How did I miss the fatwa against Spongebob????

From Ansamed:

 A dozen little girls, the older not even eight years of age, wore the Islamic veil when they posed around a Kuwaiti preacher who is visiting Tunisia to preach conservative Islam. The photos led to vibrant protests across the country with even 70 lawmakers in the Constituent Assembly signing a motion to condemn what the Tunisian association for the rights of minors slammed as a 'crime against children'. The little girls, the rights association said, were 'used to convey an idea which is far removed from our culture and the noble precepts of Islam' with a clear intention to indoctrinate the population.

The preacher at the centre of the controversy, Kamil Al Awhadi, said he did not come to Tunisia to change its society or impose religious choices.

Al Awadhi is known across the Middle East and North Africa thanks to his ability to use television to broadcast his ideas.

He is also well known for issuing a fatwa against cartoon character Sponge Bob accused of 'homosexuality' and of 'inducing children to pervert behaviour'.

He's posing with little girls whom he believes would be sexually enticing if they wouldn't wear a veil, and he says SpongeBob is perverted???

(h/t Ian)

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Sunday links: Iran currency drop, Yemen confirms arms ship was Iran's, Alibi Antisemitism

From Ian:

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Alibi Antisemitism
Israel has been made an alibi for a new climate of antisemitism on the left.

“It is a moral scandal that some few decades after the unmeasurable catastrophe that overtook the Jewish people in Europe, these anti-Semitic themes and ruses are once again respectable; respectable not just down there with the thugs but pervasively also within polite society, and within the perimeters of a self-flattering liberal and left opinion. It is a bleak lesson to all but those unwilling to see. The message of ‘never again’ has already proved to have been too sanguine. Genocides still occur. We now know, as well, that should a new calamity ever befall the Jewish people, there will be, again, not only the direct architects and executants but also those who collaborate, who collude, who look away and find the words to go with doing so. Some of these, dismayingly, shamefully, will be of the left.This is not a hopeful conclusion, but it is a necessary one. The best of hope in politics must always be allied to a truthful realism. We need to know what we are up against.”

Lessons from the Holocaust? Try these two
(An article by Daniel Finkelstein that appeared in today's Times)
The Jews have learnt all about Man’s inhumanity to Man. But also that you cannot rely on others to keep you safe.

• "Last week, in anticipation of Holocaust Memorial Day, David Ward, the Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, said that the Jews — my Mum, perhaps, her sisters — hadn’t learnt the lesson of the Holocaust. “It appears that the suffering by the Jews has not transformed their views on how others should be treated.” I’ll give my Mum a call when I have a moment and pass on his complaint.”

Israel Election: How The Pundits Got It Wrong
Many have failed to understand the currents of Israeli society - illustrated in the recent election and Holocaust Memorial Day.

"A similar lack of what is not really such a subtle argument, was shown by a cartoon in the Sunday Times depicting Mr Netanyahu as a big nosed, large-eared, bloodthirsty Jew cementing what appear to be screaming Arabs into a wall as blood oozes from the bricks.
On Holocaust Memorial Day this showed not just a lack of sensitivity, an echo of the blood libel, and a distortion of Holocaust iconography, but the belief that there is only one side in a peace process.
It was a cartoon version of Israel, a pictorial version of the analysts' predictions of the Israeli election and society. Wrong."

NYC Mayoral Candidate Bill Thompson Blasts Brooklyn College for Anti Israel BDS Event

"New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson ripped Brooklyn College Thursday for its plan to hold a BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) event against Israel with the co-sponsorship of the school’s political science department.
Speaking alongside Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a political heavyweight in the Brooklyn Jewish community, Thompson said, “Those are our taxpayer dollars. We should not be using those dollars to express hate.”

CAMERA: Maligning Israel at American Public Health Association Annual Meeting

"Why does an association formally devoted to improving the health of Americans not only concern itself with the Palestinian-Israeli situation – but also side with one (the Palestinian Arabs) against the other This is exactly what the American Public Health Association did in its recent (2012) 140th annual meeting's closing keynote speech delivered to hundreds of enthusiasts by Angela Davis.
Davis, who is professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz in what the school calls “the History of Consciousness Department,” was a member of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s, and U.S. Communist Party member until 1991 when dissolution of the Soviet Union took place. The party generally sided with the Russian-led Soviet Union against the United States.
Davis' obsession with Israel's alleged unfair treatment of Palestinian Arabs apparently leaves no room for focusing any attention on nearby Syria whose real human rights violations include killing tens of thousands of its own citizens in the last year or two, renewed Sunni-Shi'ite violence in Iraq, oppression of Coptic Christians in Egypt or any of the other numerous and statistically more significant examples of Arabs maltreating Arabs."

PA Asks Israel to Allow Terrorist into Areas it Controls
The PA is making efforts to bring the leader of a group that carried out a terror attack in Israel in 1974 into Judea and Samaria.

"The man, Nayef Hawatmeh, is the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), one of the main factions in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)."

Israeli civilian, soldier hurt in West Bank clashes
Dismantlement of protest camp turns violent as soldiers fire stun grenades at rock-throwing Palestinians near village of Burin

Yemen says intercepted ship carrying weapons was Iranian
Yemen confirmed on Saturday that a ship intercepted last month off its coast was an Iranian vessel trying to smuggle explosives and surface-to-air missiles to the country, the state news agency Saba reported.

'Failure to blacklist Hezbollah undermines security'
London conference discusses EU failure to list Hezbollah as terrorist organization as "undermining security goals."

"It is a “very bad thing that Hezbollah can operate in Europe regarding fund-raising and logistics,” US Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, a former coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department in the first Obama administration, said. Hezbollah’s legal status in the EU “undermines security goals,” he said."

Ex-Iran bank head busted with $70 million check
Tahmasb Mazaheri, who was governor of the Central Bank of Iran from 2007-2008, suspected of money laundering by German authorities

Iran's Currency Plummets to All-Time Low
Iran’s rial has plummeted to an all-time low, dropping more than 21 percent over two weeks.

