(Kim Chi-un, I mean Kim Jong-un, is fat and his claimed craziness lets us laugh at him; at least until he unleashes an EMP attack on America. However, he is probably saner than some members of the U.S. Congress. Inscrutable? Unpredictable? Sure. Acting crazy has worked for him and his predecessors for years; he would be “crazy” to appear to be sane. Rationality would make him predictable and unpredictability is an asset in war. — DM)
Kim Jong-un may be “a crazy fat kid” with a goofy haircut, but he is doing what his father and his grandfather never could. With nuclear weapons to play with, he frightens the West enough to make it start thinking about doing something about the most dangerous crazy fat kid on earth.
By some reliable intelligence estimates North Korea now has eight nuclear weapons, but no way to deliver them farther than the Sea of Japan, but they’re working on it. They have to get the size of the bomb down to manageable weight and girth before an intercontinental missile could reach the California coast with it.
What seemed absurd only a few years ago is thought to be soon in the crazy fat kid’s box of toys. The failure of the early missiles was easy to mock, like the purple prose of the propaganda artists in Pyongyang. But Kim and his scientists, believed to be working with the help of Iran and the nuclear-weapons program saved by Barack Obama, are moving steadily to full membership in the club of nations with “the bomb.”
Kim has the family DNA and the brutal Marxist ambitions of his father and grandfather, but little of their appreciation of the rational. A recent defector from North Korea, Thae Young Ho, the deputy North Korean ambassador to London, says “Kim Jong-un is a man who will do anything beyond the normal imagination.” He ordered an uncle and his half-brother “terminated with extreme prejudice” — as in, dead — because he reckoned them threats to his own life. He knows that when the regime goes, he goes with it. That’s the way it works in a satrap like North Korea. Terror is the constant companion to the dictator who lives by the whip and the gun.
Kim lives a life of sumptuous ease in Pyongyang, surrounded by sycophants and the pleasures of the table, adding to his girth with a rich diet of imported groceries while millions of his countrymen live close to starvation. He is particularly vain for a fat man, and Sen. John McCain’s recent description of him as “a crazy fat kid” stirred him to rage.
Mr. McCain had told an interviewer at MSNBC, the cable-TV channel, that “the crazy fat kid running North Korea is far worse than some of history’s worst dictators. He’s not rational. We’re not dealing with someone like Joseph Stalin, who had a certain rationality to his barbarity.”
The Korean Central News Agency, the mouthpiece of the Kim regime, accused Mr. McCain of “hurting the dignity of the country and the supreme leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” i.e., North Korea. When Sen. Ted Cruz joined other conservatives to file legislation to put North Korea on the list of state sponsors of terrorism again, he was denounced as a dignity-damager, too, and promised all manner of punishment.
The senators, said the news agency, “will have to bitterly experience the disastrous consequences to be entailed by their reckless tongue-lashing and then any regret for it will come too late. The revolutionary forces of [North Korea] with its nuclear force as its pivot will fulfill its sacred mission of devotedly defending its supreme leadership representing the destiny and life of its people by dealing with merciless sledgehammer blows at those daring to hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership.”
All that merciless work with a sledgehammer seems a little wasteful of resources to punish two mere senators, worthy as those gents may be (but the example of sledgehammer rhetoric might be instructive to the pundits in the West who have done their darnedest to take down Donald Trump and still haven’t managed to put their rhetoric in the killer shade of purple).
Nevertheless, a genuine threat lies beneath the entertaining bluster and braggadocio. Adm. Scott Swift, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, tells NBC News that American officials are particularly wary of Kim Jong-un’s latest threats to hit an American city with a nuclear bomb.
“They have the nuclear capability,” the admiral says. “They’ve demonstrated that. Where they’re going with the miniaturization of that, whether they can actually weaponize a missile, that’s what’s driving the current concern.”
President Trump told London’s Financial Times on Monday that “something has to be done about North Korea.” Secretary of Defense James Mattis, once called “Mad Dog Mattis,” says North Korea “has got to be stopped.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says a military response is “on the table.”
President Trump entertains Chinese President Xi Jinping this week at Mar-A-Lago, and he’ll have a lot to tell him. But if President Xi can’t make Kim behave, somebody else will have to do it, and soon. Scary to think about. It’s even scarier to think about not doing anything.
(The European Union is like a Roach Hotel — easy to get in and very hard to leave, see BREXIT. Will the EU kick Hungary and Poland out? That would probably be the EU’s most popular action ever in Hungary and Poland. It might also set a good precedent for other refugee-clogged EU countries.– DM)
ELLA IDE/AFP/Getty Images
Breitbart London reported that the European Union is to open asylum processing centres in west Africa and countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean because the continent “needs six million migrants”, the European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos said last month.
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France and Germany, along with a host of up to 21 other countries, are set to demand Hungary and Poland either accept migrants under the quota system or leave the European Union (EU).
The two nations have ignored Brussels’ insistence that they take migrants presently residing in great numbers in Italy and Greece. Public opinion in Hungary and Poland is also strongly against being forced to accept thousands of migrants from non-European cultures.
Poland’s conservative Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość – PiS) swept to victory in 2015, partly due to voter anger over the previous government agreeing to take migrants under the quota system.
In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has been a vocal opponent of the scheme from its conception, asserting that forcing member countries to take a compulsory quota of migrants is unlawful and will “spread terrorism around Europe”.
Later this year, the two countries will be given an ultimatum and have to decide whether they are willing to maintain an anti-mass migration stances if it puts their membership of the EU at threat, a senior diplomatic source from one of the bloc’s six founding member states told The Times.
The source said: “They will have to make a choice: are they in the European system or not? You cannot blackmail the EU, unity has a price.”
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is expected to hold a hearing on the legality of migrant quotas in the coming weeks, with a judgement — widely expected to be in favour of the scheme — likely by the end of the year.
