| Muslim Brotherhood gave $250M to Sinai jihadists to attack police and army Posted: 01 Sep 2013 05:00 PM PDT Al Monitor translates an interview in Iraqi newspaper Azzaman with Hussein Abdel Rahman, spokesman of the Brothers Without Violence group, a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot that adheres to the same principles as the MB but eschews violence. At the very end of the interview Rahman - who apparently knows quite a bit about what is going on in the Ikhwan - reveals a bombshell: Azzaman: Amid persisting violence in the Sinai against the army and the police, some people are accusing Muslim Brotherhood leaders, mainly Mohamed Beltagy and Ezzat, of being involved in those incidents. Are these claims valid?
Abdel Rahman: The international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood earmarked a sum of $250 million to fund some jihadist movements in the Sinai, like al-Gama'a al-Islamiya and the Salah al-Dine Brigades, and supply them with arms sometimes to conduct acts of violence against the army and the police. Unfortunately, some are accusing Muslim Brotherhood youth of committing these acts, but it is not true. They are innocent of such acts that are caused by some leaders who have adopted the approach of Sayyid Qutb, such as Essam al-Aryan, Safwat Hegazi and Tarek al-Zomor. As for Badie, he did not manage any recent acts; Ezzat is actually the current mastermind of the Muslim Brotherhood. While he denies direct involvement of the MB with the jihadist attacks in the Sinai, he admits freely that the jihadists are funded by the MB. In this light, the Egyptian arrests of the Brotherhood leaders seems much more grounded in reality and less in harassment, as it sometimes appears. The implication is also that if the MB has given $250M to the Sinai jihadists, then certainly they must have bankrolled their fellow Hamas movement - and the idea that Hamas was involved in the Sinai attacks in some form becomes far more plausible as well. (h/t Max S)  |
| Lebanon has barred Palestinians from Syria for three weeks now Posted: 01 Sep 2013 03:00 PM PDT From IRIN: Palestinian refugees fleeing the violence in Syria have been refused entry into Lebanon for three weeks now.
Since 6 August, according to Human Rights Watch, the Lebanese government has turned back Palestinians who had originally sought refuge in Syria when they were forced from their homes in 1948 and 1967, and are now fleeing once more with their descendants, this time from the conflict in Syria.
A source at the Lebanese General Security confirmed to IRIN the government is no longer letting Palestinians from Syria into Lebanon. Makram Malaeb, programme manager for the Syrian response at the Ministry of Social Affairs, said exceptions would be made for "humanitarian cases".
According to the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, more than 92,000 Palestinians from Syria have already sought refuge in Lebanon, joining the 455,000 Palestinian refugees hosted in Lebanon before the Syrian crisis, largely in overcrowded slums that have often been hotbeds of unrest. Once again, the people who discriminate against Palestinians the most are their Arab brethren. And practically no one is calling this what it is - apartheid by Arabs against Palestinians. While the plight of these Palestinian Syrians is tragic, note the bias in the IRIN (UN) report: Palestinian Arabs were "forced from" their homes in Palestine, but are merely "fleeing" Syria. The terminology is exactly reversed from the truth, as most fled from Israel but are being forced from their homes in Syria. Also, IRIN is parroting UNRWA's numbers of 455,000 Palestinian Arabs in Syria, when in fact a little-noted UNRWA report showed that this was a gross exaggeration and the real numbers are about 200,000 less. UNRWA collects money for 450,000 or so, but only supports 250,000, plus the 92,000 refugees that did make it into Lebanon before the gates were shut.  |
| No one seems to complain when Egypt acts like Israel Posted: 01 Sep 2013 01:00 PM PDT From Ma'an: Egypt plans to impose a 500-meter buffer zone along its border with the Gaza Strip, a senior Egyptian military official said Sunday.
Egyptian residents living in Saladin, al-Barahmeh, Canada, Brazil, al-Sarsouriya and other neighborhoods close to the Gaza border have received eviction notices.
Homeowners who received eviction orders demonstrated against the decision and burned tires in protest.
Army bulldozers have also uprooted trees in the border area.
The army has demolished 13 homes in the al-Sarsouriya neighborhood where tunnel entrances were found.