Islamist threatens to attack Germany, Merkel: paper
A German Islamist has threatened to attack Berlin this summer and kill Chancellor Angela Merkel in a video posted on the Internet, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

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Also:

Not a Mistake, Misunderstanding, or Well-Intended Criticism But a Deliberate Campaign to Bash Israel (Barry Rubin)

Inventing words to demonize Israel (CJ News) (h/t Jason)

Linking Obligations with Rights at the UNHRC (Commentary - Evelyn Gordon) (h/t YM)

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Richard Falk justifies and supports Hamas rockets

I had missed this essay from December by Richard Falk.

It is always interesting to see a special rapporteur of the UN justify targeting Jews - and for a supposed expert on international law to say that the laws themselves are insufficient in allowing the right of Hamas to shoot rockets at Jewish civilians:

There is no doubt that Hamas’s reliance on rockets fired in the direction of Israeli civilian population centers are violations of international humanitarian law, and should be condemned as such, but even this condemnation is not without its problematic aspects. The Goldstone Report did condemn the reliance of these rockets in a typically decontextualized manner, that is, without reference to the unlawfulness of the occupation, including its pronounced reliance on collective punishment in the form of the blockade as well as arbitrary violent incursions, frequent military overflights, and a terrifying regime of subjugation that imparts on Palestinians a sense of total vulnerability and helplessness. The Goldstone Report also was silent as to the nature and extent of a Palestinian right of resistance. Such unconditional condemnations of Hamas as ‘a terrorist organization’ are unreasonably one-sided to the extent that Palestinian moral, political, and legal rights of resistance are ignored and Israel’s unlawful policies are not considered. This issue also reveals a serious deficiency in international humanitarian law, especially, as here, in the context of a prolonged occupation that includes many violations of the most fundamental and inalienable rights of an occupied people. The prerogatives of states are upheld, while those of peoples are overlooked or treated as non-existent.

It is also relevant to take note of the absence of alternative means available to the Palestinians to uphold their rights under international law and to challenge the abuses embedded in Israeli occupation policies. Israel with its drones, Apache helicopters, F-16 fighter aircraft, Iron Dome, and so forth enjoys the luxury of choosing its targets at will, but Palestinians have no such option. For them it is either using the primitive and indiscriminate weaponry at their disposal or essentially giving in to an intolerable status quo. To repeat, this does not make Hamas rockets lawful, but does it make such reliance wrong, given the overall context of violence that includes absolute impunity for Israeli violations of international criminal law? What are we to do with international law when it is invoked only to control the behavior of the weaker party?

It gives perspective to imagine the situation being reversed as it was during the Nazi occupation of France or the Netherlands during World War II. Resistance fighters were uniformly perceived in the liberal West as unconditional heroes, and no critical attention was given as to whether the tactics used unduly imperiled innocent civilian lives. Those who lost their lives in such a resistance were honored as martyrs. Mashaal and other Hamas leaders have made similar arguments on several occasions, in effect asking what Palestinians are supposed to do in the exercise of resistance given their circumstances, which have persisted for so long, given the failures of traditional diplomacy and the UN to secure their rights under international law.

Falk is admitting that Hamas terror rockets aimed at Israeli civilians are unlawful - but he cannot say that they are wrong! You see, Hamas is just like the French and Dutch resistance fighters!

The major argument Falk advances is that Khaled Meshal's statements in Arabic flatly stating his desire to destroy Israel should also be "contextualized" and his ambiguous statements to the Western media being misinterpreted as showing flexibility should be what we believe.

Oh, and he is again not above lying with statistics:

Although not the whole story, the one-sided ratio of deaths as between Israel and Palestine is a good first approximation of comparative responsibility over the period of Hamas ascendancy in Gaza, and it is striking. For instance, between the ceasefire in 2009 and the Israeli attack in November 2012, 271 Palestinians were killed and not a single Israeli. [B’Teselm [sic] report]

Actually, B'tzelem counts 4 Israeli fatalities from Gaza in that time period.

But moreover, looking at the details of B'Tselem's statistics for that time period, we see that the vast majority of Gazans killed were terrorists! 200 of them were either actively engaged in hostilities against Israel (165) or targeted as leaders of terror groups (35)! Of the remainder, a large percentage were either smugglers in tunnels killed during air raids, Arabs trying to sneak into Israel or found directly next to the perimeter fence, or rock-throwing protesters. (Also, 45 Gazans killed by other Gazans, and 14 executed by Hamas.)

Then again, why should anyone be surprised when someone who clearly supports terrorism as legitimate "resistance" is also a liar?

(h/t Missing Peace)

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Hezbollah member killed - apparently in Syria - doing his "Jihadist duty"

From Naharnet:

Hizbullah held a funeral on Saturday for Hussein Mohammed Nether in the southern town of Arabsalim, a member who died while “performing his Jihadi duty”, the party said in a released statement.

“The funeral procession marched from Ragheb Harb Hospital in Nabatieh towards Arabsalim where the martyr was buried,” it explained.

The procession was lead by party official Ali Daoun and the member of the central political bureau Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid, in addition to prominent figures in Hizbullah.

The party has been accused of allegedly sending members to fight alongside the Syrian army in the neighboring country's conflict.

The pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat reported in January that around 1,500 men are receiving salaries and being trained in the Bekaa camps to fight in Syria and defend Shiite villages and towns against the rebels.

Meanwhile, the Saudi al-Watan daily had reported that some 5,000 Hizbullah members have been fighting alongside regime troops in the restive suburbs of Damascus.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the fighters crossed the border into Syria last month. But they said that around 300 of them were killed in the fighting in the past few days.

That last figure seems high, but who knows?

The comments are worth reading with both sides truly hating each other.

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Egyptian paper denies, and then defends, Muslim Brotherhood anti-semitism

Al Mesryoon, a major Egyptian newspaper, has an article saying that the Muslim Brotherhood and its founder, Hassan al-Banna, were not anti-semitic but only anti-Zionist.

