Qassam kills two girls - in Gaza

Yes, those rockets that were dismissed as "Christmas firecrackers" by PLO UN representative Mohammad Abu-Koash have killed again. Just this time, the victims were two Palestinian Arab girls:

A rocket apparently fired by Palestinians on Friday struck a house in the Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian sisters aged five and 13, Palestinian medics said.

Hamas police said they were investigating the cause of the blast in Beit Lahiya village in northern Gaza, which medics said seemed to be due to a rocket aimed at Israel that had misfired.

Earlier in the day, a seriously wounded 35-year-old Palestinian man, hurt by a misfired rocket on Tuesday, was taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment.

Apparently, Christmas came a little late to Gaza this year.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now 226, with 28 of them being children.

And the number of Arabs seriously injured and killed by Qassams since the latest escalation is far higher than the number of Israelis, even though the number of rockets that fall short seem to be perhaps in the 5% range.

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Funhouse mirror news

JERUSALEM, December 26 (FMN) - The UN today stepped up its pressure on the Arab world to send humanitarian aid to the besieged residents of Sderot, suffering under years of constant rocket bombardment from Iranian-backed Arabs.

"The brave people of the Negev are being forced out of their homes, in what can only be called ethnic cleansing," stated UN General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. "This slow genocide is being ignored by the world at large, and the Arab world is responsible."

The Arab world have been enforcing a siege on Israel for over sixty years. Basic humanitarian items are not allowed into Israel from most Arab countries, and Israel is likewise banned from selling its own goods to its neighboring states, hurting the economy of the tiny nation.

"Legally, Israel is suffering under occupation, as the Arab states control all of Israel's land borders," stated Brockmann. "In addition, there are hundreds of Arab settlements in Israel itself, which have been the major obstacle to peace for decades."

"The Arab treatment of Jews and Israelis can only be described as a form of apartheid," said former US president Jimmy Carter as he visited Ashkelon in a solidarity visit. "Israel, one of the most crowded nations in the world, has been forced to give more and more land to the expansionist Arabs over the past decades, and it gets nothing in return. Peace requires full normalization, and I am disappointed that even Egypt and Jordan continue to incite against Jewish national self-determination."

"Israel has turned into an open-air concentration camp," asserted peace activist Lauren Booth last month. "The Israeli economy is being constrained by the Arab boycott of Israel, which is still largely in force. The occasional 'peace' treaties and tiny trickle of trade is just a facade by the Arab world meant to cover up their humanitarian crimes against the peaceful people of Israel and their aims to shrink Israel's land area into nothingness."

While all of Israel suffers from the Arab blockade, it is the residents of Sderot who are suffering the most lately from indiscriminate rocket attacks by the Iranian-funded Arabs of Gaza.

UN Human Rights investigator Richard Falk called the rocket attacks "a crime against humanity" and demanded that "the Arab states, flush with oil money, must provide Sderot residents with basic needs, like rocket shelters, psychologists and medical professionals."

"For sixty years, the Arab nations have conspired to block Jews from being able to return to their land. They have started overt and covert wars against the only Jewish state. The few Jews who remain in Arab countries suffer from official and unofficial discrimination.

"Hundreds of resolutions against the systematic Arab attempts to destroy Israel have been ignored by these expansionist states, and Israel remains besieged even after so many years. How long will the world remain silent?"

Academics such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have also noted that world opinion tends to support the so-called "Arab Lobby" even as the genocidal intent of the Arab world is explicitly stated in their media and mosques. "The Arab influence on world governments is directly proportional to power of the Arab economy, which influences businesses and politicians in ways that can only be described as insidious. As a direct result, simple moral values become muddled as the Arab world works hard to influence the agendas of Western nations, to remarkable success," stated Walt in a lecture in Munich last Sunday.

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Pakistan Taliban threatens to kill schoolgirls

From the al-Arabiya:

Taliban leaders in Pakistan's troubled northwest Swat valley have banned girls from attending school, threatening to kill any female student, officials said Thursday.