An Egyptian military official told Ma'an that most cross-border tunnels with entrances in fields or open areas had been destroyed in a security campaign to stop smuggling. He said it was more difficult to locate tunnels that opened into houses. This was the same kind of clearing operation that Israel was doing on its side of the Gaza border - and which was permitted by Oslo - when Rachel Corrie was killed. The article continues: Egypt's army spokesman Ahmad Mohammad said that forces have destroyed 343 smuggling tunnels. He said the Egyptian military has also prohibited fishing near the border to prevent smuggling via the sea.
Hamas said Friday that two Palestinian fishermen were wounded and five others arrested by the Egyptian navy off the coast of the Gaza Strip.
"Some Egyptian navy ships fired in the direction of Palestinian fishing boats near the Egyptian border off the coast of Rafah at dawn on Friday," the Hamas government's press agency reported.
"Two fishermen were wounded and five others arrested," said Hamas.
They were both taken to the hospital in Rafah, medical sources said, adding that their lives were not in danger.
Hamas described the incident as an "unjustified act," and called for those "detained to be freed." Isn't it amazing that when Israel defends itself from Hamas terror and smuggling of weapons, it is violating the human rights of 1.6 million Gazans - but when Egypt does the exact same thing, it is simply defending itself? Indeed, Egypt goes beyond what Israel does (by not allowing people and goods to cross into Gaza via the official crossings) and there is near total silence from the so-called "pro-Palestinian" activists.  |
| Bashar Assad's grandfather's amazing 1936 letter to France Posted: 01 Sep 2013 11:00 AM PDT Arabic media has discovered an article written last year by Dr. Mordechai Kedar where he translated a letter co-written by Bashar Assad's grandfather, praising the Jews of Palestine and expressing fear of what would happen to an Alawite minority in an independent Syria ruled by Muslim fanatics. The letter is amazing. As Kedar implies, the reason that the Alawite rulers of Syria are willing to fight to the last man to remain in power is because the alternative is that they would be exterminated - they understand the Muslim mentality of how they deal with minorities quite well. Here's the letter, written in 1936, with Kedar's comments in brackets: Dear Mr. Leon Blum, Prime Minister of France.
In light of the negotiations that are being conducted between France and Syria, we – the Alawite leaders in Syria- respectfully draw the following points to your attention and to that of your party (the Socialists):
1. The Alawite nation [sic] which has maintained its independence over the years by dint of much zeal and many casualties, is a nation which is different from the Muslim Sunni nation in its religious faith, in its customs and in its history. It has never happened that the Alawite nation [which lives in the mountains on the Western coast of Syria] was under the rule of the [Muslims]who rule the inland cities of the land.
2. The Alawite nation refuses to be annexed to Muslim Syria, because the Islamic religion is thought of as the official religion of the country, and the Alawite nation is thought of as heretical by the Islamic religion. Therefore we ask you to consider the dreadful and terrible fate that awaits the Alawites if they are forced to be annexed to Syria, when it will be free from the oversight of the Mandate, and it will be in their power to implement the laws that stem from its religion. [According to Islam, the idol-worshiping heretic has a choice to convert to Islam or be slaughtered.]
3. Awarding independence to Syria and cancelling the mandate would be a good example of socialist principles in Syria, but the meaning of full independence will be the control by a few Muslim families on the Alawite nation in Cilicia, in Askadron [the Alexandretta Strip that the French cut off from Syria and annexed to Turkey in 1939] and in the Ansariyya Mountains [the mountains in the western part of Syria, the topographical continuation of the Lebanon Mountains]. Even having a parliament and a constitutional government will not ensure personal freedom. This parliamentary control is only a facade, lacking any effective value, and the truth of the matter is that it will be controlled by religious fanaticism that will target the minorities. Do the leaders of France want the Muslims to control the Alawite nation and throw it into the bosom of misery?