The author, Sawfat Hussein, brings proof from testimony that al-Banna gave towards the Anglo American Inquiry on Palestine in 1946, where he said that Islam had no problem with Jews, but only with Jewish immigration to Palestine.

Hussein then goes on to describe why the Brotherhood was against the Jews - of Egypt. The reason?

Well, we need to understand the context. 98% of those in the Egyptian Stock Exchange were Jewish. One third of the major industries in Egypt were owned by Jews.

Jews controlled the newspapers in Egypt at the time, and the newspapers they didn't control they indirectly controlled by how they advertised their Jew-goods.

Jews were also over-represented in the political sphere compared to their actual numbers.

And- get this - Jews in Egypt celebrated the Balfour Declaration!

Putting the facts together, you see that Egyptian Jews were of course a danger to Egypt and had to be fought against, and Hassan al-Banna was merely defending his country by issuing statements that might, on the surface, appear anti-semitic.

For example, Hussein notes, al-Banna published a pamphlet called "The risk of Jews in Egypt," where he warned of the Jewish domination of the economy, gold, major hotels and real estate, and their control of advertising and newspapers.

See? this is all perfectly understandable! No anti-semitism there!

In a 1938 pamphlet, al-Banna wrote that Jews of Egypt who enjoy wealth and prosperity and that while Muslims and Copts have held meetings and conferences supporting Palestinian Arabs the Jews did not. "Show me a Jew who attended a meeting or contributed to an [Arab]Palestine conference. Show me a Jew who marched in a demonstration or protested against the criminal acts in Palestine. Show me a a Jew who collected money or sent a donation to the mujahideen Arabs in Palestine," he wrote.

In 1947, al-Banna wrote a letter to a leading rabbi in Egypt, where he noted that the Egyptian government had pledged to protect Jews from rioters and protesters. Al-Banna said that he would love to believe that all Egyptian citizens were equal, but in fact "now we're in front of an international Zionist conspiracy to uproot Palestine from the body of the Arab nation...." and he threatened the Jewish community if they do not publicly support the Muslims of Palestine with their wealth and media.

Hussein says that it is eminently reasonable that anything less than full-fledged support by all Jews of the people who wanted to throw their co-religionists into the sea would be regarded as treasonous. But this isn't anti-semitism!

Hussein ends off saying that "It could be argued that the Muslim Brotherhood knew very well the difference between Judaism as an religion and the Jewish Zionist belonging to this political movement in theory, but they did not find a difference between the two in practice and the difficulty of finding a clear difference between Jews and Zionists" was the reason for any seeming anti-semitism in Egypt.

There you go!

(Of course, al-Banna in Arabic was far more explicitly anti-semitic than is even noted here, and he was an enthusiastic supporter of Nazism as a partner in his "anti-Zionist" positions. He also welcomed the Nazi collaborator the Mufti of Jerusalem who escaped war-crimes trials in Europe as being someone whose goals of exterminating the Jews outlived Hitler and would continue on. His group also translated Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion into Arabic.)

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At the same time that Al Mesryoon was publishing this subconscious Jew-hate in the guise of some sort of liberalism, it also published this article denying the Holocaust, calling it a "myth," "false propaganda," "lies" and "fantasies," saying that no more than a couple hundred thousand Jews were killed by the Nazis. They even say that Israeli Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer agrees that the six million number is very exaggerated - a claim seen on many anti-semitic sites - and one that is manifestly false.

Egyptian anti-semitism is so ingrained that they are completely blind to it. And it is far more public today than it was under the previous regime. (Here's another article from this weekend denying the Holocaust.)

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Sat. night links: AIJAC answers UNHRC, Hamas says women spread disease, the year in Egyptian fatwas

From Ian:

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AIJAC: Briefing on the Problematic UN Human Rights Council Report on Israeli Settlements

“A report on settlements in the West Bank, the commission of which spurred Israel's decision to cease cooperation with the Council, has just been released. Sadly, the Report entirely vindicates Israel's position on the matter. Its three authors began by determining Israel's guilt, then conducted an investigation into why it was, in fact, guilty. The research was lazy at best – with numerous unreferenced assertions and many very basic factual errors.
Most importantly, they made no effort whatsoever to provide any form of context or balance, or even to acknowledge that some of the allegations they were making were in any way controversial. They simply re-hashed a series of tired and repeatedly debunked accusations against Israel. Whatever legitimate criticisms were made in the report are buried so far down amid layers of unfounded invective as to make them near impossible to find, let-alone act on.
Below is an itemised critique of the Report, highlighting numerous examples of errors and misinformation:”

Waiting for Nobel
The relentless, obsessive focus on Israel is driving the world crazy

"Some, animated by anti-Semitism, use Zionism to express the oldest hatred. Others, overwhelmed by the Holocaust, cleanse their conscience by projecting Europe’s guilt on to the “new Nazis” of Israel. Still others, like the Swedish human rights official, adopt an anti-Israel stance by way of expressing solidarity with the Third World.
What they all have in common is that, at some point, they will have had to overcome (or overlook) a lorry-load of inconvenient truths. Fortunately, Israel remains unaffected. Its economy continues to grow faster than any other industrialised country; its universities remain world-class, as do its orchestras, artists, writers and poets. Its technicians continue to innovate and its scientists continue to win Nobel prizes."

MEMRI: Saudi Cleric, Justifies Killing Of U.S. Ambassador To Libya, Calls For Attacks On Airplanes, Praises Al-Qaeda

Columnist In Hamas Daily Calls To Limit Women's Movement Because They Spread Disease

Guardian analyst laments that Israel’s ‘far-right’ gov’t won’t make peace with global jihadists

“Progressive” global jihadists and “liberal” Hezbollah leaders are no doubt increasingly depressed about the prospect of having their peaceful acquisition of sophisticated Syrian arms stymied by the belligerent Jewish state."

