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Universities take action against pro-Israel faculty for inflammatory speech about Israel-Hamas war
(JTA) – A series of Jewish professors across the country have faced lawsuits, termination and suspension after making pro-Israel remarks that administrators say crossed the line into threatening speech.
Faculty members at New York University, the University of Southern California and Johns Hopkins University are among those who have been recently caught up in such controversies, as the campus climate around Israel continues to ferment in the weeks following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s war against the terror group in the Gaza Strip.
“This current situation has really been time for me to put my money where my mouth is as a free-speech attorney,” Samantha Harris, an attorney representing one of the professors, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Cases of universities disciplining pro-Israel rhetoric since Oct. 7 have been relatively rare, as some of the most prominent campus controversies have involved the reverse. Some schools, under pressure from pro-Israel donors, politicians and legal aid groups, have taken a series of actions against pro-Palestinian students, faculty and events.
Leaders of Cornell University condemned a professor who praised the Hamas attacks as “exhilarating”; he later took a leave of absence. The University of Arizona recently suspended two professors who praised Hamas as a “resistance group” and questioned whether it is antisemitic, according to a recording posted by a pro-Israel social media account.
And the heads of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, George Washington University, Columbia University and other schools have suspended pro-Palestinian student groups or disciplined students who participated in disruptive protests. The U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights office recently opened a series of investigations into universities over their handling of campus antisemitism cases, including some that took clear action against anti-Israel activities. The presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania are testifying before Congress next week as lawmakers seek to question whether they have responded forcefully enough to antisemitism.
But the cases of these three men — all at private colleges, and two of whom work in life sciences — show that strident pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian rhetoric has also occasionally been subject to consequences on campus. The offenses range from stray harsh words about Hamas to a professor tweeting multiple times that all Palestinians are “animals.”
An NYU director, fired over retweets, sues the hospital
The former director of NYU’s cancer research center is suing the hospital for firing him over a series of online posts he shared about Hamas and its supporters in the West.
Dr. Benjamin Neel was booted from that position earlier this month over his posting of political cartoons depicting Hamas calling for “death to all Jews,” and for caricatures showing Westerners, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, supporting the atrocities Hamas committed. He remains a tenured professor and the head of a laboratory at NYU, according to The New York Times. Neel’s attorney did not respond to questions sent via email.
NYU Langone Health fired Neel at the same time as it also fired another doctor for social media activity praising Hamas’ attack. Neel’s lawsuit, filed Nov. 16, claims that this made his own termination “a casualty” of the university’s “ill-considered plan to feign the appearance of even-handedness.”
In a statement to JTA, NYU maintained that it had proper standing to fire Neel from the cancer research center over what it said was a clear violation of the university’s code of conduct, social media policy and commitment “to providing a safe and inclusive environment, free of discrimination, for all of our employees and patients.”
“Dr. Ben Neel, as a leader at our institution, disregarded these standards in a series of public social media posts and later locked his Twitter/X account,” NYU spokesperson Steve Ritea said. “NYU Langone stands by our decision and looks forward to defending it in court.”
One of the arguments put forth by Neel’s attorneys is that his own pro-Israel speech pales in comparison to that of some of his more senior Jewish colleagues in private emails to him, who described other universities in insulting terms for failing to discipline anti-Israel speech. But NYU said Neel was acting “hypocritically” by including these emails in his lawsuit.
“Some of those emails were critical of specific decisions by university leaders for not taking a stronger stance on the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and for not holding accountable those who engaged in discriminatory speech,” Ritea wrote. “Hypocritically, Dr. Neel is now lashing out for being held accountable for such conduct.”
At Johns Hopkins, a doctor is placed on leave over “disturbing” tweets
Another university hospital has also taken disciplinary measures against a Jewish program director and professor for his incendiary social media posts.
Johns Hopkins Medicine placed the director of its pediatric cardiac critical care program, Dr. Darren Klugman, on leave over a series of posts he wrote shortly after Oct. 7 that advocated violence against all Palestinians. Klugman is also a medical school professor.
Klugman’s posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, painted all Palestinians as “morally depraved” and “savage animals,” and called for them to be murdered or displaced. “Time to reclaim every inch of Israel for Jews,” he wrote on Oct. 8, according to screenshots published by the university’s newsletter and other outlets.
In one reply to a user who had suggested that Israel was calling for a “large-scale slaughter” and to “spread out massacres over a year to displace Palestinians,” Klugman wrote, “G-d willing.”
