The Zen Corner 🌎

Foreign Policy. We focus on World News, International Markets, and Global Politics.

[Matt Duss @mattduss]

Democrats made a huge mistake in letting Trump take the antiwar lane in 2024. He quickly abandoned it. It would be staggeringly incompetent to allow him to retake it now.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

Ta-Nehisi Coates: “I don’t know how you remain consistent by claiming an anti-apartheid legacy here in the United States of America while enforcing it abroad.”

Coates told Chris Hayes that the Democratic Party cannot continue avoiding the issue of Gaza and Palestine, saying the party is already facing a political and moral reckoning ahead of 2028.

[Clash Report @clashreport]

Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir:

We cannot stop destroying houses in southern Lebanon. We cannot stop, period.

We cannot allow the population of southern Lebanon to return. ... We must continue to control the territory even if Trump disagrees.

We are an independent state.

[The Zen Corner 🌎 @TheZenCorner]

@ksadjadpour @DanielBShapiro @TheAtlantic So why would Iranian opponents root for war? Everyone knew that war would embolden the regime.

[The Zen Corner 🌎 @TheZenCorner]

@michaeldweiss @AntiToxicPeople Turns out Iranian news was more accurate than U.S. media.

[Javier Blas @JavierBlas]

My colleagues at Bloomberg News obtained a copy of the text of the 14-point draft memorandum between the US and Iran (which is scheduled to be formally signed Friday, June 19, in Geneva). Neither the White House nor Tehran have published yet the text.

https://t.co/F13En30IF5

[The Zen Corner 🌎 @TheZenCorner]

@LizMair That’s not entirely true. The original plan was to stay 2 nights before. And on the way out, they were supposed to spend the night in LA, and that was denied. FIFA has never allowed this to happen to any other country, it’s just a fact.

[Faytuks Network @FaytuksNetwork]

Trump’s support in Israel has flipped in 3 weeks — from +23 to -23, a 46 point drop, according to Kantar poll.

[Jeremy Diamond @JDiamond1]

While reporting from Halhul today in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers severely damaged our vehicle and those of several Palestinians, smashing windows & puncturing tires. Thankfully, no one was in the vehicles.
We won't be deterred from continuing to report on this story.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

💢 University of Tehran professor Hassan Ahmadian told Al Jazeera Arabic that the reported U.S.-Iran agreement would create a new regional security framework with Washington acting as the guarantor of Israeli compliance on Lebanon.

🔹According to Ahmadian, one of the key provisions of the draft agreement is the “unity of the fronts,” meaning Israel would be barred from attacking the Lebanese resistance.

🔹“The United States guarantees that Israel will not move against the resistance,” he said, describing it as the first time Washington would serve as the guarantor of such an arrangement.

🔹Ahmadian suggested the latest Israeli strike on Beirut was aimed at disrupting that emerging framework and signaling that Israel intends to preserve its operational freedom.

🔹Ahmadian added that, unlike the 2015 nuclear deal, the proposed agreement is structured as a single package of commitments, allowing Iran to halt the entire arrangement if any clause is violated.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

A Lebanese chef with no ties to any armed group was killed in an Israeli strike on the southern village of Douweir on Sunday, Press TV correspondent reported.

Hadi Hoteit said the man Kassem Jouni, a caterer who ran a small kitchen with his wife and brother and cooked for the village’s weddings and funerals, was killed when an Israeli strike hit the house next door. Hoteit said he had seen him a week earlier collecting bread from the municipality, since the bombardment had made it too dangerous to travel for food.

The chef came from a family with deep roots in the area’s history. His grandmother, whom Hoteit interviewed months ago, is 88 years old and the mother of one of Douweir’s earliest local resistance fighters, killed by Israeli forces in 1985. The chef himself, Hoteit stressed, had no such ties.

“There are no legitimate targets in Lebanon. The Israelis are aggressors.”

The right question to ask when a strike hits, he says, is not who was targeted, but “why the hell are the Israelis in 2026 allowed to continue their genocide against our people.”

[jeremy scahill @jeremyscahill]

🚨Pakistan PM says a deal has been reached between the U.S. and Iran

[Barak Ravid @BarakRavid]

🚨President Trump told me: "Why did Bibi have to do a fucking attack? I was so pissee off. I let him know. He has no fucking judgement. I let him know that"

[Gregory Brew @gbrew24]

The UAE is releasing billions of dollars to Iran as part of a deal to reduce bilateral tensions and assist with reopening the strait.

It could be as much as $20 billion. $3 billion has already been delivered, confirming rumors from earlier this week.

The move comes after the emirates emerged as the single largest target for Iranian missiles and drones during the war.

From confrontation to accommodation. https://t.co/VDyadqw6wK

[Brian Tashman @briantashman]

Very sad. Israelis ran a fake charity purportedly to help children in Gaza that served as “a honeypot: a decoy built to attract people who wanted to help – in this case, by aiding Palestinians – and to take donors' money, their personal data or both.”

[Mairav Zonszein מרב זונשיין @MairavZ]

Everyone spotlighting that Israel is not a party to the emerging and feeble MOU btw Israel and Iran, please note: Israel will try to use the fact that it is excluded to claim at some later date that it is not bound by it and that it does not need comply with it.

[Jonathan Cook @Jonathan_K_Cook]

Israeli lawyer Ben Marmarelli says Palestinian prisoners he represents beg him not to visit because they're raped each time he is due to meet them.

This is a scene from Al Jazeera's shocking new documentary on Israel's systematic use of rape.

[The Zen Corner 🌎 @TheZenCorner]

@AJENews I thought it wasn’t a war lol

[Seyed Mohammad Marandi @s_m_marandi]

While the US made a noticeable concession in the text of the agreement on Wednesday and presented it to Iran through the Qatari mediator, it also launched a media and intimidation campaign to suggest that Iran had backed down under the threat of bombardment.

But now, in the real world, Trump has backed down, accepted the same text from two weeks ago, and is awaiting final approval from Iranian officials.

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

Bombshell from Haberman and Swan:

Trump wanted the Epstein issue buried and snapped at anyone who mentioned it.

In the days before WSJ published that Epstein birthday book scoop, Trump tried to quash the story by calling Rupert Murdoch, News Corp.'s chief executive, and The Journal's editor in chief.

He failed. https://t.co/FRS0DNATAh