Panetta suggests Washington fully backs Israeli strike on Syria
Outgoing defense secretary says US intent on preventing transfer of sophisticated weapons to terrorists, warns of Iran’s export of manpads

"During an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Panetta called Iran’s export of manpads — anti-aircraft missiles that can be carried by one person and that pose significant risks to airlines and military planes — an escalation."

Ahmadinejad unveils new homemade fighter jet
Iran’s defense minister touts Qaher-313 as a radar-evading plane that can carry weapons and fly at low altitudes

"The Qaher is one of several aircraft designs rolled out by the Iranian military since 2007. Tehran has repeatedly claimed to have developed advanced military technologies in recent years but its claims cannot be independently verified because the country does not release technical details of its arsenals."

Missing Peace: Egypt accuses Israel of sabotaging vital installations

"Relations between Egypt and Israel deteriorated further this week after an Egyptian attempt to link Israel to the actions of a new opposition group Black Bloc.
The Egyptian prosecutor general now says that a Black Bloc member was captured who was in the possession of an Israeli plan to sabotage fuel companies and vital sites.
Israel called the accusations utterly nonsense."

Egypt, 2012: The Year In Fatwas

"The fatwas issued in the year 2012—the year when Islamists, spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood, assumed formal power—are, as one would expect, markedly different, that is, much less restrained. The popular Egyptian Arabic website El-Watan News recently compiled a list of 2012’s most “notable” (a euphemism) fatwas. I translate a summary of their findings below, augmented with additional observations:"

Egypt: Clashes Near Presidential Palace
Protesters and security forces clash at the Egyptian presidential palace as thousands rally against President Mohammed Morsi.

Turkish Suicide Bomber Was Member of Outlawed Group
Suicide bomber who killed one person in an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara is a member of an outlawed leftist group.

Fundamentalists driving Christians out of Libya

Christians are being driven out of eastern Libya by Muslim fundamentalists, the Catholic Church’s main clergyman in the country told the Vatican missionary news agency Fides.
The situation was “critical” and the “atmosphere very tense” in the Cyrenaica region, the Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli said in the interview Thursday.

What’s Happening to Yemen’s Forgotten Christians

Unofficial statistics suggest that there are some 2,500 indigenous Christians in the nation, practicing their faith underground, even as hostile tribes surround them. According to human rights activist, Abdul Razzaq al-Azazi, “Christians in Yemen cannot practice their religion nor can they go to church freely. Society would work on having them enter Islam.”

Hungarian Holocaust Denier Ordered to Visit Auschwitz

Court orders first Hungarian convicted under a Holocaust denial law to visit Auschwitz or Yad Vashem.
The first Hungarian convicted under a new Holocaust denial law has been given a suspended 18-month jail sentence and has to visit Budapest's memorial museum, Auschwitz or Yad Vashem, a court ruled Friday.

'J'lem to aid non-Jewish Burgas victim's family'

Bulgarian media reports Israel to pay monthly stipend to daughter of bus driver killed in terror attack along with 5 Israelis.
Israel has offered to pay a monthly stipend to the daughter of the non-Jewish Bulgarian bus driver killed in a terror attack that targeted Israeli tourists in Burgas in July, the Sofia News Agency reported on Friday.

For Israel, droughts go down the drain

Water Authority credits desalination advances, more than this year’s remarkably wet winter weather, for country’s new water wealth
"The solution for the longstanding problem comes not from the clouds, which have provided generous amounts of rainfall this winter, but primarily from the sea — and the desalination technology that enables transforming its waters into something you can drink."

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Egyptians upset over police beating naked man on video

From Egypt Independent:

Dozens of protestors marched from Tahrir Square to the prosecutor general's office at the High Court to condemn security forces' stripping and beating of a protester yesterday during clashes in front of Ettehadiya Palace and to demand Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim's dismissal.

Protesters chanted “it is the same crisis ... the Brotherhood are a group of thieves” and “police are thugs," and held banners reading, “Morsy, leave with you Interior Minister” and “Mr. Prosecutor General, Morsy is attacking defenseless people.”

What happened?

Security forces dragged the protester through the streets, stripped him naked and beat him with batons before forcing him into an armored vehicle. The attack, which was captured by Al-Hayat satellite channel TV cameras, came amid clashes between security forces and opponents of President Mohamed Morsy's rule in front of the palace.

In a press statement, the ministry described the incident as an “individual act” that does not represent police or security forces on the whole, describing them as making every effort "to protect the nation's security and stability, and sacrifice their lives for the security of the citizen.”

The statement added that an investigation is underway and that it would announce its findings to the public.

But then, Egypt's old ways made a comeback:

Prosecutors are now claiming that Hamada Saber, who was dragged, stripped naked and beaten up in front of the Ettehadiya Presidential Palace, was actually assaulted by protesters, and that security forces were the ones that came to his rescue.

The Heliopolis Prosecution is alleging that Saber denied reports that security assaulted him. Prosecutors claim he told them that protesters assaulted him, thinking he was from the security forces because he was wearing black.

According to prosecutors, Saber was also initially beaten by security forces who thought he was a demonstrator.

The prosecutors' claims fly in the face of overwhelming reports and video evidence to the contrary. A video from the Al-Hayat satellite channel showed the protester being assaulted by security forces, and the Interior Ministry released a statement expressing regret over the incident.

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Did Israel destroy a bio-weapons site in Syria? Plus, Turkey takes Syria's side

That is what Time magazine says:

Israeli warplanes struck several targets inside Syria overnight Tuesday, including a biological weapons research center that was reportedly flattened out of concern that it might fall into the hands of Islamist extremists fighting to topple the government of Syrian president Bashar Assad, Western intelligence officials tell TIME.

So far only two airstrikes have been publicly reported, amid a flurry of conflicting initial reports. Syria officially complained of the destruction of the Scientific Studies and Research Center in Jamarya northwest of Damascus. And a variety of news organizations reported that Israeli jets hit a convoy carrying advanced anti-aircraft defense systems toward Lebanon’s Bakaa Valley, presumably for delivery to Hizballah, the militant Shi’ite group closely allied with the Assad regime. If they had been deployed, those SA-17 ground-to-air missiles would intimidated Israeli pilots who now operate over Lebanese airspace with impunity, forcing them to higher altitudes and other operational precautions.