Klugman has since apologized for his posts, writing in a letter to colleagues, “These messages in no way reflect my beliefs, me as a person, a physician, a friend, or colleague.” His X account is no longer active.
Kim Hoppe, a spokesperson for Johns Hopkins Medicine, told JTA that Klugman will remain on leave while the university conducts “a thorough investigation” and called his posts “deeply disturbing.”
“Statements that explicitly threaten or extol violence against groups or individuals on the basis of national origin, race or religion violate our policies and do not represent our values,” Hoppe’s statement continued.
An online petition calling on Johns Hopkins to “remove” Klugman has garnered more than 8,000 signatures. In the Jewish conservative magazine Commentary last week, Washington Free Beacon writer Daniel Halper implored Johns Hopkins to “forgive Dr. Darren Klugman,” Klugman helped treat his daughter, who was born with congenital heart defects.
“His apology should be accepted,” Halper wrote. “As the father of a Klugman patient, I know he means it. Why? Because I witnessed with my own eyes how he delivered medical care.”
A USC professor is barred from campus over filmed anti-Hamas remarks
While Klugman was placed on leave over explicitly anti-Palestinian posts, a USC economics professor, John Strauss, was asked to stay off campus after students filmed him calling for the death of Hamas.
Strauss was also informed by USC’s provost that he is under investigation following several student complaints filed against him through the university’s Equal Employment Opportunity/Title IX office. Harris, his attorney, says it’s wrong for USC to be investigating him.
“I do not think the investigation is appropriate,” said Harris, a former attorney with the campus free-speech legal group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “University administrations perform absolutely no gatekeeping function when it comes to student complaints. They simply are categorically unwilling to say to a student, ‘No, I’m sorry, we have policies that protect the right to free speech.’”
Harris wouldn’t comment on Strauss’ legal strategy.
Strauss was filmed telling students, “Hamas are murderers. That’s all they are. Every one should be killed, and I hope they all are killed.” He made his remarks at a campus pro-Palestinian protest.
Some students and pro-Palestinian groups later claimed online that Strauss had been referring to all Palestinians, rather than just Hamas, and that he had stepped on their memorials to Gazans killed by the Israeli military. But Strauss told the Los Angeles Times that he wasn’t referring to all Palestinians and did not step on the memorial deliberately.
“I am Jewish and very pro-Israel, so I shouted, ‘Israel forever. Hamas are murderers,’” he said.
Harris told JTA that Strauss’ speech should be protected: “Saying ‘I hope people die’ is not a threat.”
Strauss will still be permitted to teach students virtually through the current semester, which ends this week. A USC spokesperson told JTA that Strauss “has in no way been disciplined for engaging in protective speech,” describing his removal from campus as “a precautionary measure” that’s “designed to minimize disruption in the classroom and to ensure a safe environment for both him and students.”
Harris disputed USC’s characterization of its actions toward Strauss. “It clearly is being considered a disciplinary measure,” she said. She also pointed to what she said was a “perceived double standard” in which universities are more willing to discipline inflammatory pro-Israel speech than pro-Palestinian comments, pointing to recent USC protests in which students chanted, “There is only one solution: intifada, revolution.”
“As far as I know, the people who chanted that are not under investigation,” she said.
A petition demanding USC bring Strauss back to campus has more than 19,000 signatures, while a competing petition demanding he be fired has a little over 7,200.
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The post Universities take action against pro-Israel faculty for inflammatory speech about Israel-Hamas war appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slammed by Progressives After Voting for Resolution Condemning ‘Global Antisemitism’
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 21, 2024. Photo: Craig Hudson/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has received an onslaught of criticism from anti-Israel progressives over her decision to vote in favor of a resolution “condemning the rise of global antisemitism.”
On Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez supported House Resolution 1449, which affirms the State Department-endorsed “global guidelines for countering antisemitism.” The resolution passed the House by a 388-21 margin.
Ocasio-Cortez, who commonly goes by the nickname “AOC,” voted opposite three fellow members of the so-called “Squad” — a cohort of progressive Democrats with left-wing positions on issues ranging from foreign policy to economics. Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) — all stalwart anti-Israel voices in Congress — voted against the resolution, along with a handful of Republicans.
In the face of progressive backlash, Ocasio-Cortez took to Bluesky, a social media website, to explain her decision to vote in favor of the resolution. She implored her followers to “read the text of this bill” and emphasized that it is not “an IHRA bill.” The left-wing congresswoman clarified that she would “NEVER vote for codifying IHRA.”