The threat was delivered this week by local Taliban commander Shah Durran in an address carried on an illegally-run radio station in the area, local officials told AFP.

"You have until Jan. 15 to stop sending your girls to schools. If you do not pay any heed to this warning, we will kill such girls," one official quoted the commander as saying.

An official at the Pakistani education ministry said there are about 1,580 schools registered in Swat -- once known for its top-flight schools.

"Already Taliban militants have destroyed 252 schools, mainly those where girls and boys were studying together," official Naeem Khan said.

The Pakistan Daily Times adds:

Locals say they are helpless and have no other option but to accede to the Taliban’s pressure as the government has failed to provide them with securuty.

“This is terrible,” the principal of a private school in Mingora told Daily Times, requesting that the name of his school should not be mentioned as that would risk his life and property.

He said the Taliban decision had proved that the government had lost its writ in the valley. “This is the question of the future of our children. The Taliban decision will throw more than 40,000 girls out of schools,” he said.

Although AFP reported this a day ago, only a handful of Western media outlets have picked up on this - and, as far as I can tell, none in the United States.

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Hamas continues to claim it only targets military

Hamas' absurd claims that it only targets military targets get even more ridiculous in its latest broken-English press release:

Al Qassam Brigades announeced in statement issued About the expected agression on Gaza by the zionist forces sad "Thousands of the Zionists who lived in the military bases will be in the range of Qassam firing".

The palestinian Resistance resumed firing Qassam Rockets after relatively quiet night, the Zionist sources claimed that on Thursday morning a Qassam rocket fired at what so-called the military base "Sha'ar Hanegev".

As always, the Zionist sources clamied that there were no reports of injuries in the base, also the resistance managed to target the base in previouse tome, several mortar shells landed in the area without causing injuries as the Zionist sources claimed..

About two hours later, two additional blasts were heard in the Sa'ar Hanegev Regional Council, but the rockets' landing site was not located. The Salah al-Din Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committee's military wing, claimed responsibility for the rockets.

Yesterday, Al Qassam Brigades announced its responsibility on some operations, part of the operations were a the folowing:

Operation	Target
(3) mortars	Military base "Kfar Azza"
(3) mortars	Military base "Natif Etzra"
(3) mortars	Military base "Zikeem"
(5) mortars	Military base "Third Eye"
(7) mortars	Military base "Al-Ersal" [Erez crossing - EoZ]
(6) mortars	Military base "Nir Oz"
(19) mortars	"Karm Abu-Salim" [Kerem Shalom - EoZ]
(2) mortars	Military base "Malaka"

But if they happen to kill some kids, well, that's reason to celebrate as well!

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Free speech, PalArab-supporter style

I just saw another typical Israel-bashing website that masquerades as a Google News source called "Palestine Think Tank - Free Minds for a Free Palestine."

As can be expected, it celebrates previous terror attacks against Israel (calling it "resistance") but publicly claims that current "resistance" be non-violent - not because terrorism is immoral, but because at this point in time it looks really bad to the stupid Western nations who still abhor murdering Jews for no good reason.

For a site that uses the word "free" so freely, it has an interesting caveat in its comment policy:

Comments containing Zionist propaganda...will not be approved.

Apparently, the ediors of this "news" source are so afraid that some truth might leak out in the comments that they'd rather censor it ahead of time.

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Open thread!

Today's thread is red and green.

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"Nittel-nacht"

It was not that long ago that Jews who lived in Europe dreaded Christmas Eve.

That night was known as "nittel nacht," and traditionally local Christians would attack Jews during that night. As a result, the Chassidic communities of Europe came up with a set of customs for that night, mostly for self-protection.

Here is a very comprehensive article about it.

In 1905, a Cleveland writer named Martha Wolfenstein published a set of short stories, written for the general public, about various Jewish topics, and one of her stories seems to be a fairly accurate description of how nittel nacht was experienced in Bohemia in the mid-1800s. Although nothing tragic occurs in this story, some of its matter-of-fact depictions of daily anti-semitism that European Jews had to endure are jarring - as well as their dreams to return to Jerusalem, where they would no longer have to worry about such things.