A Western intelligence official indicated to TIME that at least one to two additional targets were hit the same night, without offering details. Officials also said that Israel had a “green light” from Washington to launch yet more such strikes.

Hizballah is not Israel’s only concern – or perhaps even the most worrying. Details of the Israeli strikes make clear the risk posed by fundamentalist militants sprinkled among the variegated rebel forces fighting to depose Assad. The jihadists are overwhelmingly home-grown Sunni militants but also include foreigners drawn to the fight from across the Muslim world. Loosely organized into several fighting groups, some fighters embrace the almost nihilist ideology associated with al-Qaeda. But jihadist groups are less vulnerable to the same levers that have proved effective against Syria and other states – such as threats to its territory — or even the frank interests of an organization like Hizballah, which as a political party plays a major role in Lebanon’s government.

“If we succeeded all these years to deter the Syrians and all the other surrounding countries that possess weapons of mass destruction [from making] use of it, it’s because we knew how to deliver the message, that the price would be very high,” Amnon Sofrin, a retired brigadier and former senior Mossad official, told reporters this week. “What kind of threat can you put in the face of a terror organization?”

In other words, it may be easier to attack the problem from the other side — simply destroy the weapons you’re afraid they’ll get their hands on. Among the buildings leveled at the military complex at Jamarya, outside Damascus, were warehouses stocked with equipment necessary for the deployment of chemical and biological weapons, relatively complicated systems typically manned by specially trained forces. The lab facilities dedicated to biological warfare were of special concern, given both the damage that can be done by even small amounts of biological agents, and the interest expressed in such weapons by Osama bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. No specific armed force was identified as threatening the compound. Intelligence officials said the concern was unconventional weapons “dripping” into control of extremists in the relative chaos of the rebel side.

One Western intelligence official told TIME the U.S. military was poised to carry out similar airstrikes around Aleppo if rebels threaten to take sites associated with weapons of mass destruction in that region.

...“I’m not going to give any condemnation of Israel or rush into any criticism,” British foreign secretary William Hauge told the BBC on Thursday. “There may be many things about it that we don’t know, or the Arab League or Russia don’t know.”

Meanwhile, from Hurriyet(Turkey):

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu criticized the Israeli raid in Syria this week, severely questioning Damascus' inaction on the aggression. "Why didn't [Bashar] al-Assad even throw a pebble when Israeli jets were flying over his palace and playing with the dignity of his country?" Davutoğlu told reporters on his way to Serbian capital Belgrade for a bilateral visit.

"Why didn't the Syrian Army, which has been attacking its own innocent people for 22 months now from the air with jets and by land with tanks and artillery fire, respond to Israel's operation? Why can't al-Assad, who gave order to fire SCUD missiles at Aleppo, do anything against Israel?" Davutoğlu said.
Davutoğlu said they did not know the precise circumstances of the raid but added that Turkey would not stay unresponsive to an Israeli attack against any Muslim country.

Davutoğlu also accused Syria's embattled leader of having made a secret deal with Israel. "Is there a secret agreement between al-Assad and Israel? Wasn't the Syrian army founded to protect its country and its people against this sort of aggression? The al-Assad regime only abuses. Why don't you use the same power that you use against defenseless women against Israel, which you have seen as an enemy since its foundation," he said.

The general rule is that Muslims defend other Muslims, no matter how sickeningly evil they are, when any non-Muslim attacks them.

NATO should take note.

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Hitler's toilet. In New Jersey.

From Tablet:

Florence, N.J., isn’t too different from other small towns in the Garden State, one marked, if anything, by a slew of very ordinary sights—chain flower shops at every major intersection, decidedly lower gas prices, and a few cozy diners. But it is also home to something else, acquired by Greg Kohfeldt when he bought Sam Carlani’s auto-repair shop here almost 20 years ago: Adolf Hitler’s toilet.

According to Kohfeldt, the toilet came off of Hitler’s biggest private yacht, the Aviso Grille, which was between 400 and 500 feet long, and at the time one of the biggest private boats in existence. “He wanted to ride it down the Thames in London and go live in Windsor Palace when he invaded,” Kohfeldt told me on a subzero morning last week as he pulled a sink—also from the ship, and now in pieces—out of a box and laid them out for me to examine each of the maker’s stamps and faucets. Another resident of Florence, Dick Glass—an expert on Hitler’s yacht—told me that the ship was armed, had a crew of 245 men, a private room for Eva Braun, and was bigger than J.P. Morgan’s ship Corsair. The Aviso Grille also played a significant role in one particular moment in history: Hitler’s Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz stood on the deck of the ship on May 1, 1945, and gave the first word of the Führer’s death and took command of Germany.

After the war ended, the Aviso Grille was taken to the United States and ended up in the hands of New Jersey shipyard owner Harry Doan, who illegally charged visitors 25 cents to board and tour Hitler’s Yacht. However, according to Glass, both Doan and the federal government wanted to prevent the ship from becoming a memorial to Hitler, and so it was scrapped in Doan’s salvage yard in the early 1950s.

At that point, Sam Carlani needed a new toilet. Doan, his close friend and poker buddy, told him he had one available.

...While Kohfeldt seems proud of his object’s notoriety, he seems remarkably unexcited by the fact that he owns Hitler’s toilet. This may be because the story of Hitler’s possessions in Florence only begins with his toilet.

When the ship came to the United States, it was taken apart, and many of the pieces were distributed throughout Florence. One man took the teak wood from the paneling on the yacht and built himself a porch. The American Legion Post 194 in Florence still has one of the tables from Hitler’s ship in their office. The aforementioned Dick Glass used a port window for his own house; he also collected the brass screws from the Grille with his father to build their own yacht. Other bits and pieces of the Grille—the relics of Hitler’s great aspiration of taking over the United Kingdom—are scattered throughout nearby towns.