She added that a “subclause references a separate [State Department] guideline which noncomittally references IHRA” and that it is “nonbinding.” The congresswoman minimized the bill as a right-wing attempt “to get the left infighting.”
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel, adopted a non-legally binding “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and well over 1,000 global entities, from countries to companies. The US State Department, the European Union, and the United Nations all use it.
According to the definition, antisemitism “is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
IHRA provides 11 specific, contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere. Beyond classic antisemitic behavior associated with the likes of the medieval period and Nazi Germany, the examples include denial of the Holocaust and newer forms of antisemitism targeting Israel such as demonizing the Jewish state, denying its right to exist, and holding it to standards not expected of any other democratic state.
Opponents of the IHRA definition of antisemitism assert that it exists as a pretext for governments and institutions to silence anti-Israel criticism and squash pro-Palestine activism.
Despite Ocasio-Cortez’s reassurances that she does not support the definition, anti-Israel progressives still condemned the congresswoman for “normalizing” it. They also blasted the lawmaker for her previous overtures to the Jewish community, such as participating in an online event with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a liberal pro-Israel organization.
“This absolute goddamn fraud voted for HR 1449 tonight, which further cements criticism of Israel as antisemitic under the law, and will encourage more mass arrests on campus, defunding charities, and strangling aid to Gaza,” wrote one X/Twitter user about Ocasio-Cortez.
“AOC’s vote for HR 1449 hurts. This definition of antisemitism — one that condemns accusations of Israel as ‘racist’ or ‘colonial’ — leaves no room for anti-Zionist Jews,” wrote another X/Twitter user.
Meanwhile, the virulently anti-Israel publication The Electronic Intifada published a story on Ocasio-Cortez’s vote with the headline, “AOC votes to back Israel lobby’s bogus ‘antisemitism’ definition.”
Over the past year, Ocasio-Cortez has stoked ire from anti-Israel progressives over her attempts to balance her harsh repudiations of the Jewish state with expressions of empathy for victims of antisemitism. She sparked outrage from progressives in August when she posed for a photo with the parent of an American taken hostage by the Hamas terrorist group during its massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
However, Ocasio-Cortez also drew outrage for pro-Israel activists on Sunday when she denounced the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, as an “overly influenced by a special interest group pushing a wildly unpopular agenda.” Her commentary on AIPAC, which came a couple weeks after US Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in the presidential election, drew accusations of antisemitism from some critics.
The global guidelines endorsed by HR 1449 praise the IHRA definition as “an important internationally recognized instrument” and urge governments and political leaders to take certain steps to address the global surge in antisemitism since Hamas’s invasion of Israel last October.
The post Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Slammed by Progressives After Voting for Resolution Condemning ‘Global Antisemitism’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Columbia University Locks Down Campus Amid Anti-Hillel Protest
Pro-Hamas students staging an anti-Hillel protest as New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers look on. Photo: Columbia Jewish & Israeli Students/Screenshot
Columbia University locked down its campus on Thursday, following an anti-Hillel protest staged by a front group for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) outside the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life.
“SIPA, SIPA, you can’t hide, you invest in genocide!” the mob chanted, according to The Columbia Daily Spectator, as they held signs calling for the university to “abolish” the Birthright Israel program, which grants Jewish students a free trip to their ancient homeland.
As The Algemeiner previously reported, this assault on Columbia’s Jewish life, perpetrated by a group which calls itself the Palestine Working Group (PWG), appears to have been prompted by an event held by the university on Thursday, in which Israeli journalist Barak Ravid spoke as a guest of the Kraft Center — where the Hillel chapter serving both Columbia and Barnard College students is located — and the School of International and Public Affairs’ (SIPA) Institute of Global Politics (IGP).
Reputed to be the largest Jewish collegiate organization in the world, Hillel International is a “home away from home” for the 180,000 students at over 850 colleges who avail themselves of its religious services, relationship building opportunities, and recreational activities. PWG, along with another group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), insists, however, that “Hillel is complicit in manufacturing propaganda and consent for the Zionist entity’s imperialist and colonial projects.”
On Friday, Columbia University — which has come under fire for its alleged failure to combat the incubation of antisemitism and jihadist extremism on its campus — denounced the attacks on Hillel.
“The Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, the home of Columbia and Barnard’s vibrant Hillel, is a vital part of our campus, providing a welcoming space for our students to explore and celebrate Jewish culture and identity,” Columbia University said in a statement that was not attributed to any one official. “We appreciate the many contributions the Kraft Center and Hillel and make to supporting our Jewish community and building our university community. Any efforts to intimidate the Kraft Center, Hillel, and our Jewish community and all forms of antisemitism are unacceptable and inimical to what we stand for as a university.”
