+ The Defense Intelligence Agency raised Israel’s counterintelligence threat designation to “critical”—its highest internal level—amid evidence that Israeli espionage operatives have intensified their already habitual eavesdropping on U.S. officials. The targets of the Israeli spies include Washington’s internal deliberations, war strategies, and peace negotiations regarding the Middle East and Iran. The internal Pentagon assessment concluded that Israel has increased efforts to intercept communications of high-ranking American personnel, including Trump’s negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, as well as the US military commanders in the region. The report noted that U.S. personnel operating in Israel now rely on burner phones and disposable laptops to avoid eavesdropping.

+ Congressional hearings on reports of systemic Israeli espionage against the US would consist of members of Congress interrogating Pentagon officials on why they forced Israel to engage in covert spying for the secrets instead of just faxing them to Tel Aviv on request.

+ New York Post Columnist Miranda Devine: What do you say to people who claim Bibi Netanyahu tricked you into going into Iran?

Trump: They’re just the enemy. They’re dumbocrats. They want transgender mutilization [sic] of our children. He tricked me? I’m the one that started it. I’ll tell you what – if there wasn’t me, there would be no Israel right now.

+ “If there wasn’t a me…!”

+ Trump to Bibi: “I call the shots!” If he did, he wouldn’t feel compelled to say so…

+ It’s hard to believe the veracity of this reporting from Barak Ravid that a source told him Trump chewed out Netanyahu in a recent phone call over Israel’s ceaseless bombing of Lebanon: “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” A second source briefed on the call said Trump was “pissed” and at one point yelled at Netanyahu: “What the fuck are you doing?”

+ But if true, Netanyahu’s continued defiance of Trump only serves to illustrate his impotence. Given Ravid’s ties to the Israeli elites, perhaps Netanyahu leaked the story to show Israelis that he wasn’t Trump’s pawn.

+ This week, Israeli troops conducting raids in Hebron shot a seven-month-old, Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, in the head while he was held in his mother’s arms. The baby-killing sniper will probably get a medal from Ben-Gvir.

+ Israel has killed more Palestinian children in the last 3 years than Palestinians have killed Israelis of any kind over the last 80 years.

+ Murtaza Hussain: “Trump needs to stop the war for his own political purposes, but does not seem capable of standing up to Netanyahu. This leads to the natural question of whether he has been compromised in some way or the Israeli infiltration and takeover of US institutions is already too advanced.”

+ Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch: “For the first time in two decades of polling, more Americans sympathize with Palestinians (41%) than Israelis (36%), a reversal from 55% to 26% in Israel’s favor before the October 7th attacks. Even 57% of Republicans aged 18 to 49 now disfavor Israel.”

+ Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos, who was interrogated by British police for attending a pro-Palestinian demonstration:  “What’s happening in Gaza is a Holocaust, and what’s being designed by Israel is the final solution to the Palestinian problem. As a Holocaust survivor, my reaction is: not in my name… brave people can resist.”

+ Gwyneth Paltrow enters the Zone of (Self) Interest…