I find this fantastically appropriate.

I'm not making a joke about New Jersey. But the Jewish expression reflexively added on to the name of people who are as purely evil as Hitler is "yemach shemo," "may his name be erased."

Putting his artifacts in museums keeps his name alive. Destroying them in a solemn ceremony elevates them.

But having ordinary people - people he wanted to enslave - use these objects in such spectacularly mundane ways, where over time they will be discarded when they no longer have any utility, seems perfect to me.

There is no greater humiliation than to be ignored. And the people of Florence, NJ, while aware of the provenance of these items, ignore their attachment to the mass murdering madman and just use his stuff. They attach no importance to it, no sanctity or anti-sanctity - it is just stuff that will one day be replaced with something from Home Depot.

Yemach shemo v'zichro.

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Friday links: Latma, Toameh, terrorists in Hebron, PA honors terrorist, "Tikkun Olam" supports anti-semitic cartoon

From Ian:

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LATMA: Bibi's coalition blues and Yair Lapid's hangover


Dutch MPs: Fire Richard Falk
MPs appalled by statements of UN Special Rapporteur comparing Hamas to WW2 Resistance.

"They reproached Falk for a “total lack of insight” and called his words “sickening."
Referring to American UN envoy Susan Rice’s earlier comment that other statements by Falk damaged the credibility of the UN, they asked their government to promote immediate dismissal of the Special Rapporteur and to break all contact with him."

Censored by Facebook, Arab-Israeli Journalist Continues to Expose PA Corruption

"One of the first Israeli papers Abu Toameh wrote for was a Hebrew publication called Yerushalayim (or Jerusalem). “At that time, I wrote articles criticizing Israel, and the IDF in particular, for various human rights violations, and I won several awards. Of course now that I am criticizing the Palestinian Authority, I am roundly condemned,” he said.
Abu Toameh is not only condemned but is often threatened. “Today, I am getting more threats from the US, Canada, Europe and the UK than I am from within the Palestinian Authority,” Abu Toameh said.
“But what is unique, is that those that threaten me roundly acknowledge that I am telling the truth,” he said. “They don’t question my reporting. They just want me to shut up. I’d be much more afraid of what could happen to me if I were lying,” Abu Toameh stated."

IDF Blog: IDF & ISA Uncover Hamas Terrorist Assets in Hebron

"The IDF and ISA have uncovered Hamas terror assets in Hebron. The joint activity, which took place in recent months, prevented attacks that the group had been planning.
The assets were part of a Hamas attempt to establish a local headquarters in Hebron and included approximately 20 terrorists affiliated with Hamas. The group was planning to kidnap an IDF soldier and use her or him as a bargaining chip for the release of Hamas prisoners. Most of the terrorists were already known to authorities."

Israelly Cool: Richard Silverstein Defends Blood Libel Cartoon

"Anti-Israel blogger Richard Silverstein continues to find new ways to demonstrate his utter contempt for Israel, as he now defends the horrendous “blood libel” cartoon of the Sunday Times’ Gerald Scarfe, for which even owner Rupert Murdoch apologized."

PMW: Fatah honors suicide bomber who killed 2 and injured hundreds on its official Facebook page

On the annual anniversary of the terror attack, the administrator of Fatah's Facebook page posted a picture of Idris and a long text describing her and her attack.
"The hero whose name the Zionists will remember well and so will Palestinians; the hero who sacrificed herself and her body for Palestine and became a symbol of the struggle and of Palestinian loyalty through one of the most honorable Martyrdom-seeking operations," the texts says about Wafa Idris.

Ma'an removes Antisemitic article following PMW's exposure

Daphne Anson: Anti-Israel Fanatics Badger The Bachelor Boy

"British pop icon and practising Christian Sir Cliff Richard (seen and heard in film footage below against the backdrop of Jerusalem) is scheduled to perform in Israel this summer.
And, predictably, the wretches of the BDS movement are bombarding him with demands that he cancel his plans."

White House Falters on Legitimacy of Iranian Government
Just hours after Hagel's testimony, White House press secretary Jay Carney faltered regarding legitimacy of Iranian government.

White House: Iran’s centrifuge upgrade represents ‘further escalation’
‘While the world is discussing where and when the next meeting with Iran will be, Iran is rapidly advancing toward a nuclear bomb,’ says Israeli official

GOP Senators Introduce Legislation Banning Arms Sales to Egypt

"Two United States Republican senators introduced legislation on Thursday to halt arms sales to Egypt.
Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, proposed a bill prohibiting the sale of F-16 aircraft, tanks and other advanced weapons to Egypt’s Muslim-Brotherhood, The Hill reported."

Venezuela spying on its Jews, documents reveal
Some in the community regarded as foreign agents with subversive socio-political influence, others as benefiting from US military interference

"Last week, Analisis24, a right-leaning Argentinean news website, released 50 documents attributed to the Venezuelan intelligence agency containing private information on prominent Venezuelan Jews, local Jewish organizations and Israeli diplomats in Latin America. The Anti-Defamation League, among others, believes the documents are authentic based on the wealth of detailed and private information included."

Toronto Yeshiva Defaced with Anti-Semitic Graffiti

"Students at the “Mishkan HaTorah” Yeshiva in Toronto, Canada, were shocked when they arrived in the early hours of the morning to find that the building was covered with anti-Semitic graffiti.
This is the second time in a short period of the time that the building has been defaced."

Yemenite Jew Badly Hurt in Anti-Semitic Attack

"Members of Yemen's small Jewish community said Wednesday that one of its member had been attacked and badly hurt in an anti-Semitic assault. The victim, Yosef Anati, was hospitalized in serious condition."

ADL Leader Joins Jewish Groups’ Call to Protect Mideast Christians

"We have not paid enough attention to the discrimination, persecution of Christians in the Middle East, especially by Islamic fundamentalists,” Foxman said in an interview with Newsmax TV."

Video: Armless IDF Captain Awards Combat Pins to Soldiers
Captain Ziv Shilon, badly injured in Gaza three months ago, was with his soldiers again Thursday.