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Today's unreported Palestinian Arab news

But will they call it "homemade?": An apparent Qassam rocket fell short in Gaza, hitting the house of a journalist and seriously injuring his brother, a 37-year old lawyer.

Target rich environment: Islamic Jihad will hold a rally tomorrow to celebrate its part in terrorizing Jews. It will be held at Nuseirat, on Salah al Din Street, at 3 PM.

Paper threats: Israel is said to have dropped thousands of leaflets to Rafah, warning tunnel owners that Israel will start bombing them in 48 hours.

Cairo worries: The Governor of Northern Sinai warns that any Israeli actions in Gaza could trigger the flight of thousands of Gazans into Egypt. Nothing could be worse for a country than having to accept Palestinian Arabs in their midst, right?

Holy Shiites: As relations between Cairo and Tehran grow more strained, more Egyptians are criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood for their ties to Iranian Shiites.

Gleeful jihadist mathematics: Hamas claims to have shot 54 mortars, 24 Qassams and 2 Grad missiles in 24 hours, in what it is calling Operation Oil Stain. This does not include rockets and mortars from Islamic Jihad, the PRC and the other terror groups. Interestingly, I have not yet seen any Fatah faction claim responsibility for any rockets.

Strike back at capitalism: Hamas has set up a hotline number for Gazans to inform on their fellow residents if they charge "monopolist" prices on any smuggled goods. If there are any Gazans you want to see harassed by Hamas, just call the local number 282-5247.

We'll see if any media picks these stories up, as Arutz-7 apparently did yesterday an hour after I posted. They really should pay me.

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The Jewish Kabbalistic Festivus Santa Conspiracy

I just saw a long article, indexed in Google News, from some crackpot place called Gather.com, which attempts to ascribe magic Kabbalistic and Masonic rites to many famous people, as a precursor to (what else?) total world domination.

While the article itself is filled with the usual unintelligible anti-semitism and gibberish, I will point out only its Seinfeld sections.

Among the most notorious of cabalists are the TV comedy stars of the once #1rated "The Jerry Seinfeld Show." The producer of the Seinfeld show was Larry David, a Jew, all four of the cast were Jews, and cabalistic hand signs, occult language, and magic rituals were covertly planted in many episodes.

Michael Richards, who portrayed the klutzy "Kramer" in Seinfeld, also seems to relish giving cabalistic and Masonic hand signs and gestures. Richards was pictured on the front cover of the Scottish Rite Journal, and inside the publication, he told of how pleased he is to be a Freemason.

Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld strikes a decidedly cabalistic pose. It is well-known in entertainment circles that Jerry Seinfeld—indeed, all of the performers on TV's popular Seinfeld sitcom-practice cabala magic and ritual.

According to Forbes magazine in 1998, Jerry Seinfeld made a whopping total of $225 million on the comedy circuit. And that's no joke! (Photo and article: Austin American-Statesman, September 9, 1998, p. A14)

Again we discover the comedy team from Seinfeld teaming up to present cabalistic messages. [click on picture to see all the messages explained - EoZ]

Observe the V in Michael Richards' ("Kramer") leg and in Julia Louis-Dreyfuss' ("Elaine") arm; the circle that Richards makes with the fingers of his left hand, the "X" made by the intersecting hands and wrists of Richard and Louis-Dreyfuss; the descendant triangle sign of Jason Alexander's ("George") hands, and so on.

The entire article is unintentionally hilarious; in it we see that Yasir Arafat, Malcolm X, David Rockefeller and Ben Stiller, among many others, were all practitioners of Kabbalah because they were found photographed with their arms clasping each other, or one finger in the air, or pretty much any pose you can think of.

Which makes me think that Festivus is really a Masonic/Jewish conspiracy to co-opt Christmas, and Santa Claus himself is a Jewish Kabbalist Mason!