“We are confident that the ECJ will confirm validation,” the source said. “Then they must abide by the decision. If they don’t then they will face consequences, both financial and political. No more opt-outs. There is no more ‘one foot in and one foot out’. We are going to be very tough on this.”
Hungary challenged the court, insisting that it is culturally and constitutionally unreasonable to impose asylum seekers on unwilling member states.
In December, referring to policies of importing large numbers of people from the third world, Orbán stated that Hungary and other countries in Central Europe “have had the opportunity to learn from Western Europe’s mistakes”.
“Hungary is a stable island in the turbulent western world because the people were consulted on their opinions here, and we defended the country against illegal immigration.”
In 2015, when European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans demanded Eastern and Central EU nations undergo similar demographic transitions as in Western Europe, Hungary was singled out for special mention.
“Any society, anywhere in the world, will be diverse in the future — that’s the future of the world,” Timmermans said. “So [Central European countries] will have to get used to that. They need political leaders who have the courage to explain that to their population instead of playing into the fears as I’ve seen Mr Orbán doing in the last couple of months.”
Breitbart London reported that the European Union is to open asylum processing centres in west Africa and countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean because the continent “needs six million migrants”, the European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos said last month.
Forget G. Gordon Liddy and the White House plumbers of Watergate days. If you’re looking for a my-president-right-or-wrong apparatchik in the grand tradition of the Soviet Union, willing to do anything for her leader, look no further than former national security adviser Susan Elizabeth Rice.
Failing some extraordinary explanation (so far Rice isn’t talking), the onetime national security adviser exhibited an arrogance that once again proves Lord Acton’s famous apothegm: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Rice undoubtedly believed she was undertaking her sub rosa, possibly felonious, activities for a greater good, but in reality she has been undermining the very basis of our democratic republic in a manner calling forth another quote from the 19th century British lord: “End justifies the means. This is still the most widespread of all the opinions inimical to liberty.” That Rice was able to prevaricate so casually during a recent PBS interview, claiming she “knew nothing” about the unmaskings of Trump officials when she had instigated them, proves Acton right yet again and exposes the “ends justify the means” mentality as Rice’s default position.
(Speaking of Acton, he also wrote: “Men cannot be made good by the state, but they can easily be made bad.”)
From her serial lies about the Benghazi terror attack being caused by a video to this latest surveilling — incidental or otherwise — of political enemies and its own attendant dishonesties, Rice seems to have been the “go to” person for Obama White House dirty work and cover-ups, Obama’s hatchet woman. She did not and could not, however, have acted alone. She was part of a culture.
The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan – essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy [Iran deal fixer] Ben Rhodes.
The names were part of incidental electronic surveillance of candidate and President-elect Trump and people close to him, including family members, for up to a year before he took office.[bold mine]
Up to a year? Is it possible it was even longer? When did it actually start? It would be interesting to see how “incidental” this all was. Will the Senate Intelligence Committee be sufficiently bipartisan to really investigate that? Or will they be mired in the supposedly nefarious Russian connection that Clapper himself found no evidence of, even after, as we now learn, having been privy to all this “incidental” information for months or years? You would have to assume this Trump-Russia collusion was remarkably subtle to have withstood such constant investigation by so many for so long.
No, the real story here is the Russification, more accurately the Sovietization, of the Obama administration. They did believe, unlike Lord Acton, that “the ends justify the means.” That phrase, incidentally, is sometimes incorrectly ascribed to Machiavelli, who wrote something far more sophisticated. In reality, it was coined, or at least codified, by the 19th century Russian revolutionary Sergey Nechayev and used by Lenin and Stalin to justify their murderous acts.
I hasten to say there are no murders going on here that I know of. But there is a massive subversion of the principles of our republic. The moment the party in power is permitted to exploit the extraordinary capabilities of our intelligence agencies to surveil in any way the party out of power is the moment that we are well on the road to high-tech totalitarianism. We may already be there.
Difficult as it would be, what is called for now is a full airing not of Russian espionage, which has been going on pretty much constantly since the 1920s, but of our own intelligence agencies and how they function and how they are interacting with current and past administrations. We must be certain that existing privacy laws have actually been observed and, if those laws have not been sufficient, that they be revised to protect the apparently already violated civil liberties of our citizens.
Meanwhile, when it comes to actual punishable law-breaking, the person most vulnerable is, of course, the leaker (or leakers). Those who accidentally or purposefully “unmask” identities unfortunately can skate away under current readings of the law. But if I were to guess, in this instance, the unmasker and the leaker are quite possibly one and the same. Ms. Rice has much to answer for — and she should do it under oath.
As the scandal evolves, will the finger point even higher? In fact, it already has. Unbeknownst to almost all of the American public, back in 2011 Barack Obama eased the rules on the unmasking of American citizens in NSA surveillances, putatively to counter foreign espionage threats. Six years letter and the tables have been turned on us. Was that always the intention? Or was it simply absolute power corrupting absolutely?
CNN “New Day” host Chris Cuomo on Tuesday dismissed recent reporting that Obama administration official Susan Rice requested the “unmasking” of members of President Trump’s transition team and campaign as nothing more than right-wing propaganda.
“President Trump [and] right-wing media types [are] peddling a fake scandal,” Cuomo reported, when opening an interview with Rep. Jim Hines (D., Conn.).
“This suggestion that former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice improperly unmasked the identity of Trump associates is part of what the president calls a crooked scheme,” Cuomo said. “An associate of Rice says it’s just plain false.”
Cuomo’s comments came after CNN’s Jim Sciutto dismissed the story as “largely ginned up, partly as a distraction from this larger [Russia] investigation,” also citing assurances from a friend of Rice. Before joining CNN, Sciutto served as chief of staff to Obama’s China Ambassador Gary Locke.