Columbia Apartheid Divest hit back at the university hours later, charging that it “directly engages in the colonization and destruction of Palestinian life and land through the construction of their ‘Tel Aviv Global Center’ on stolen land,” linking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the popular left-wing issue of gentrification in urban cities. Such messaging continues a pattern of blaming Israel, the lone Jewish state, for the world’s problems.
“On top of the centuries of continuing gentrification and displacement of Harlem residents, the entire campus is illegally isolated solely to punish and hide the brutality Columbia inflicts on us for fighting for Palestinian liberation,” the group continued.
The campaign to kick Hillel chapters off college campuses is not new. The campus group National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) launched the initiative, titled “Drop Hillel,” in October, just weeks after the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
“Over the past several decades, Hillel has monopolized for Jewish campus life into a pipeline for pro-Israel indoctrination, genocide-apologia, and material support to the Zionist project and its crimes,” a social media account operating the campaign said in a manifesto published in concurrence with its launching. “Across the country, Hillel chapters have invited Israeli soldiers to their campuses; promoted propaganda trips such as birthright; and organized charity drives for the Israeli military.”
The idea has already been picked up by pro-Hamas student groups at one college, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, according to The Daily Tar Heel, the school’s official student newspaper. On Oct. 9, it reported, a member of SJP unveiled the idea for “no more Hillel” during a rally which, among other things, demanded removing Israel from UNC’s study abroad program and adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Addressing the comments to the paper days later, SJP, which has been linked to Islamist terrorist organizations, proclaimed that shuttering Hillel is a coveted goal of the anti-Zionist movement.
The #DropHillel campaign comes amid an unprecedented surge in anti-Israel incidents on college campuses, which, according to a report published in September by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), have reached crisis levels.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Columbia University Locks Down Campus Amid Anti-Hillel Protest first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Half of French People Adhere to Over 6 Antisemitic Prejudices, 12% Happy to See Jews Leave Country: Survey
Sign reading “+1000% of Antisemitic Acts: These Are Not Just Numbers” during a march against antisemitism, in Lyon, France, June 25, 2024. Photo: Romain Costaseca / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
Hostility toward the Jewish people has surged to alarming levels in France, where half the population adhere to more than six antisemitic prejudices and nearly one in five young people want to see the departure of Jews from the country, according to a new survey.
Ipsos, a market research and consulting firm, conducted the survey of the French public for the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews, to examine the country’s attitudes toward the Jewish community amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes over the past year.
The findings, unveiled by CRIF on Thursday and first reported by the French news magazine Le Point, revealed a surge in antisemitic attitudes across France.
Among France’s general population, 12 percent of people are happy to see Jews leave the country, up from just 6 percent in 2020, according to the survey.
“It’s a terrifying figure,” CRIF president Yonathan Arfi told the radio station Europe 1 when asked about the finding.
The number goes up among people under the age of 35, of whom a striking 17 percent think that the departure of Jews from France would be good for the country.
“It is contrary to the historical trend,” Arfi told Le Point. “Young people are more receptive to antisemitic, Islamist, and conspiracy theories, which are invading social networks.”
As for people aged 18 to 24, only 53 percent think that the majority of Jews are well integrated into the population, compared to 84 percent of French people more broadly, the survey found.
Overall, nearly half (46 percent) of French people today adhere to more than six anti-Jewish prejudices, compared to 37 percent in 2020, according to the results. Meanwhile, almost a quarter of those surveyed think that Jews are not really French like the rest of their countrymen, an uptick of more than six points.
The numbers increase among backers of France’s main far-left and far-right political parties. Indeed, the survey found that 52 percent of those who support the far-right Rassemblement National (RN — “National Rally”) and 55 percent of those who support the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI — “France Unbowed”) adhere to at least six antisemitic stereotypes. And a third of LFI supporters indicated they adhere to at least nine such prejudices.
LFI is the largest member of the New Popular Front (NFP), an anti-Israel leftist coalition of political parties that came to power in France’s snap parliamentary elections in July. The coalition gained the most seats of any political bloc but not enough for a majority. Its leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has been lambasted by French Jews as a threat to their community as well as those who support Israel.
“It seems France has no future for Jews,” Rabbi Moshe Sebbag of Paris’ Grand Synagogue told the Times of Israel following the ascension of the NFP in July’s elections. “We fear for the future of our children.”