The evidence is clear if you carefully examine Santa's magic hand gestures:

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Hamas pretending that they only target soldiers

Hamas is publicly maintaining the fiction that it only fires rockets and mortars at military targets.

They claim responsibility for 26 Qassam rockets, two Grad missiles and 11 mortars today, yet even as the rockets are hitting near schools and shopping malls, Hamas is claiming that every single rocket and mortar is aimed at "military bases":

2008-12-24 Al Qassam Brigades fired seven mortars at the military base "Al Ersal"
2008-12-24 Al Qassam Brigades fired four mortars at the military base "Nir Oz"
2008-12-24 Al Qassam Brigades fired twenty four Qassam rockets at the military Bases near Gaza strip
2008-12-24 Al Qassam Brigades fired four Qassam rockets at the military site "Nitifot"
2008-12-20 Al Qassam Brigades targeted two military bases east of Rafah with (6) mortars
2008-12-13 Al Qassam Brigades targeted Zionist special force east of Khanyounis city
2008-12-08 Al Qassam Brigades targeted a military jeep east of Jabalya camp
2008-12-03 Al Qassam Brigades shelled the military site inside Nahal Oz base with two mortars
2008-12-03 Al Qassam Brigades shelled the Zionist military bases Huleet and Sofa with (6) mortars
2008-12-03 Al Qassam Brigades shelled the military base Nir Oz & the Third Eye with five mortars
2008-12-02 Al Qassam Brigades shelled Zionist soldiers east of Rafah city with (8) mortars
2008-12-02 Al Qassam Brigades shelled Zionist soldiers east of Rafah city with (5) mortars
2008-11-29 Al Qassam Brigades shelled Zionist military sites near Gaza with (10) mortars
2008-11-28 Al Qassam Brigades 5 mortars at the Zionist soldiers east of Khanyounis

This seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Earlier this year, Hamas was scolded by Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri (a medical doctor, Jimmy Carter would be gratified to hear) who was dismayed that "the blessed Qassam rockets don’t differentiate between a child and an adult, and moreover, perhaps [don’t differentiate] between the Jews and the Arabs and Muslims working in those colonies or in the streets and markets of Occupied Palestine, even though the Shari’ah forbids their killing."

Hamas responded that "Hamas doesn't mean to kill children by its rockets."

So even though the Hamas statements last month doesn't pretend that Sderot or Ashkelon are military targets:

2008-11-14 Al Qassam Brigades fired eight rockets at Sderot settlement
2008-11-14 Al Qassam Brigades fired eight rockets at Sderot settlement
2008-11-05 Al-Qassam Fires Four Qassams at Asqalan

, and even though their statements from a year ago are explicit that they are targeting "settlements" or "occupied towns," today they have changed their wording and call Sderot a "base" rather than a "settlement" and pretend that they target an armaments factory in Ashkelon.

Hamas certainly does not want to be accused of violating Sharia law. If Muslims can credibly attack Hamas on purely theological basis, they are left with no reason to exist; they can no longer claim to be more moral than their rivals. So we see Hamas desperately spinning even their naked attacks on Israeli civilians as if they are Islamically halal.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell, every single Palestinian Arab killed by Israel in Gaza so far since November has been a member of either Hamas or Islamic Jihad - not a single civilian has been killed.

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Gaza children seriously injured - by Qassams!

The people that have been seriously injured the most by the most recent Qassam barrages have not been Israelis, but Palestinian Arab children!

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights details the circumstances of five recent injuries:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 16:15 on Monday, 22 December, 2008, 3-year-old Myassar Mousa Wahdan, was injured in the abdomen and chest and her 5-year-old brother, Mohammed, was injured in the head by shrapnel from a locally produced rocket that was fired by members of the Palestinian resistance. The rocket fell on agricultural land near Beit Hanoun Agriculture College in the north to Beit Hanoun town in the northern Gaza Strip. The two children were immediately transferred to Beit Hanoun Hospital for treatment. Medical sources described the wounds of Myassar as serious and reported that she was admitted into the intensive care unit. The wounds of Mohammed were described as moderate.