Bloombergreported Monday that the Trump administration had discovered Rice’s involvement during a National Security Council review of the “government’s policy on ‘unmasking’ the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally.” TheWall Street Journal and Circa reported the same.
Typically, when U.S. citizens get caught up in incidental surveillance of foreign actors, their names are redacted. “Unmasking” private U.S. citizens to make their names appear on intelligence reports is not illegal when tied to a legitimate investigation, but civil libertarians warn the process could be used to skirt regulations that prevent the federal government from spying on Americans.
When asked on “PBS NewsHour” about claims that the Obama White House had “unmasked” Trump team officials, Rice denied all knowledge.
“I know nothing about this,” she said. “I was surprised to see reports from [House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes] on that count today.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: video screenshot)
“Trudeau is becoming a parody of an apologetic leftist who believes terrorism is our fault and zealous Islamists and jihadists are simply misunderstood.”
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has come under fire for his response to the revelation that some workers at a major Canadian airport support Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).
An investigation showed ISIS propaganda videos were shared and promoted from workers’ social media accounts. One radicalized employee had direct access to runways at Montreal Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport (named for the prime minister’s father, who served as prime minister).
He has since been transferred to a different job at the airport where he has no access to runways.
Responding to a question asked by a reporter if people with extremist views should be allowed to continue working at the nation’s airports, Trudeau said:
“I think that’s part of the kind of conversations we have to have as a society. Keeping people safe is paramount important, but defending our rights and freedoms is as well, and making sure we do that in the right way.”
“You can’t make this stuff up. Trudeau wants to have a national conversation about whether terrorist sympathizers and ISIS supporters should be able to work in strategic locations at our national airports. He wants us to consider the rights and freedoms of terrorist sympathizers and ISIS supporters in order to strike the right balance between our safety and their freedom to do what? Support jihad?”
Malcolm added, “Trudeau is becoming a parody of an apologetic leftist who believes terrorism is our fault and zealous Islamists and jihadists are simply misunderstood.”
She cited previous comments by Trudeau who, in 2011, spoke out against the previous government’s use of the term “barbaric” in a guide to Canadian citizenship.
The guide stated:
“Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings’, female genital mutilation, forced marriage or other gender-based violence.”
At the time, Trudeau objected to the language saying it was “too harsh” and told the government to make an “attempt at responsible neutrality.”
After tremendous criticism, he apologized and recanted his statement.
Malcolm also noted that after the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, Trudeau said in an interview on CBC, “There is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded. And our approach has to be, okay, where do those tensions come from?”
“First, with the Christian fanaticism; then when the West started using religion as an accessory and the main motives became monetary – for international and local benefits – the West planned to either destroy the Islamic East, or to alter it to be used to service it [the West] by dominating it, [and] has implemented policies to achieve it and continues to do so.
“Today, a mix of religion, national egoism, profit, racism, xenophobia, and a supposed threat/fear of Islam (Islamophobia) is affecting the Western public, and contemporary Western values such as human rights and democracy are being used as excuses, propagating the idea that these values have been violated [but] with the main reasons/motives [for this] being hidden; operations against Turkey are being accelerated.
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In his March 16, 2017 column in the Turkish pro-AKP government daily Yeni Safak, Hayrettin Karaman, suggests, under the title “What To Do,” that Turkey should develop its nuclear weapons capability as a counterbalance to the West. Karaman, a well-known professor of Islamic law in Turkey who is known for his closeness to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is often referred to as Erdoğan’s “fatwa-issuing imam” or Erdoğan’s cleric.
This column was the first of two articles in as many weeks in Yeni Safak by commentators calling for Turkey to acquire weapons of mass destruction. On March 27, the daily’s editor-in-chief Ibrahim Karagul called on Turkey to cease fighting the enemies of the West, presumably the Islamic State (ISIS), and to acquire all sorts of weapons, including nuclear ones (see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6845, Sensationalist Pro-Erdogan Turkish Daily Calls For Nuclear Weapons, A Stop To Fighting ISIS, March 27, 2017).
Following is the translation of Karaman’s March 16 column:
“What To Do”
“First, with the Christian fanaticism; then when the West started using religion as an accessory and the main motives became monetary – for international and local benefits – the West planned to either destroy the Islamic East, or to alter it to be used to service it [the West] by dominating it, [and] has implemented policies to achieve it and continues to do so.
“Today, a mix of religion, national egoism, profit, racism, xenophobia, and a supposed threat/fear of Islam (Islamophobia) is affecting the Western public, and contemporary Western values such as human rights and democracy are being used as excuses, propagating the idea that these values have been violated [but] with the main reasons/motives [for this] being hidden; operations against Turkey are being accelerated.
“Everyone knows, and sees, the ugly double standards that the West applies, without shame or consideration for anyone else, when it comes to values such as human rights, morality, manners, and justice. The fortune that the West (including the United States) has today has been obtained by usurpation and theft (colonialism) from the East. It is not even possible to fathom the material and spiritual destruction and the blood spilled in the East for the damned monetary gains of the West.
“People say ‘These were in the old times, the West is civilized now, there is a human rights-based democracy there, there must be legitimate reasons for the things they are doing today.’
“It is plainly clear that that the main reason for the actions of Europeans (to oppose Islam and for monetary gain), nationally and internationally, are being hidden and modern values are being exploited to mislead the public. Failure to see this is caused by blindness of the mind and the heart, which is more harmful than blindness of the eyes.”
“Military Strength… Consists Of Effective Weapons… Nuclear Being The Most Relevant… We Need To Start Not Buying But Inventing These Weapons”
“While the West does whatever it wants to do with the East, and especially with Turkey, a potential leader, it does not rely on the power of rights, laws, justice, or modern values, but on monetary and military strength.
“If the East wants to stop being oppressed, it is not enough for its religion to be true and its cause to be just; in an era dominated by the strong and not the just, it must be stronger than its enemy.