"Captain Ziv Shilon, who was badly injured in Gaza three months ago, was back with his soldiers Thursday and awarded them combat pins.
The soldiers were supposed to receive the pins at an earlier date, but the ceremony was postponed in order to enable their heroic commander to take part in it."

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Slides from my lecture at YU

Due to popular demand, here are the slides of my lecture at YU earlier this week:

If anyone wants me to speak at their venue, feel free to contact me.

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Baby burqas demanded in Mali. Oh, in Saudi Arabia too.

From AP:

A leaflet listing the regulations for women under Islamist rule now lies in dirt here at the tribunal in Timbuktu. Rule No. 1: The veil should cover the entire body. Rule No. 4: The veil cannot be colored. And Rule No. 8: The woman should not perfume herself after putting on the all-enveloping fabric.

Several days after French special forces parachuted in and liberated this storied city, there is a growing sense of freedom. Though in the houses immediately facing the Islamic tribunal, many of the 8- and 9-year-old girls are still wearing the head covering.

"It is out of fear of the Islamists that they still wear this, says Diahara Adjanga, the mother of one girl said Thursday."They hit everyone — even children."

The Islamists seized control of Timbuktu and the other northern provincial capitals of Gao and Kidal last April. During the nearly 10 months of their rule, the al-Qaida-linked extremists imposed harsh regulations for women and publicly whipped those who went in public without veils.

Fatouma Traore, 21, said that there was one commander who was especially brutal to the women in Timbuktu.

"We don't want the army to catch him. It's the women who want to arrest him so that we can kill him ourselves. ... Even if you're talking to your own blood brother on the stoop of your house, they hit you. Even if you are wearing the veil, and it happens to slip off, they hit you. This man, Ahmed Moussa, he made life miserable for women. Even an old grandmother if she's not covered up, he would hit her."

She picks up her 1-year-old niece and hoists her on one hip, saying: "We even bought a veil for this baby."

It isn't only Al Qaeda nutcases demanding a veil for babies.

A Saudi cleric just declared that all female babies must have their faces covered as well.

Sheikh Abdullah Daoud said on TV that even little girls must wear the veil.

His logic? Since there are reports of even little girls being sexually molested, he believes that the veil will protect them!

Dauod was roundly criticized on Twitter and from some fellow Saudis. Sheikh Mohammad Aljzlana, former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, said that the ruling was denigrating to Islam and Sharia and made Islam look bad. He added that he feels sad whenever he sees a family walking around with the children covered, saying that it is an injustice to children.

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Khamenei aide says "total upheaval in the Middle East" will bring the Mahdi

From AEI Critical Threats:

Representative of Supreme Leader to the IRGC, Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Saidi addressed the coming of the Mahdi [12th Shia Imam]:
"The fourth way [of bringing about the arrival of the Mahdi] is by preparing upheaval in the Middle East and so long as there is not total upheaval in Middle East then the Imam of the Era [Mahdi] will not arrive."

"Before the arrival of [the Mahdi] we needed a Mahdi government, and the Iranian Islamic Revolution was along the path of the arrival of Imam of the Era."

The Washington Post describes some of this possible upheaval to fulfill the crazed imams' messianic dreams:

In a defiant move ahead of nuclear talks, Iran has announced plans to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment, which can make both reactor fuel and the fissile core of warheads. Eager to avoid scuttling those negotiations, world powers are keeping their response low-key.

The brief note quoted Iran as saying new-generation IR2m “centrifuge machines ...will be used” to populate a new “unit” — a technical term for an assembly that can consist of as many as 3,132 centrifuges.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert and former senior official at the U.S. State Department, described the planned upgrade as a potential “game-changer.”

“If thousands of the more efficient machines are introduced, the timeline for being able to produce a weapon’s worth of fissile material will significantly shorten,” said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“This won’t change the several months it would take to make actual weapons out of the fissile material or the two years or more that it would take to be able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, so there is no need to start beating the war drums,” he said. “But it will certainly escalate concerns.”

But, hey, the West is really, really pushing Iran - to talk:

The British Foreign Office confirmed that Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plan, and described it as “a cause for concern,” noting it breached both U.N. Security Council and IAEA board resolutions urging Iran to curb enrichment.

But it avoided linking the move to the next round of talks. Instead the statement expressed hope that Iran would soon respond to the six powers on a time and place for a meeting, adding: “We hope that Iran will agree to talks quickly and come to the table ready to engage and negotiate seriously.”

The European Union’s top foreign policy official, Catherine Ashton, said she is confident negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program will resume soon.

Talks have been so effective over the past decade in curbing Iran's nuclear program, haven't they?

(h/t Washington Guardian Geopolitics Playbook)

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PLO's new attempt to use UNESCO to co-opt Jewish history

This Ma'an report leaves some information out:

Palestinian experts are putting the final touches on Palestine's 2013 submission to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which will propose the ancient Bethlehem village of Battir as a heritage site.

The proposal, which outlines historical, natural, and cultural features of the hillside village, will be submitted by mid-February, the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs official working on UNESCO, Omar Awadallah, told Ma'an.

The committee will vote on whether Battir takes World Heritage status at the June general conference, he said. A Palestinian official delegation will attend the conference.

Battir village, with a population of about 4,500, uses an ancient system of irrigation that has provided fresh water to the community for centuries.

Battir, Battir, sounds so familiar. Oh yes - because its real name is Betar, the last Jewish stronghold in the Bar Kochba revolt.

Archaeologist David Ussishkin points out:

Iron I-II pottery was found in previous surveys. Some Iron IIB-C pottery was found in the fills supporting the wall, including a storage jar handle bearing a two-winged lmlk seal impression. Pottery from the Persian, Hellenistic and Early Roman periods was found in previous surveys, and several Hellenistic coins were recovered in the excavations. It thus appears that Betar was continuously settled since Iron I till the Roman period and that a settlement of some importance existed here during the later part of the Judean Monarchy.