4. The spirit of fanaticism and narrow-mindedness, whose roots are deep in the heart of the Arab Muslims toward all those who are not Muslim, is the spirit that continually feeds the Islamic religion, and therefore there is no hope that the situation will change. If the Mandate is cancelled, the danger of death and destruction will be a threat upon the minorities in Syria, even if the cancellation [of the Mandate] will decree freedom of thought and freedom of religion. Why, even today we see how the Muslim residents of Damascus force the Jews who live under their auspices to sign a document in which they are forbidden to send food to their Jewish brothers who are suffering from the disaster in Palestine [in the days of the great Arab rebellion], the situation of the Jews in Palestine being the strongest and most concrete proof of the importance of the religious problem among the Muslim Arabs toward anyone who does not belong to Islam. Those good Jews, who have brought to the Muslim Arabs civilization and peace, and have spread wealth and prosperity to the land of Palestine, have not hurt anyone and have not taken anything by force, and nevertheless the Muslims have declared holy war against them and have not hesitated to slaughter their children and their women despite the fact that England is in Palestine and France is in Syria. Therefore a black future awaits the Jews and the other minorities if the Mandate is cancelled and Muslim Syria is unified with Muslim Palestine. This union is the ultimate goal of the Muslim Arabs.
5. We appreciate your generosity of spirit in defending the Syrian people and your desire to realize their independence, but Syria at the present time is far from the lofty goal that you aspire for her, because she is still trapped in the spirit of religious feudalism. We do not think that the French government and the French socialist Party will agree to the Syrians' independence, since its implementation will cause the subjugation of the Alawite nation, placing the Alawite minority in danger of death and destruction. It cannot be that you will agree to the (nationalist) Syrian request to annex the Alawite nation to Syria, because your lofty principles – if they support the idea of freedom – will not accept the situation in which one nation (the Muslims) try to stifle the freedom of another (the Alawite) by forcing its annexation.
6. You may see fit to assure the rights of the Alawites and other minorities in the wording of the treaty (The French-Syrian Treaty, which defines the relationships between the states), but we emphasize to you that contracts have no value in the Syrian Islamic mentality. We have seen this in the past, with the pact that England signed with Iraq, which forbade the Iraqis to slaughter the Assyrians and the Yazidis. The Alawite nation, which we, the undersigned, represent, cries out to the government of France and to the French Socialist Party, and requests them to ensure its freedom and independence within its small boundaries [an independent Alawite state]. The Alawite nation places its well-being in the hands of the French Socialist leaders, and is sure that it will find strong and dependable support for the nation which is a faithful friend, who has rendered to Francea great service, and now is under the threat of death and destruction.
[Signed by]:
Aziz Agha al-Hawash, Mahmud Agha Jadid, Mahmud Bek Jadid, Suleiman Asad [the grandfather of Bashar], Suleiman al-Murshid, Mahmud Suleiman al-Ahmad.
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| 9/01 Links: Netanyahu Warns Don't Test Israel’s Strength, Hamas Terror Attack on Jerusalem Foiled Posted: 01 Sep 2013 09:00 AM PDT From Ian:
Hamas terror attack thwarted in Jerusalem Two men, aged 22 and 25, have confessed to planning a terror attack in Jerusalem at the Mamilla Mall, near the Old City, police sources revealed on Sunday.
The men, who worked as cleaning staff at the mall, planned to use their access to plant a bomb in a trash can at the popular shopping center during the imminent Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) holiday season.
The men are residents of Shuafat and Ras Al-Amoud, two East Jerusalem neighborhoods, and therefore have blue Israeli identity cards, allowing them access to Jerusalem without going through the security check that most West Bank Palestinians must undergo. Another ABC [Australia] fact-checking fail: Gaza and Breast Cancer Why does the ABC continue to fail to adequately fact-check its stories about the Gaza Strip?
In July, I reported how the ABC uncritically parroted the easily disprovable tall tale by one of its guests that Gaza is devoid of birds, and AIJAC's Allon Lee reported Radio National host Phillip Adams' untruth about the population density in the Gaza Strip.
Now comes ABC reporter/producer Rania Zaydan's contribution. In her report for Newsline, "Charities raising breast cancer awareness in Gaza", Zaydan abandoned her critical faculties, offering up a story riddled with inaccuracies and baseless anti-Israel innuendo. (h/t EoZ) Barry Rubin: So You're Going to Attack Israel with Chemical Weapons? Of course it the bluff is called and if the aggressor added onto the attack, it would achieve far more damage to the attacker with no real benefit. Will such an operation contribute to Assad winning the civil war or surviving? Of course not.