“The first condition for this is for the victimized and oppressed East to unite and cooperate. After entering the path of unity and cooperation, collaboration with lesser evils to cross barriers is feasible, if it is a must.
“Once upon a time, military strength consisted of arrows and horses. But now it consists of effective weapons invented using our era’s knowledge and technology – nuclear being the most relevant – and tools that allow for the use of such weapons.
“Without wasting any time, or turning a deaf ear to the West’s complaints and obstacles, we need to start not buying but inventing these weapons. Let us invent and balance these weapons out. Let us not use weapons of mass destruction unless it is necessary – and the path to not using them is to have more powerful versions of them than the enemy’s.
“If the Lord allows, I will talk about the 100 plans that the West implemented to crumble the Ottoman Empire and exterminate Islam, in Sunday’s article.”
Yesterday, Israel’s government approved construction of a new settlement in Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank). Media outlets CNN, BBC and the NY Times wasted no time publishing stories that distort the truth, if not outright lie. These mistakes range from offering a false impression of reality to actually getting facts wrong. Such elementary mistakes expose the disconnect between mainstream media outlets and basic truths of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
For example, CNN wrote that this is Israel’s ‘first new settlement in Palestinian territory in more than 20 years’. The first part of the sentence is misleading and the second part is false. Israel has not built new communities in Judea and Samaria because it has given numerous chances for the Palestinian leadership to come to the table and reach an agreement. However, the Palestinians continually refused. Instead, the article leads the reader to believe that this is a new policy meant to stifle any chance for a peace agreement.
The second part of the statement asserts that Israel is building in Palestinian territory. This is because CNN incorrectly believes that Israel has no legal rights to the West Bank. Israel’s legal rights to controlling the West Bank and building communities there under international law have been affirmed time and again by respected authorities on the subject, including: Professor Eugene Rostow, Professor Julius Stone , Professor Eugene Kontorovich, Professor Avi Bell and more.
BBC wrote that this new settlement is being built after ‘the largest settlement, Amona, was evacuated by police last month.’ Amona, far from being the largest settlement, was probably one of the smallest settlements existing in the West Bank, approximately 40 families. Yet, this gives the impression that even the largest settlement in the West Bank was evacuated, and thus why not evacuate the entire West Bank.
And the New York Times topped it off by cherry picking statements to make it look as if Israel was disrespecting the Trump Administration. Author of the article, Isabel Kershner, who has been accused of anti-Israel bias in the past, writes that Israel is building settlements despite President Trump’s request ‘to hold off on settlement activity’. Then she writes that ‘the United States has long considered the settlements an obstacle to peace.’ Those two statements are mixing apples with oranges.
The Trump Administration, while suggesting that Israel hold off on settlements for a little bit, explicitly said in a press release that they ‘don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace’. This was a clear departure from past US policy, especially under the Obama Administration, yet Kershner ignores that, and prefers to think that Barack Obama is still president.
Kershner also ponders whether Netanyahu’s announcement was potentially a ‘provocative move to scuttle any prospect of a revival of peace talks’. She blatantly disregards the past eight years where Mahmoud Abbas refused to negotiate with the Israelis, and the past 25 years where Palestinian leaders have continually refused all peace deals offered to them. Even more, Kershner ignores the fact that building a new settlement was promised to the residents of Amona before the settlement was evacuated. She should know this, she lives in Israel.
Since the mainstream media continues its anti-Israel bias, here are some important facts to know about the settlements.
Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank in 1948, a move strongly condemned by both the Russian and US Ambassadors to the U.N at the time. Besides for Great Britain and India, no other country recognized Jordan’s rights to the territory. Thus, when Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967 after Jordan decided to attack Israel at the behest of other Arab leaders, Israel was merely reclaiming the territory that had been granted to them under the British Mandate prior to 1948.
Under the Mandate for Palestine, Article 25, it is clear that the eastern border of the future Jewish state would be the Jordan river, many years prior to the imaginary ‘green line’ which has no legal status.
The majority of the communities in the West Bank were built on government property, and in the few cases where a mistake was made and a settlement was established on private property, the Israeli government worked to ameliorate the situation by either offering compensation to the owner of the land, or in the extreme case of Amona, the settlement was dismantled.
According to statistics from January, 2017, there are approximately 421,000 Israelis living in Judea and Samaria. While many envision the makeup of the population as religious extremists, in reality, the population is made up of 1/3 religious Zionists, 1/3 secular Israelis, 1/3 ultra orthodox Jews.
Israel has approximately 150 ‘settlements’ in the West Bank ranging from 100 people to around 70,000 people. The term ‘settlements’ actually distorts reality as one imagines three tents on a hilltop. In reality, similar to any other country in the world, Israeli citizens residing in Judea and Samaria live in areas that could be defined as villages, towns, boroughs and cities. For example, Maale Adumim, called a ‘settlement’ by the media and Arab countries, has a population of approximately 42,000 people, comparable to the populations of Atlantic City and Fort Lee located in NJ, and both would not be mistaken for a settlement. Modiin Illit, with a population exceeding 65,000, is comparable to the population of Palo Alto, California. Givaat Zeev, with a population exceeding 25,000, is slightly less than the population of Monterey, California, which would never be mistaken for a ‘settlement’ or an ‘outpost’.
The reasons for living in Judea and Samaria are varied. Some live there because of ideological reasons, others live there for the countryside atmosphere it provides, and some live there because housing is inexpensive and in close proximity to major cities such as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. For example, more than 150,000 residents living in Judea are within a 15 minute drive of Jerusalem. Just as some people choose to live in Hoboken, NJ, so they can be close to NY without paying Manhattan prices, the same applies for Israelis to living in Judea and Samaria.
Judea and Samaria is home to one of Israel’s eight universities – Ariel University. There are approximately 15,000 students (Jewish and Arab) that attend the University, comparable to the size of Duke University in North Carolina.
