The Zen Corner 🌎

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

[Stephen Semler @stephensemler]

The US fired an estimated 609 ballistic missile interceptors to defend Israeli territory from October 2023 through September 2026.

The US has fired more interceptors to defend Israel than Israel has.

[VANITY FAIR @VanityFair]

“In late spring 2020, a source I knew to be reliable called me with a story,” writes Matthew Cole. “The Dutch government had hacked into Jared Kushner’s phone and monitored him as he accessed a Dubai-based bank account. What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan. Most importantly, Kushner appeared to have transferred significant amounts of money from the Dubai account to other individuals, including a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man. The story sounded preposterous, I told my source. And yet.

Six months later, I found myself speaking with someone else about the UAE government and their use of mercenaries in conflicts around the Middle East and Africa when I asked, on a whim, whether they knew anything about Kushner and bank transfers from a UAE account. My acquaintance grew quiet. Then they replied, ‘Yes.’” Kushner’s lawyer denied the bank account existed.

Read an exclusive excerpt from Cole’s book, ‘Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East’: https://t.co/PRoWgY5pSo

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Aside from the shocking substance of this story, what's amazing is how it was unearthed by Cole. The short version: The Russians were able to penetrate Jared Kushner's iPhone and extract screenshots and data. Then, a Russian intel official was captured by Dutch intelligence (!) and flipped. The Dutch believed Kushner may have been acting on behalf of Russia, so pursued him as an intel target and were able to get into his phone.

They did not find any evidence of Russian collusion, instead they watched him moving hundreds of millions of dollars from slush funds created by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, one of them housed in Israel's central bank.

Incredible reporting, and if Democrats have any sense, they will pull on these threads and learn a lot more about this money.

[Variety @Variety]

President Donald Trump says Google rejected his request to rename the Atlantic Ocean on Google Maps:

• Trump said he “seriously looked at” renaming the Atlantic Ocean and called Google CEO Sundar Pichai to ask whether Google Maps would reflect the name change.

“I said, ‘Sundar, I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean. Can you handle it?’” Trump recalled. According to Trump, Pichai responded: “No, no, no — this time I’m not doing it… Oceans are different, sir. They cover really a lot of countries. Please don’t ask us to do that.”

• Trump said he would “probably pass” on trying to rename the Atlantic Ocean after the conversation.

https://t.co/C4Hbsd8sq2

[Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 @PollTracker2024]

Swamp Watch: Three male escorts say the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) paid them for sex.

One of them was only 17 at the time.

[Trita Parsi @tparsi]

Elections are only 6 days away in Israel, so obviously Netanyahu signals he will start another disastrous war...

I would take this very seriously.

[Kenneth Roth @KenRoth]

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Navi Pillay has called for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand trial for genocide in Gaza. https://t.co/0b3ECHFEgo

[Ruwa Romman @ruwaromman]

“The landowner was informed that he must coordinate the olive harvest on his plot of land and was provided with the relevant contact information to arrange a harvest at a later date.”

***his plot of land***

[Jeremy Diamond @JDiamond1]

Journalist/activist @the_andrey_x — who filmed the assault on WaPo’s Heidi Levine last week — was just arrested by Israeli forces.
Dozens of other Jewish solidarity activists, including @bradlander & @rabbis4HR activists, were also detained at another olive grove in the West Bank

[julie k. brown @jkbjournalist]

She got $50 million ! For arranging a pardon!! $50 million. $50 million.
$50 million.

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

Twelve soldiers + police showed up in Taybeh olive field to stop a single Palestinian olive farmer from harvesting a single tree. After harassing him for 30+ minutes, a car full of some sort of special police officers stormed in and violently arrested the journalist/activist @the_andrey_x. One of the arresting officers shoved me, then showed me his bloody elbow and said I did it to him. (So if they take me next, that’s probably their pretense.) Second and third videos are other angle of the shove (including it here to be safe). Fourth video is from just before—the major military operation to stop a farmer from picking olives. Fascist state.