In another incident, at approximately 17:30 on Sunday, 21 December, 2008, Hanan Sohwail, 32, was lightly wounded by shrapnel to the right hand when a locally produced rocket exploded near her house in al-Zaytoun quarter in the west of Beit Hanoun Town. She was immediately taken to Beit Hanoon Hospital for treatment.

At approximately 14:40 on Saturday, 20 December, 2008, a locally produced rocket fired by members of the Palestinian resistance fell near a group of children who were playing in a bystreet to the east of the industrial zone, west to Beit Hanoon town. Shrapnel from the rocket wounded two children. The two children were taken to Beit Hanoun Hospital for treatment and then transferred to the intensive care unit at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, since their wounds were serious. The two children were identified as Sari Mana’a al-Sama’ana, 9, and Safi 'Eid al-Sama’ana, 8.

Where are the bleeding hearts who cry over every Palestinian child injured by the heartless Zionist interlopers? Where are the journalists who even find out about these incidents?

The above episodes were not reported in any Arabic or English-language news source that I am aware of. The idea of Arab children being maimed by Palestinian Arab rockets is simply not considered newsworthy.

Qassam rockets meant to kill and injure Jewish children are more effective against the very people that terror groups insist to the world they are defending.

(I erroneously wrote 5 children injured at LGF, not four children and an adult, but I cannot edit it.)

UPDATE: Arutz-7 wrote about this an hour after I posted it, using the same terminology - that more Gaza children were hurt than Jews. What a coincidence!

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Gaza priest cancels Christmas mass, blames Israel

The ultimate dhimmi of Gaza, Father Manuel Musallam, plays the role of the Grinch in this year's heartwarming Christmas play - and predictably blames Israel:

Catholic priest, Father Manuel Musallam, who is in charge of the Holy Family Church in Gaza Strip, confirmed on Wednesday cancellation of the Midnight Mass in protest against the siege Israel imposes on the Gaza Strip and the recent Israeli threats and escalation.

Father Manuel told Ma’an, “Midnight Mass has been cancelled because Israel prevented Christian clerics from heading to Bethlehem. The Midnight Mass will be replaced with a silent gathering at the Holy Family School.” He called on Christians in the Gaza Strip to partake in a sit-in strike at the Holy Family School where normal prayers will be read.

Follow this logic: because Israel doesn't allow him to leave Gaza whenever he wants, he will punish Gazan Christians and cancel Christmas mass!

It will be recalled that Father Musallam made clear last year that for him, Palestinian Arab politics trumps Christianity:

"Of course, I am a Christian believer, but politically I am a Palestinian Muslim. I resist Israel's military occupation, obviously not with weapons.

"The Jihad can never be mine but with my words, my sermons, I am a Palestinian priest."

We see this year exactly what that means. Just like Hamas, Father Musallam will punish his own people to score political points against Israel.

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Another work accident!

The supposedly unbiased Palestinian Arab Ma'an newspaper has a curious article this morning:

Three Palestinians were killed during a military operation near the Israeli-Gaza border in the north of Gaza and another two during a separate mission in the south-central region.

A statement from Hamas confirmed the death of three activists from their Al-Qassam Brigades. A statement from the group said the three were on a mission near the Israeli town of Netiv Ha’asara on the northern border with the Gaza Strip. They were identified as Muhammad Ma’ruf, Ahmad Abu Al-Ma’azza and Raed Al-Masri.

The statement also detailed the death of two other Al-Qassam activists, who were performing a "mission of Jihad” east of Al-Qarara in the southern Gaza Strip. The two slain activists were named as Islam Jadallah and Muhammad Al-Halabi.

Does it sound like all five were killed by Israel? Both groups were on a Jihad mission when killed, so what else could it be?