There are approximately 11,000 Arabs who work in over 800 factories spanning 14 industrial parks in industry and agriculture throughout Israeli controlled parts of the West Bank. Salaries of Arabs working in these factories are more than double the average salary of Palestinians working in the Palestinian controlled areas, and according to a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court, they are entitled to pension benefits just like Israelis.
The Palestinians have benefited tremendously since Israel took over the West Bank in 1967. From 1967 until the signing of the Oslo Accords, Palestinian life expectancy increased from 56 to 68 years and infant mortality dropped from 13 to 5 deaths for every 1000 infants. Israel’s presence in the West Bank led to a massive overhaul of the infrastructure bringing electricity, sewage and increased amounts of water to Arab towns.
Israeli companies with factories in the West Bank have been targeted by the BDS movement, however the Arab workers are the ones who suffer most from these boycotts. Sodastream was targeted by the BDS because of their West Bank factory, and eventually it moved its factory outside the West Bank. As a result, almost 600 Palestinian workers were laid off.
Judea and Samaria has about one million visitors each year, and more than 80% of the events in the bible happened in the area of Judea and Samaria.
The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “believes in a radical Islamic solution to the problems in the region and the fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy, and Turkey keeps getting a slap on the hand, but they get off the hook”, writes His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan in a leaked memo.
Erdogan is working to conquer and Islamize Europe, with the willing help of his stooges, in the EU, most notably Angela Merkel.
“The King of Jordan claims Turkish President has a hand in terrorism,” by Oskar Aanmoen, Royal Central, March 26, 2017:
The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “believes in a radical Islamic solution to the problems in the region and the fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy, and Turkey keeps getting a slap on the hand, but they get off the hook”, writes His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan in a leaked memo.
It is the British newspaper, The Guardian who published the memo from King Abdullah. The memo is around one-year-old, and much has happened since the King of Jordan claimed that Turkey sends terrorists to Europe as part of state policy. Jordanian embassies in London and Washington did not comment on the leaks.
The leaked memo indicates the US lawmakers were personally briefed by His Majesty King Abdullah in January 2016 about plans for Jordan’s special forces to operate in Libya alongside with British SAS-troops. The memo also states that His Majesty met with US congressional leaders which include John McCain and speaker, Paul Ryan.
Six years of fighting in Syria have dramatically affected the Kingdom of Jordan, which has taken in more than 630,000 Syrian refugees, and His Majesty has repeatedly called for decisive action to end the conflict. His Majesty the King has said, “The problem is bigger than the Islamic State, this is a third world war, and this is Christians, Jews working with Muslims against outlaws.”…
Terrorist attacks in Russia are nothing new, but a bombing in St. Petersburg is. And Monday’s bombing in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, certainly had a symbolic element: the attack took place during a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the city where he was born and raised. It was a perfect success for the bombers. Putin was embarrassed on his home turf.
Whether the Islamic State group or the Chechen underground was behind it, it’s clear to everyone that the attack that murdered Russian civilians had an Islamist element to it. Putin likes to compare Islamist terrorist to Nazism. At the time it wrote its considerable chapter in the war between the Soviets and the Nazis, St. Petersburg was called Leningrad. We can assume that the St. Petersburg bombing will only bolster Putin’s belief that Islamists and Nazis are cut from the same bloody cloth. Putin has every reason to fear a “Muslim spring” in Russia.
Since Russia first intervened in the Syrian civil war in September 2015, Putin has opted to present himself as the one who is leading the global war against terrorism. Former U.S. President Barack Obama left the field to Putin, and the latter stepped in to fill the vacuum the Americans left behind. Since then, Russia has become the victim of a number of attacks, but nearly all of them took place in the unstable republics in the Caucasus. The Russian security services have managed to thwart terrorist attacks in both Moscow and St. Petersburg, exposing the terrorist networks behind them.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has survived, Hezbollah has won, and Iran has pushed deep into Syria and Iraq. Russia’s Sunni Muslims, and there are a lot of them — comprising 15% of the country’s population, who worship at over 10,000 mosques — don’t like the link between Mother Russia and the Shiite axis. Russia’s ties to Iran at Saudi Arabia’s expense also open the door to terrorist attacks.
Recently, opposition to Putin in Russia has been on the rise, but the bombing Monday will presumably strengthen him. An external enemy has always united and fortified the Russian spirit. Russia also marked gains in the international arena, with the European Union and Paris expressing solidarity following the attack.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna (third from left). An Egyptian schoolteacher from a rural town north of Cairo, Banna engaged in Islamist activities from a young age, joining a local group that intimidated and harassed Christians and non-observing Muslims in his hometown.
What to make of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)? During the Obama years, it became commonplace for the U.S. administration and its Western acolytes to portray the Muslim Brotherhood as a moderate option to “more radical” Muslim groups. Thus, for example, U.S. director of National Intelligence James Clapper incredibly described the organization as “largely secular”[1] while John Esposito of Georgetown University claimed that “Muslim Brotherhood affiliated movements and parties have been a force for democratization and stability in the Middle East.”[2]
On the other hand, in 2014, the United Arab Emirates formally designated[3] the Muslim Brotherhood and its local and international affiliates, including the U.S. based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR),[4] as inter-national terrorist groups. A British government review commissioned the same year similarly asserted that
parts of the Muslim Brotherhood have a highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism. Both as an ideology and as a network it has been a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism.[5]
In the United States, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) have recently introduced legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. In February 2016, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee approved a house bill that calls on the State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. In July 2016, Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) introduced the “Naming the Enemy within Homeland Security Act,” a bill that prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from funding or collaborating with organizations or individuals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.[6]
The question is—which view is correct? Without doubt, the second one is. The Muslim Brotherhood has been a militaristic organization since its inception and has operated as a terrorist entity for almost a century. It influenced the establishment of most modern Sunni terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (GI) Hamas, and the Islamic State (ISIS). These organizations have either been founded by current or former Brotherhood members or have been directly inspired, indoctrinated, or recruited by MB members and literature. Contrary to what the MB propagates to Westerners, MB violence is not just in the past but is an ongoing activity.