[Scott Stedman @ScottMStedman]

Seems like the public has a right to know who controls the actual operations of U.S. military satellites.

[The Zen Corner 🌎 @TheZenCorner]

How could anyone vote for this?

[Acyn @Acyn]

Trump: The Democrats are the party of Abdul Mohammad El Sayed. He got very upset because I called him Mohammed. I can call him whatever the hell I want. If you call somebody from that part of the world, Mohammed, you're about 65% sure to get it right. So if you have any problem with names, just call the guy Mohammed.

[Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoor]

"The reason I keep bringing up the Palestinians throwing rocks to protect Heidi is because, I mean, I can’t emphasize enough how much these young men are . . . Yesterday, they put their lives on the line. There were soldiers there, and soldiers will shoot when somebody is throwing rocks. These young men put their lives on the line to protect a sixty-three-year-old Jewish American journalist. And, I mean, these guys are heroes. If they were not doing that, so many villages would’ve been overtaken. They are literally the only defense. [On Saturday] I was in a village called Jalud, and the exact same thing happened. We got attacked by settlers, and it was these young men, whom we call the shabab, who fought them back with rocks. And the reason I just want to put a fine point on this is because, for me, just in terms of where things are going with Israel-Palestine politically, I think that a sort of discursive shift in how we talk about Palestinians’ right to defend themselves needs to happen." @infinite_jaz to @IChotiner

[Ami Dar @AmiDar]

Some things are complicated. This is not. The Israeli government could stop all settler terror in the West Bank within 24 hours. It very deliberately chooses not to.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

💢 "I don't know how a parent can raise such monsters," American photojournalist Heidi Levine said from her hospital bed in Ramallah after masked Israeli settlers beat her in the West Bank on Friday.

"They are Jewish terrorists," the Washington Post freelancer said. She
was attacked while covering the olive harvest in Abu Falah. Levine said the settlers pushed her to the ground and kicked her "probably 50 times" over about 10 minutes, tearing her cameras and phone off her. She said her flak jacket and helmet likely saved her life before Palestinian colleagues and medics evacuated her by ambulance.

"Sadly, none of them will be prosecuted," she said. "I am sure of it."

[jasper nathaniel @infinite_jaz]

The IDF provided cover, with tear gas and machine guns, while the settlers beat @washingtonpost journalist Heidi Levine nearly to death. Then the IDF shot a Palestinian bystander, and aimed their guns and shoved the paramedics who were trying to treat him. All of this documented.

[A New Policy @anewpolicyorg]

‼️Israeli firm placed millions of inoccuous online ads (including via Google Ads) that implanted Candiru spyware in thousands of phones and computers - targets included Palestinians and the Pentagon.

[Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof]

A searing account in @972mag of torture of Palestinian children in Israeli custody.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

⭕️ Israeli reservist tells Der Spiegel his unit killed Palestinians who approached hidden positions, then logged them as terrorists

The soldier, who spent about 250 days in Gaza, described a procedure his unit often used called “Alman Kasch,” in which troops take up concealed positions in areas that have not been evacuated and open fire on anyone who comes near.

“If Palestinians, who do not know that our soldiers are there, approach, they are shelled. Usually other people come along who want to help, they are also shot at. Within a few minutes, five, six or seven people are killed. The protocol says: seven terrorists eliminated. But no, it’s just seven people who crossed an intersection. Important: We do not kill, we eliminate. That’s how we’ve always phrased it.”

He said his brigade killed 160 to 170 people during more than 80 days in the Netzarim corridor, where “there were no fighting, no attacks by Hamas.”

“Only one man was suspected to carry a gun. No one saw the gun, it was night, and he had something with him that could have been interpreted as a weapon. He was killed about 500 meters north of the corridor, so he was not a direct danger, and we never examined his body. But not only him, but all these dead were reported as terrorists.”

The soldier is one of ten who gave testimony to Der Spiegel.