According to the survey, 20 percent of LFI supporters consider the departure of Jews from France desirable, compared to 15 percent of those who back RN.
Similarly troubling, the results showed that 25 percent of LFI supporters have “sympathy” for Hamas, and 40 percent refuse to label the Palestinian Islamist group as a terrorist organization.
Hamas, which has been designated internationally as a terrorist group, launched the war in Gaza with its invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7. During the onslaught, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people, mostly civilians, wounded thousands more, and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating rampant sexual violence, including torture and gang rape.
The survey noted that one in two French people now suspect their Jewish fellow citizens of “double allegiance” to Israel — a reality that Arfi blamed in part on LFI’s fierce anti-Israel opposition.
“LFI has given antisemitism a political endorsement,” he told Le Point. “We observe this toxic porosity between criticism of Israel and the ostracization of French Jews. The Palestinian cause becomes a license to hate.”
The findings also showed that, among the French people surveyed, 64 percent believe that Jews have reason to be afraid of living in France, and 70 percent believe that the country has experienced an increase in antisemitism.
The survey results came as France has experienced a record surge of antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’s atrocities last Oct. 7, amid the ensuing war in Gaza. Antisemitic outrages rose by over 1,000 percent in the final three months of 2023 compared with the previous year, with over 1,200 incidents reported — greater than the total number of incidents in France for the previous three years combined.
This year, anti-Jewish hate crimes and demonstrations in France have continued to skyrocket.
Earlier this month, for example, a monument honoring victims of the Nazis located in eastern France was vandalized with graffiti reading “Nique Israël,” or “F—k Israel” in English.
Last month, a man wearing a sports jersey with the words “Anti-Jew” written in French was photographed riding the Paris metro, prompting an investigation by law enforcement and outcry from Jewish leaders who lamented what they described as public indifference to surging antisemitism in France.
Days earlier, a visibly Jewish teenager was assaulted by two youths as he was leaving a metro station in the northwest suburbs of Paris.
That incident followed three men brutally attacking a Jewish woman at the entrance to her home in Paris on the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities. The victim stated that the assailants threatened her with a box knife, made antisemitic threats, and mentioned the events of last Oct. 7.
In September, a kosher restaurant in Villeurbanne, near the eastern city of Lyon, was defaced with red paint and tagged with the message “Free Gaza.”
The incident came days after French police arrested a 33-year-old Algerian man suspected of trying to set a synagogue ablaze in the southern French city of la Grande-Motte.
Two months earlier, an elderly Jewish woman was attacked in a Paris suburb by two assailants who punched her in the face, pushed her to the ground, and kicked her while hurling antisemitic slurs, including “dirty Jew, this is what you deserve.”
In another egregious attack that garnered international headlines, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a different Paris suburb on June 15. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack. In response to the incident, French President Emmanuel Macron denounced the “scourge of antisemitism” plaguing his country.
Around the same time in June, an Israeli family visiting Paris was denied service at a hotel after an attendant noticed their Israeli passports.
In May, French police shot dead a knife-wielding Algerian man who set fire to a synagogue and threatened law enforcement in the city of Rouen.
One month earlier, a Jewish woman was beaten and raped in a suburb of Paris as “vengeance for Palestine.”
Such incidents are part of an explosion of antisemitic outrages across France that has continued since last Oct. 7.
In August, then-French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin warned that incidents targeting the country’s Jewish community spiked by about 200 percent since Jan. 1.
“Two-thirds of anti-religious acts … are against Jews,” he added, according to French broadcaster BFM TV.
Darmanin’s comments followed him stating weeks earlier that antisemitic acts in France have tripled over the last year. In the first half of 2024, 887 such incidents were recorded, almost triple the 304 recorded in the same period last year, he said.
Despite widespread concern among French Jews, senior officials including Macron have repeatedly said they are committing to combating antisemitism and supporting the country’s Jewish community.
According to Arfi, a whole-of-government response is needed to combat the surge in antisemitism, which he largely attributed to people spreading misleading information about the Israel-Hamas war and blaming Jews worldwide for false allegations leveled against Israel.
“The hysteria of the debate on Gaza has blown the last barriers,” Arfi observed, adding that elected officials are making the Palestinian cause “an electoral business” and using it for “criminal instrumentalization.”
“We need a systemic response,” he concluded.
The post Half of French People Adhere to Over 6 Antisemitic Prejudices, 12% Happy to See Jews Leave Country: Survey first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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