Historical Background
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna (1906-49), an Egyptian schoolteacher and sometime watch repairer from a small rural town north of Cairo. Reared in a deeply devout household steeped in the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence popular among Wahhabi and Salafi jihadists,[7] Banna engaged in Islamist activities from a young age, joining a local group that intimidated and harassed Christians and non-observing Muslims in his hometown.[8] He was also fascinated by secret societies, cults, and fraternal orders, which flourished in Egypt at the time, and this obsession drove him to form the Brotherhood as a fraternity cult with its own secret militia—al-Tanzim al-Khass (the Special Apparatus, also known as the Secret Apparatus)—charged with strategizing, funding, and executing military training and terror activities.[9]
During the first few decades of its existence, the Special Apparatus carried out numerous acts of political violence in Egypt, notably the 1947 assassination of Judge Ahmed Khazinder Bey and the 1948 assassination of Prime Minister Mahmoud Nuqrashi Pasha, who reportedly considered outlawing the MB.[10] At that time, according to a secret U.S. intelligence memorandum, the Brotherhood’s “commando units” were estimated to possess “secret caches of arms … reported to have 60,000 to 70,000 rifles.”[11] This military buildup was ac-companied by infiltration of the Egyptian army, including the conspiratorial group of Free Officers, who in July 1952 overthrew the monarchy in a bloodless coup.[12]
The Secret Apparatus was not only involved in assassinations but also carried out a large wave of terrorism and bombings.[13] Thus, for example, on Christmas Eve 1945 it bombed the British Club in Egypt, and in December 1946 bombed eight police stations in Cairo. Two years later, the Brotherhood bombed several Jewish homes in Cairo and many Jewish owned businesses and cinemas.[14] The Brotherhood also bombed trains in Sharqia and Ismailia, as well as the King George Hotel in Ismailia. In a 1948 raid on one of the organization’s Cairo offices, the police confiscated 165 bombs.[15]
After Banna’s assassination in 1949, Hassan Hudaybi, who succeeded him as MB general guide (al-Murshid al-Amm), claimed to have dissolved the Secret Apparatus in order to ease the government’s persecution of the movement,[16] only to be arrested in 1965 alongside other MB leaders for forming a new militia that engaged in military training with a view to assassinating President Gamal Abdel Nasser.[17] Hudaybi managed to escape with a three-year prison sentence (the MB’s foremost ideologue Sayyed Qutb was executed in 1966 together with two other leaders); his false denial of the MB’s military wing was to become a standard tactic of the Brotherhood to date.
Laying Infrastructure
This denial notwithstanding, the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the formation of a number of MB terror groups under ostensibly independent banners. The first such group was Gama’at al-Muslimin, commonly known as Takfir wa-l-Hijra (Excommunication and Emigration), formed by two leaders of the Secret Apparatus released from prison: Shukri Mustafa and Sheikh Ali Ismael, brother of MB leader Fattah Ismael who was executed alongside Qutb.[18] Another terrorist group created by the Brotherhood at the time was al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (GI, the Islamic group), which was responsible for the October 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Both groups were founded by active leaders of the Brotherhood, who never claimed to have left the organization or their leadership positions therein. Indeed, in his last speech, one month before his assassination, Sadat equated the GI with the Brotherhood and expressed regret for having released many Brotherhood operatives from prison.[19]
Omar Abdel Rahman (“The Blind Sheikh”) and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
During the 1990s, the Egyptian authorities battled against a sustained wave of Islamist terrorism involving attacks on government officials and the country’s Coptic minority, the murdering of foreign tourists as well as an audacious attempt on the life of President Hosni Mubarak while he was in Ethiopia in June 1995.[20] In the same year, GI’s leader and MB spiritual authority, Omar Abdel Rahman, known as “The Blind Sheikh,” and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Abdel Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in a federal prison in North Carolina, and in Muhammad Morsi’s first speech as Egyptian president in Tahrir Square, he called for Abdel Rahman’s release and acknowledged the sheikh’s family who was present in the audience.[21]
No less important was the formation of the movement’s International Apparatus by Banna’s son-in-law Said Ramadan. Having fled Egypt to Saudi Arabia in 1954, Ramadan moved to Geneva in 1958 where he established the International Apparatus under the guidance of Mustafa Mashour, head of the Secret Apparatus, future MB general guide, and author of its militant manifesto “Jihad Is the Way.”[22] The International Apparatus was not fully operational until the mid-1980s when Mashour, who fled Egypt after Sadat’s assassination, settled in West Germany[23] in 1986 where he reestablished the Apparatus.
The International Apparatus is not just responsible for the Brotherhood’s public operations, but is also involved in operating and funding terrorist groups responsible for attacks on American soil. Thus, for example, Chakib Ben Makhlouf, one of the most prominent leaders of the MB’s Geneva office, is also the president of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe. He has been described by Egyptian member of parliament and terrorism expert Abdel Rahim Ali as “one of the most dangerous operatives of the Brotherhood’s International Apparatus.”[24] Likewise, according to Egyptian general Fouad Allam, who investigated the MB’s operations in the 1960s-70s, the Geneva office funneled funds that helped establish al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya.[25]
Later Influence
The International Apparatus’s most critical mission, though, has been to infiltrate, subvert, and recruit operatives from within the armies, governments, educational systems, and intelligence agencies of the MB’s targeted states, especially in the West, in what is called “civilization jihad.”
This term dates to a 1991 document titled The Explanatory Memorandum, drafted in a meeting that outlined the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic goals for North America and entered as evidence in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terror funding trial in 2008—the largest terror financing case in U.S. history.[26] In 2009, five MB leaders were charged with providing material support to Hamas, the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch and a designated foreign terrorist organization.