Significantly, wall segments built of ashlars, one of them with ashlars dressed in characteristic Roman-Herodian style, were incorporated in the later fortifications. These remains and the pottery indicate that a settlement of some significance existed here prior to the Second Revolt.

As Diane Muir Appelbaum noted in a post I linked to last year, "the Jewish liberation fighters hastily threw up crude stone fortification walls, incorporating parts of the walls and buildings of the Jewish village."

Elli Fischer in TOI adds:

Jewish memory – as preserved in the Talmudim and Midrashim – recalls Betar as a catastrophe of massive proportion whose implications for the future of Judaism exceeded even that of the destruction of the Temples. The rabbis viewed the fall of Betar, not the Temple, as worthy of adding a blessing to the Grace after Meals – a blessing that sought God in the minor miracles of an exilic existence and not in the divine flourishes of an integral Jewish civilization.

In fact, the Talmud offers an alternative explanation for the fertility of Battir: “For seven years [after the fall of Betar] the gentiles fertilized their vineyards with the blood of Israel without using manure.”

So Battir and its environs are certainly worthy of being marked as a significant site with Jewish as well as world culture. No doubt the ancient terraces are worth preserving. Yet if these hills are to be recognized as a World Heritage Site, they must be acknowledged, first and foremost, for its significance to Jewish history.

Maybe there really are some ancient Arab villages or sites in the boundaries of British Mandate Palestine that deserve UNESCO recognition, but for some reason the ones being nominated by the PLO are always ancient Jewish sites of significance - and they ignore the Jewish component.

As we have seen before, the PLO's strategy of joining UNESCO has nothing to do with culture or education. It is meant to do no less than to co-opt, and delegitimize, the history of Jewish people.

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Ban Ki Moon seems to have forgotten something

From the UN:

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today noted with “grave concern” reports of Israeli air strikes in Syria and called on all concerned to prevent an escalation of tensions in the region.

“The Secretary-General notes with grave concern reports of Israeli air strikes in Syria. At this time, the United Nations does not have details of the reported incident. Nor is the United Nations in a position to independently verify what has occurred,” said a note issued by Mr. Ban’s office.

“The Secretary-General calls on all concerned to prevent tensions or their escalation in the region, and to strictly abide by international law, in particular in respect of territorial integrity and sovereignty of all countries in the region.”

What do we know about what happened?

Here's the NYT:

Many questions swirled about the target, motivations and repercussions of the Israeli attack, which Arab and Israeli analysts said demonstrated the rapid changes in the region’s strategic picture as Mr. Assad’s government weakens — including the possibility that Hezbollah, Syria or both were moving arms to Lebanon, believing they would be more secure there than with Syria’s beleaguered military, which faces intense attacks by rebels on major weapons installations.

American officials said Israel hit a convoy before dawn on Wednesday that was ferrying sophisticated SA-17 antiaircraft missiles to Lebanon. The Syrians and their allies said the target was a research facility in the Damascus suburb of Jamraya.

It remained unclear Thursday whether there was one strike or two. Also unclear was the research outpost’s possible role in weapons production or storage for Syria or Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite organization that has long battled with Israel and plays a leading role in the Lebanese government.

The Jamraya facility, several miles west of Damascus, produces both conventional and chemical weapons, said Maj. Gen. Adnan Salo, a former head of the chemical weapons unit in the Syrian Army who defected and is now in Turkey.

Hezbollah indirectly confirmed its military function in condemning the attack on Arab and Muslim “military and technological capabilities.” That raised the possibility that Israel targeted weapons manufacturing or development, in an attack reminiscent of its 2007 assault on a Syrian nuclear reactor, a strike Israeli never acknowledged.

But military analysts said that the Israeli jets’ flight pattern strongly suggested a moving target, possibly a convoy near the center, and that the Syrian government might have claimed the center was a target to garner sympathy. Hitting a convoy made more sense, they said, particularly if Israel believed that Hezbollah stood to acquire “game-changing” arms, including antiaircraft weapons. Israeli leaders declared days before the strike that any transfer of Syria’s extensive cache of sophisticated conventional or chemical weapons was a “red line” that would prompt action.

Hezbollah — backed by Syria and Iran — wants to upgrade its arsenal in hopes of changing the parameters for any future engagement with the powerful Israeli military, and Israel is determined to stop it. And Hezbollah is perhaps even more anxious to gird itself for future challenges to its primacy in Lebanon, especially if a Sunni-led revolution triumphs next door in Syria.

But if weapons were targeted, analysts said, it is not even clear that they belonged to Hezbollah. Arab and Israeli analysts said another possibility was that Syria was simply aiming to move some weapons to Lebanon for safekeeping. While there are risks for Hezbollah that accepting them could draw an Israeli attack, said Emile Hokayem, a Bahrain-based analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, there is also an upside: “If Assad goes down, they have the arms.”

Those suggestions comported with the account of a Syrian officer who said in a recent interview that the heavily guarded military area around the Jamraya research facility was used as a weapons transfer station to southern Lebanon and Syria’s coastal government stronghold of Tartous for safekeeping, in convoys of tractor-trailer trucks. (The officer said he had lost faith in the government but hesitated to defect because he did not trust the rebels.)

Apparently, either Israel hit a convoy transporting weapons to Hezbollah, or a depot for weapons meant to go to Hezbollah, or a plant that manufactures weapons of mass destruction - or a combination of the three.

According to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, Hezbollah should be dismantled as an independent armed force. According to 1701, arms transfers from Syria to Hezbollah are prohibited. According to everyone, Syrian chemical weapons are a serious threat to the entire region.

Yet Ban Ki Moon could only rebuke Israel for doing what the UN cannot and is seemingly unwilling to do. The UN forces in Lebanon have stood by impotently since 2006 watching Hezbollah illegally build a huge arsenal of smuggled arms from Syria for its private terror army - and Moon personally made that decision to keep the UNIFIL forces impotent.

It looks like the only operative parts of 1701 that remain are the ones that can be used against Israel.

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