Ma'an knows very well what happened. The first group was killed by the IDF while trying to plant explosives at the border fence, and the second group was killed when they accidentally blew themselves up.The Hamas statement is pretty clear to anyone who has ever read such statements. Ma'an is trying to pump up the number of "martyrs" to incite public opinion for Hamas and against Israel, and here was a convenient opportunity.

Another Hamas member was injured in a different "mysterious explosion" as well.

The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 224.

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Those Hamas scientists

A few days ago I mentioned that Jimmy Carter emphasized the secular nature of the Hamas leadership he met in Damascus, stressing that they were "scientists, medical doctors, or engineers – none trained in religion".

His point was to make Hamas terrorists seem more like Westerners, to show how much we have in common and to downplay the extremist Islamic aspects of the group - in other words, to deny their very raison d'etre in an attempt to legitimize them to his Western audience. The implication is that anyone who stresses the Islamic extremist nature of Hamas is somehow a bigoted Islamophobe.

To Western audiences, of course, Hamas will downplay their religious component as well. Carter is perhaps the most prominent of their useful idiots but hardly the only one - the entire Free Gaza movement and the ISM all firmly fall into the same category.

Which makes this morning's story from Al Hayat all the more interesting. As YNet reports:

Hamas has recently passed a radical Islamic bill ushering whipping, dismembering and execution as standard punitive action into the Gaza penal code, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat reported Wednesday.

The bill is made up of 214 subsections. Section 59 states that "any Palestinian found guilty of raising a weapon against Palestine in favor of the enemy; countering Palestine's interests in a negotiation with a foreign government; and placing Palestine's existence in danger by committing an act of aggression against a foreign country... will be sentenced to death."

A similar fate awaits anyone found guilty of the following: "Joining a foreign army fighting Palestine or facilitating such action; demoralizing the Palestinian people to any of its resistance movements; spying on Palestine or engaging in espionage during wartime."

Section 84 stipulates that anyone found guilty of "drinking to making wine will be subjected to 40 lashes… drinking and harassing the public will be punishable by 40 lashes and three months in jail."

The whip will be used on anyone "engaging in games of chance, offending religious beliefs and defaming others' character," as well.

The bill also calls for dismembering – mostly of the hands – of anyone convicted of theft.

Will Jimmy publicly criticize this? Of course not - that would be "Islamophobia" too!

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Saudi Vice, episode 22: A Hard Day's Night

A vigilant citizen of Saudi Arabia, who moonlights as an informant for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, suspected something was amiss at his local pharmacy. Something was wrong.

Something was haraam.

The patriotic citizen suspected that the pharmacy was selling "unlicensed" anti-impotence drugs.

To make things even worse, these sales were occurring in the Holy City of Mecca (Makkah).

If these had been any other kinds of unlicensed drugs, no doubt the citizen would have reported it to the local police. But since these drugs are associated with behavior that could be considered immoral (if you have a particularly dirty mind,) he instead called the Religious Police.

Our heroes of the Muttawa wasted no time in rising to the challenge.

They arranged a "sting" operation that was sure to be painful for the violator.

A member of the religious police, no doubt whistling while trying to act nonchalant, asked the pharmacist is he had any medicines that could help his embarrassing erectile dysfunction problem.

The pharmacist insisted he had no such drugs.

But our undercover hero returned, whining about his inability to perform and begging for any help the druggist could provide to prevent this man's eternal shame and dishonor. When couched in such terms, the pharmacist had no choice but to try to accommodate the request, so he sent a trusted aide to fetch the magic pills from a warehouse.

Upon the assistant's return, the trap was sprung. A team of highly-trained religious police swooped down and arrested the pharmacist and his assistant. They also raided the warehouse and confiscated large quantities of similar contraband, so they can destroy it (or, perhaps, use them for purely scientific experiments - double blind studies and the like.)

Thanks to the Muttawa, the holy streets of Mecca are once again safe from horny Saudis.

All Saudi Vice episodes can be seen here. With this 22nd episode, we now have an entire season of SV!

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