The 1980s and 1990s were the two most important decades for the “civilization jihad.” During this time, Hamas was transformed from an essentially missionary and charitable organization seeking to win Palestinian hearts and minds into a fully-fledged terror group during the first intifada (December 1987-September 1993), and the seeds were sown for the advent of al-Qaeda through the newly-formed Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK, the Services Bureau), also known as Maktab Khidamat al-Mujahidin al-Arab (the Services Bureau of Arab Jihadists) and the Afghan Services Bureau.
As jihadists flocked to Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight the Soviet occupation, the Brotherhood was busy running recruitment, jihadist services through its MAK offices throughout the Middle East. In 1984, MB operative Abdullah Azzam established the MAK office in Jordan.[27] Azzam’s philosophy helped establish and organize the Brotherhood’s “global jihad” movement, which earned him the alias, “The Father of Global Jihad.”[28] No less important, this philosophy inspired GI and Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) to try to export their terrorism and greatly inspired Osama bin Laden, whom Azzam taught at a Saudi university.[29]
In 1985, MB operatives Abdullah Azzam (L), bin Laden, and Ayman Zawahiri (R) founded MAK in Pakistan, which evolved into al-Qaeda. The Amman MAK recruited Abu Musab Zarqawi, who founded Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad, which evolved into al-Qaeda in Iraq and eventually into ISIS.
In 1985, Azzam, bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, leader of Takfir wa-l-Hijra who fled Egypt after the Sadat assassination, founded MAK in Pakistan, which subsequently evolved into al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, the Amman MAK office recruited one of the world’s most brutal terrorists of modern time, Abu Musab Zarqawi.[30] Mentored by Jordanian former MB leader Abu Muhammad Maqdisi, in 1999, Zarqawi founded Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad (Organization of Monotheism and Jihad), which six years later, evolved into al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) after Zarqawi pledged allegiance to bin Laden in late 2004. This group eventually morphed into ISIS after Zarqawi’s death in June 2006. Indeed, in a 2014 interview reported in Al-Arabiya News, the Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guide Yusuf Qaradawi admitted that ISIS leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.[31] For their part, several MB leaders publicly announced their support for ISIS, including the Qatar-based Sheikh Wagdy Ghoneim.[32]
The nature of al-Qaeda’s current relationship with the Brotherhood is somewhat unclear. While Zawahiri argued that bin Laden’s affiliation with the MB was severed in the 1980s due to differences over the anti-Soviet Afghanistan campaign,[33] this claim was discounted by Tharwat Kherbawy, the highest ranking MB member to have defected from the organization,[34] and also by evidence suggesting that the Brotherhood is still organizationally involved with al-Qaeda. Thus, for example, after Morsi’s July 2013 ouster from power, Zawahiri issued a videotaped statement on his behalf where he criticized Egyptian Salafi jihadists for not formally joining the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party to help it uphold Shari’a law.[35] In another statement, Zawahiri criticized the deposed MB president for having played politics with opponents,[36] but eventually prayed for his release and supported him while he was facing trial for inciting the killing of regime opponents and for espionage for foreign militant groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp.[37]
A Political Party or a Jihadi Group?
The Obama administration’s stubborn support for the Morsi regime and its tireless attempts to cast the MB as a moderate organization are preposterous—not only because the Brotherhood is the bedrock of some of the worst terror groups in today’s world but also because violence is endemic to the movement’s raison d’être: restoring the caliphate via violent jihad. Were the Brotherhood to give up this foundational goal, it would lose its legitimacy and sole reason for existence. This is why Banna used military terminology in structuring the MB, calling the organization “Allah’s battalion,”[38] a term used to this very day to denote the MB’s governing core; this is why the current Brotherhood leadership includes operatives who personally engaged in violent jihad and terror activities such as Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh.[39]
Osama Yassin, a former minister in Muhammad Morsi’s cabinet, revealed that members of the MB’s 95 Brigade militia engaged in the abduction, beating, and torture of “thugs” during riots leading to Mubarak’s downfall.
Furthermore, the organization’s Secret Apparatus remains intact and operational with new recruits required to undergo military training by such militias as the 95 Brigade,[40] which was established in 1995 and which played an active role in the January 2011 riots leading to Mubarak’s downfall. In a series of interviews with al-Jazeera TV, Osama Yassin, a former minister in Morsi’s cabinet, revealed that members of the brigade engaged in the abduction, beating, and torture of “thugs” and threw Molotov cocktails at their opponents.[41] Asked by an Egyptian newspaper to clarify these revelations,[42] the MB dismissed them as a joke. Still, the brigade operatives were later implicated in the killing of anti-Brotherhood protestors. In March 2014, for example, two operatives were sentenced to death after an online video clip showed them killing a teenager by throwing him from a building.[43]
According to the Brotherhood’s own standards and internal bylaws,[44] there are ten solid, unchangeable thawabit (precepts) in their organization’s bai’a (Islamic oath of allegiance) process. The fourth of these precepts is violent jihad and martyrdom,[45] which the Brotherhood states is an obligation of every individual Muslim, as well as the collective obligation of their organization.
Unfortunately, many American specialists either receive foreign funding or are otherwise oblivious to these facts and actively engage in a disinformation campaign. For example, a Brookings Institute article turned the meaning of the “fourth precept” of the Brotherhood’s bylaws on its head, stating that it stipulated that “during the process of establishing democracy and relative political freedom, the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to abide by the rules of democracy and its institutions.”[46]
Reality, of course, was quite different. When after Mubarak’s downfall the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in a sham presidential election,[47] which brought its operative Mohamed Morsi to the presidential palace, its violent[48] and undemocratic rule triggered, in short notice, mass protests throughout the country that brought millions of protestors to the streets and enabled the military to overthrow Morsi in a bloodless coup.