So these threats should be laughed at--no matter that the threats must be prepared for carefully--and the response would be: You and what army?
But one can also ask this: In the face of such American behavior what possible credibility can be put on Obama Administration guarantees to Israel? Remember that the side Obama supports includes al-Qaida which is firing rockets into Israel even as America ponders an attack on the Syrian regime! For the first time America is objectively a co-belligerent with a force actively attacking Israel! John Yoo: The Benefits Outweigh the Costs in Syria To stand in the way of this pragmatic approach to international law, the White House has bound itself to a misreading of the U.N. Charter. As historian Marc Trachtenberg has shown, the U.S. delegation to the U.N. drafting conference did not understand the Charter to limit Washington's freedom to use force. Senators, for example, were concerned that the new treaty prohibited the Monroe Doctrine. But in a May 1945 meeting, delegate John Foster Dulles said that "at no point would the member states give up their right to use force in all circumstances." Under his logic, the United States could still wage war to advance the United Nations' goal of maintaining world peace and security. Leo Pasvolsky, the key State Department official on the U.N. negotiations, confirmed that "there was certainly no statement in the text under which we would give up our right of independent action." He later explained to the delegation that "if the Security Council fails to agree on an act, then the member state reserves the right to act for the maintenance of peace, justice, etc." Netanyahu warns enemies not to test Israel's strength Israel is "calm and confident" in the face of regional turmoil, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday at the weekly cabinet meeting.
Speaking hours after US President Barack Obama delayed a military strike at Syria pending a Congressional vote, Netanyahu declared that "Israel is calm and confident. Our citizens know that we are well prepared for any circumstance."
He added: "The citizens also should be aware that our enemies have very good reasons not to test our strength and might. They know why." Samaria Prepares – Again – for Tel Aviv Refugees In an emergency meeting held late last week in light of threats from Syria, the Samaria Regional Committee was instructed to prepare in case the region is asked to absorb Israelis from the Tel Aviv region.
Samaria (Shomron) could be used as a refuge in case of a chemical weapons attack from Syria. Military experts believe enemy armies will not target Israeli communities in Samaria due to the relatively high risk of missing and hitting an Arab city. Israeli Politicians Slam America for Hesitation and Hypocrisy He continued, "When the world is silent in the face of atrocities like in Syria, where one hundred thousand buried people are evidence of clear use of weapons of mass destruction, we see today as we face great danger, and question if no one in the world will stand by us, we can only protect ourselves."
Bayit Yehudi MK and member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yoni Chetboun said, "Genocide in Syria needs to shake every person in the 'free world.' It is important to understand that without a surgical operation, weapons will remain in the hands of the insane." Obama blinked first Even though just two years ago the U.S. Navy joined the coalition to topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya without prior congressional approval, this time Obama flinched from making an even more limited move in Syria. Given that Obama was not going to formally declare war (only Congress has the power to do so), there was no logic to his choice to voluntarily relinquish his powers as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Unlike the decision of another Democratic president, Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1968 to unilaterally halt the aerial bombardment of Vietnam after years of fighting, Obama decided to silence his guns before the first shot was even fired.
Even if Congress approves military action in Syria after it returns from recess, the whimpering message delivered on Saturday by Obama will resonate in Damascus, Tehran, Moscow and Beijing, and further hasten the end of the American era. Obama's (unwelcome) chance Further,it is all but certain that some in Israel and abroad will argue that a massive US strike on Syria would be counterproductive as it will only boost those in Iran who view nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantee against the "bullies of the world" threatening the Tehran regime. But they will be wrong. Irrespective of such Iranian calls, in the wake of a decisive American action in Syria, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would have to conclude that when the president of the United States vows that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, he actually means it.
As for Assad himself, he must conclude that the US response was his last warning – any future use of weapons of mass destruction would most assuredly spell the destruction of his regime. Putin demands US present proof of Syria chemical weapons use Putin also called the allegations against the Assad regime "utter nonsense."
