinejad’s regime are being arrested in huge numbers. This little bigot won’t stop hating and persecuting the Jews until his messiah, Mahdi arrives. This Islamic prophecy can only occur if this Iranian president wipes Israel off the map – Psalm 83:4 in correlation with Russia – Ezekiel 38:1, 2, and 5. See also the next two reports.)

SpaceDaily.com reports: “Iran’s hardline president on Wednesday accused Barack Obama of meddling in his country after the US leader called for global support for Iranians in their fight for greater democracy.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reinstated as president last year in what the opposition charged was a fraudulent election, branded the US government as ‘the most violent dictatorship.

‘He (Obama) has issued a statement on the anniversary of the election. This is meddling in Iran’s affairs,’ Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech, referring to the US president’s statement before the June 12 anniversary of the disputed poll.

‘This nation does not acknowledge you at all and hates you,’ Ahmadinejad said, drawing chants of ‘Death to America!’ from the crowd assembled for his visit in the central city of Shahrekord.

‘Today the most violent dictatorship is being applied against American people,’ the hardliner charged. Americans ‘are not free to express their opinions… are not free to demonstrate and many live in poverty.

‘Mr. President, if you are worried about nations, you should first think about your own people. From now on, one of the Iranian people’s demands would be the freedom of the US nation from the oppressive and undemocratic US government,’ he said…”

YnetNews.com reports: “Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that the Israeli commando raid on the international flotilla off Gaza’s shores was ‘barbaric’ and called for dismantling the Zionist regime.

He warned that any further aggression by Israel ‘would bring about the demise of the Zionist regime.’

Speaking before tens of thousands of people at a memorial marking the 21st anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s death, Ahmadinejad said, ‘The Zionist regime’s crimes are not perpetrated because it is strong, but because it is weak. They are crazy. They cannot control themselves.’

Ahmadinejad expressed hope that more aid flotillas will make their way to Gaza in light of Monday’s ‘achievement.’

‘Everyone should know that with God’s help thousands of flotillas from all over the world will sail (to Gaza) with peace-lovers and give freedom and peace to mankind,’ he said.

Ahmadinejad warned that Israeli is planning to attack Gaza. ‘To make up for their past mistakes and to restore their force – the Zionists are planning another attack on Gaza,’ said the presidents.

The tens of thousands on hand chanted ‘Death to Israel’…”

YnetNews.com reports: “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, said Wednesday that if Israel attacked Iran it would be destroyed within a week.

Speaking at a political conference of ultra-conservatives in Iran’s north, Mashaei said, ‘If the Zionist regime attacks Iran, the Zionists will have no longer than a week to live.’

The semi-official Fars news agency quoted him as saying that the Islamic Republic would destroy Israel ‘in less than 10 days’.

Mashaei, who was also formerly a vice president, added that new sanctions to be imposed on Iran for its nuclear program would only harm Western countries.

The statesman is considered a close affiliate of the Iranian president and has previously caused a stir by saying that Iran was ‘a friend of the Israeli people’. He later retracted this statement and issued a contrary one saying Israel should be destroyed…” (It won’t happen – Yahweh God the Father declares in Isaiah 56:5 – “…I will give them [Israel] an everlasting name…”)