Islamic Reformers
Indeed, the sheer brutality of ISIS and various Brotherhood-affiliated or inspired terror groups across the Middle East has led to the advent of a mainstream Islamic reformist movement that draws on vastly more popular support than the Brotherhood itself. This unprecedented revival of a reform-oriented movement has received too little attention in the West. For example, Islam Behery, one of the movement’s heroic leaders, was incarcerated for a year for blasphemy for insulting al-Azhar University and the Sunni doctrine on his television show.[49] For two years, that show had been dedicated daily to exposing the brutality and terrorism of Sunni doctrine while offering a non-theocratic, liberal interpretation of Islam that pushes for separation of mosque and state. Behery received a presidential pardon in December 2016, which was unprecedented in Egyptian history.
Another supporter of reformation and freedom of thought is Ibrahim Issa, a popular Egyptian commentator, television host, and owner and editor-in-chief of the independent opinion newspaper Al-Maqal. Earlier this year, Issa announced that he would end his TV show due to “current events,” kindling speculation that the cancellation was related to Saudi pressure on the Egyptian regime because of Issa’s criticism of the kingdom’s violent Wahhabi sect.[50] Issa’s reformist stance has placed him on terrorist hit lists since 1992, and he has been living under tight security ever since. His opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood has made him one of the organization’s high profile targets, and in 2015, he became the subject of an official fatwa declaring him an “infidel.”[51]
Another heroic figure of Islamic reform currently facing the possibility of incarceration for blasphemy is the popular author and prominent secular figure Sayyed Qemani. His sin: stating that al-Azhar University should be designated a terrorist organization.[52] Behery, Qemani, and their like have the support of the most mainstream media figures in Egypt and across the Middle East, and they have dramatically changed the Islamic political discourse. Yet Western audiences have almost never heard of their heroic efforts.
The war of ideas is highly dynamic in today’s Middle East. The vast majority of the region’s peaceful Muslims are marginalized by Western support for the Brotherhood and the West’s refusal to designate the MB as a terrorist organization.
Conclusion
The deadly Brotherhood cult is responsible for almost a century of terror since the young Banna engaged in the intimidation and harassment of his Christian and moderate Muslim neighbors. Since then, the Brotherhood established Hamas as its Palestinian wing. Three Brotherhood activists established al-Qaeda. Brotherhood leaders, from inside their prisons, founded al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Brotherhood members recruited the founder of Jama’at al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad who started the trend of video decapitations, and one of its former operatives is currently acting as the caliph of Islamic State. The MB also has other connections to organizations on the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Neither Washington, nor any capital, can hope to counter Islamic terrorism successfully without allying with Muslim
figures fighting on the forefront of the battle of ideas. Washington can give these moderate Muslims a voice by designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
The Brotherhood has stated its intention to destroy the West’s “miserable house” by infiltrating Western society and institutions and subverting them from the inside.[53] Designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization will stop its operatives from reaching sensitive positions in the intelligence community and in other powerful U.S. government positions. It will also stop Brotherhood operatives in the United States from funding terrorism operations worldwide.
[12] Khaled Mohieddin, Al’an Atakkalam: Mudhakkirat al-Thawra (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, 1995), p. 45; Hassan Ashmawy, Mudhakkirat Harib (Cairo: Islamic Publishing House, 2000), p.15.
[13] Farouk Taifour, “Al-Juz’ al-Rabi: al-Ikhwan wa’l-Tanzimat al-Sirriya,” Egyptian Institute for Political and Strategic Studies, Cairo, EIPSS-EG.org, Feb. 24, 2016.
[22] Mustafa Mashour, “Al-Jihad huwa al-Sabil,” The Official Muslim Brotherhood Encyclopedia, IkhwanWiki.com, accessed Aug. 31, 2016; idem, “Jihad Is the Way,” trans. Palestinian Media Watch, Jerusalem, Feb. 9, 2011.
[27] Farouk Taifour, “Hal Kharajat Daesh min Rahm Fikr al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin?” Egyptian Institute for Political and Strategic Studies, Cairo, EIPSS-EG.org.
[28] “Abdullah Azzam: Overview,” Counter Extremist Project, New York, accessed Feb. 9, 2017.
[35] “Ta’kib al-Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri ala Azl Morsi wa-Tahdid al-Jaish,” You Tube, July 5, 2013.
[36] “Ayman al-Zawahiri Yuwajih Risalat Itab li-Morsi wa-Yadou Allah an Yafuku Asrahou,” You Tube, Feb. 11, 2014; Erich Follath, “Political Stability Eludes Polarized Egypt,” Der Spiegel (Hamburg), July 29, 2013.
[44] “Bylaws of the International Muslim Brotherhood,” June 1928.
[45] Muhammad Kandil, “Al-Thabit al-Rab’i: al-Jihad Salbiluna,” The Official Muslim Brotherhood Encyclopedia, IkhwanWiki.com, accessed Sept. 1, 2016; “The Muslim Brotherhood: Understanding its Roots and Impact, 1. Overview,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Washington, D.C., accessed Feb. 9, 2017.
[47] Daniel Pipes and Cynthia Farahat, “Egypt’s Sham Election,” National Review Online, Dec. 6, 2011; Shuruk News (Cairo), Mar. 22, 2016.
[48] Amb. Yahia Najm, Akhbar al-Yom TV (Cairo), in Cynthia Farahat, “CairoGate: Egyptian Diplomat Survives MB Torture Says ‘It was like a Nazi camp,'” Dec. 9, 2012.
[51]Bawabat al-Haraqat al-Islamiya (Cairo), Mar. 18, 2015. The fatwa was subsequently broadcast on the official Muslim Brotherhood television channel Rabaa, broadcasting from Turkey. See Al-Arabiya News, Dec. 5, 2017.
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