"While the Syrian army is on the offensive, saying that it is the Syrian government that used chemical weapons is utter nonsense," he said.
Addressing US President Barack Obama as a Nobel Peace Laureate, Putin urged him to think "twice before making a decision on an operation in Syria." Rebels pan US delay in strike, say Assad emboldened Opposition groups reacted negatively to news that the US would hold off on a strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad Saturday night, with some accusing US President Barack Obama's of endangering them with his "backpedaling."
"The death will continue in Syria because of the (failure of the) leadership of the United States to act decisively at this point," Syrian National Council spokesperson Louay Safi said after the announcement, according to NBC News. Syrian Officials Gloat: Obama Defeated Before War Began Speaking to Lebanon's Al-Mayadeem, Jamil said Obama "was defeated before the war began."
America's "muddled" position on airstrikes "has made a mockery of the U.S. administration all over the world," he said, adding, "Previous administrations never cared about public opinion, Congress or allies."
Jamil mocked the Syrian rebel fighters, who had hoped for a U.S. intervention that would weaken the Assad regime. "For them this popular saying applies: You brought us halfway to the water well, then abandoned us," he taunted. Syrian Media Releases List of Potential Targets in Israel Specific targets labeled as "legitimate" for Syrian missile strikes included Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, petrochemical production plants in Haifa, Hazor military airbase, the Palmachim, Zala'im and Tzrifin military bases, Kalandia airport, and military and intelligence facilities in Turkey and Cyprus. Weak world response on Syria boosts chance of strong Israeli action on Iran The Iranians are carefully watching the world's response to the Syrian atrocities. If the response is not harsh enough, or swift enough, or serious enough, they may very well conclude that they would face a similar type of situation and read that as a green light to proceed with their nuclear program at full throttle speed.
The Israelis are also watching the world reaction. And Israel, too, may very well conclude that if the world's response is not harsh enough, or swift enough, or serious enough, then they too will feel that they have a green light to take action to stop the Iranians.
The lack of a strong international response in the face of rows and rows of gassed bodies wrapped eerily in white shrouds just 220 kilometers from Jerusalem might not compel Israel to take action against Assad, but it surely may compel it to think twice about relying on the world to rid it of the Iranian nuclear menace. Suez Canal Authority says attack attempted on container ship "One of the terrorist elements has carried out a failed attempt to affect the movement of ships in the Suez Canal by targeting one of the passing ships, Cosco Asia," Memish said in a statement about the Panama-flagged ship.
"The attempt failed completely and there was no damage to the ship or the containers it carried. The situation was dealt with strictly by the armed forces," he said, adding that the traffic of ships is moving normally. (h/t zvi) Controversial Middle East ad pitched to TTC An ad campaign about Israel and the Palestinian territories is being proposed to run on the Toronto Transit Commission.
The TTC says it will review whether to accept the advertising, submitted by a Montreal-based group called Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East.
The message is similar to a controversial ad campaign on Vancouver's transit system from the Palestine Awareness Coalition, said Grace Batchoun, of the Montreal group. Haldor Advanced Technologies Awarded Surgical Instrument Tracking and Management Agreement with Premier Healthcare Alliance Premier, a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,900 U.S. hospitals and 100,000 other healthcare sites, awarded a three-year contract to Haldor Advanced Technologies to provide RFID enabled surgical instrument tracking and management solutions.
"We are honored to be have been selected by the Premier healthcare alliance as a new supplier partner"
Haldor's real-time surgical instrument management solutions provide visibility into the location, status and condition of individual surgical instruments in operating rooms and sterile processing departments. Israeli cyber security businesses poised to gain from Syrian crisis The high-profile cyber attacks emanating from Syria may end up giving Israel's economy a long-term boost by raising demand from its burgeoning cyber security sector.
Before the West could fire a single shot towards Damascus over the use of chemical weapons, the conflict claimed a fresh round of cyber victims when a group called the Syrian Electronic Army attacked The New York Times and Twitter's servers on Tuesday.
Though not the first such attack by the group that supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, the timing as the world anticipated a US-led military operation, vaulted the hacking into international headlines. Lingua.ly Transforms The Web Into A Language-Learning Opportunity Thanks to a patent-pending natural language processing technique, Lingua.ly indexes texts on the web in Spanish, English, French, Hebrew and Arabic. After you've taken a few vocabulary quizzes and used the service for a little while, Lingua.ly will be able to recommend real texts for you based on the vocabulary you already know and the difficulty of the text.
Lingua.ly is a Chrome plug-in, so it'll automatically prompt you to take new quizzes, personalized for you, as you browse the web. You can also use the plug-in to get recommendations for texts that are appropriate for your reading levels and mark up texts or browse Lingua.ly's dictionary as you visit any site on the web.
Lingua.ly will remember the words you looked up and will start including those in your quizzes and base its reading recommendations on your knowledge. That's definitely the strength of the service: it integrates with your daily web browsing habits and lets you learn new words as you go along.  |
| "Jewish Voice for Peace" supports hate speech Posted: 01 Sep 2013 07:00 AM PDT At the "Jewish Voice for Peace" anti-Israel site, they urge their fans to lobby to defeat Proposition 76: The California Assembly is considering Resolution 76, which opens the door to condemning advocacy for Palestinian human rights in California campuses. Arab, Muslim and progressive students of all identities should not be in fear of censure, discipline or reputational smear for criticizing injustice and demanding Palestinian equal rights. Defend campus freedom of speech. Tell your legislator in Sacramento to vote NO on Resolution 76! Does Proposition 76 curtail anyone's right to demand equal rights for Palestinian Arabs? Not at all. It mentions multiple times how important freedom of speech is, and it really only seeks to stop hate speech on campus. Here are operative parts of the latest draft: Be it
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate thereof concurring, That the Legislature recognizes the supreme importance of the right to freedom of speech , as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and its rightful place on college campuses as a mechanism for the sharing and discussion of diverse ideas and opinions, including those that challenge a person to consider the merits of his or her own positions; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature hereby condemns biased, hurtful, and dangerous speech intended to stoke fear and intimidation in its listeners speech that promotes discrimination based on a protected characteristic, such as race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, age, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, medical condition, or political activities or affiliations ; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature encourages public post-secondary institutions to ensure that they provide a safe, encouraging environment for exercising the right to freedom of speech and for the vibrant discussion of ideas and opinions from people of all walks of life; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution. Which means that the so-called Jewish Voice for Peace is saying that anti-Israel activists should have the right to stoke fear and intimidate Israelis, Zionists and Jews on campuses. There is really no other way to read it. JVP cannot figure out a way to be "pro-Palestinian" without using thuggish, intimidation techniques - and they seek to protect their right to use hate speech to make their point. Which tells us everything we need to know about JVP. (h/t Nitzan, Ian)  |
| ElderToons: Obama shows his unique leadership skills Posted: 01 Sep 2013 05:00 AM PDT |
| "Zionist spy duck" arrested in Egypt (UPDATE: Stork) Posted: 01 Sep 2013 02:00 AM PDT Al Ahram reports: Egypt's police put a duck under arrest late Friday as a device was found attached to its feathers, fueling accusations that it might have been used for espionage, Al-Ahram Arabic-language news website reported.
According to Al-Ahram's Arabic site, a fisherman in the Nile River of Egypt's southern governorate Qena caught the accused bird, which was among a group of five ducks waddling in the freshwater.
The fisherman became suspicious that the device on the duck's body could be used for spying, prompting him to hand over the bird to the Coalition of Arab Tribes in Qena, who in turn filed a police report.
An anonymous security official told Ahram Online on Saturday that security and environmental experts are currently examining the device in order to determine its intended purposes and whether or not the little bird has repeated national secrets to anyone. The story was later updated to say it was a stork, not a duck. Arabic media say that the stork is suspected of being in service of Israel, which - they say - has been known to spy on Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries using birds. Qena's security head stated that the devices were not explosive. It's about time I added a new creature to the canonical list of Zionist spy animals. Since that article we've added puffer fish, super-rhinoceroses, a spy vulture, and the Turkish spy bird. (h/t Gidon)  |
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