0:00
that he had requested of a panel of judges on that Court their permission to file an indictment against prime
0:06
minister um Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and uh defense minister Galant
0:13
as well as three Hamas leaders uh alleging war crimes and that he will
0:18
seek their arrest warrants what if any International geopolitical significance
0:26
is there to uh going after the head of state so directly so profoundly as he is
0:34
going after uh prime minister Netanyahu well I just think what is
0:39
going on here is that the icc's move in the wake of the
0:46
international Court of justices move in January just contributes to the damage
0:54
that is being done to Israel's reputation and and this is damage that
1:00
is going to last uh for as far as the eye can see uh enormous damage is being
1:07
done to Israel here and at the same time I think it's fair to say that significant damage is being done to the
1:14
United States uh because the United States is joined at the hip with Israel
1:20
and as we back Israel at every turn in the face of evidence that shows that
1:28
Israel is being legit legitimately charged with these crimes it does great
1:33
damage to us of course as well as to the Israelis so this is bad news for both
1:39
countries here's uh km Khan the very articulate Chief
1:46
prosecutor uh explaining uh the charges against uh prime minister Netanyahu and defense
1:53
minister Gant cut number nine on the basis of evidence collected and examined
1:58
by my office that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense yuav
2:06
Galant bear criminal responsibility for the following International crimes committed on the
2:13
territory of the State of Palestine from at least the 8th of October
2:20
2023 the crimes include starvation of civilians as a method of warfare
2:26
willfully causing great suffering serious injury to body or health or
2:32
cruel treatment willful killing or murder an intentionally directing attacks against
2:40
a civilian population as well as crimes against humanity of extermination and or murder
2:49
persecution and allegations of crimes of committing other inhumane acts um I noticed two phrases that we
2:57
haven't heard before uh in in the criminal or judicial context um
3:03
Professor mber one is extermination and the other is the state
3:09
of Palestine so I I I put those two uh gems on the plate for you to
3:16
address yeah I was actually shocked to see the word extermination because it uh
3:21
raises immediate thoughts of the Holocaust and what the Germans uh and
3:27
others did to the Jews during World War to but the term is not unpacked in the
3:33
document as best I can tell so I'm not sure what he means by extermination and it's very important to understand that
3:40
in the ICC uh documentation that came out the other day uh there's no talk of genocide
3:48
and if you just listen to what uh Mr Khan said you did not hear the word
3:54
genocide and of course the international court of justice hearings uh earlier
4:00
this year uh and the report that was issued by the icj did talk about
4:07
possible genocide but that's not at play here but there is that word extermination and of course you hear
4:13
about crimes against humanity and so forth and so on look the charges against
4:18
Israel are straightforward there is just a huge amount of documentation that
4:23
supports them and in a way the finding of the ICC this recent finding of the IC
4:31
is not surprising at all uh it's stunning to the Israelis and stunning to
4:37
the Americans because it puts both countries up in Bright Lights uh and it
4:42
makes it look like their complicities uh in uh this mass murder or genocide or
4:49
whatever you want to call it uh that's taking place in Gaza so as I said before this is devastating for Israel uh and it
4:57
is hugely damaging for the United States as well now with regard to your second
5:04
Point what exactly was the issue there he uh referred to the crimes as
5:10
occurring in quote the state of Palestine yeah is that an indication
5:16
that in the view of the court or at least this prosecutorial uh office much like uh Ireland Sweden and
5:25
Spain declared earlier today Palestine is a state well what's going on here is
5:31
that the question of jurisdiction is at play and uh for the court to intervene
5:38
the ICC to intervene in this case uh one of the parties has to be uh uh a
5:47
signatory to the Rome statute and is Palestine a signatory to the Rome statute unlike the United States and
5:53
Israel yes that that's what the court has ruled the day joined
6:00
2015 that that's the basic finding here therefore the court has jurisdiction
6:05
over crimes committed on their property and against their people exactly that's what's going on here and that that's why
6:13
uh Khan uh paid so much attention to this issue if I can make one other quick
6:18
Point uh Kum Khan is a very clever uh
6:24
and forceful individual and you want to understand that what he did here
6:30
was he convened a panel of six legal experts these are experts in
6:35
international law and two academic experts to look over all of the evidence
6:44
and help him sort through that evidence and help him reach a conclusion they all agree unanimously
6:53
with him they wrote an oped in the financial times the six legal experts
6:59
did saying they agree unanimously with what KH is doing and furthermore they
7:06
issued a lengthy report that lays out in detail the basis of the icc's charges
7:14
against the Israelis or I should say against Netanyahu and Gant uh so this
7:20
gives uh Khan lots of support it makes it look like it's not one individual
7:26
this prosecutor uh taking aim at the Israelis he has the support of six
7:32
distinguished International lawyers were were you surprised the three Hamas leaders were
7:40
also named particularly the the third one in the in
7:45
the list of the names and I'm sorry I don't have the name in front of me you may know who it is he's a longtime
7:50
friend of our friend and colleague aliser Crook and he is the chief
7:56
negotiator for Hamas who fock between Doha and Cairo uh transporting the
8:04
negotiation methods and uh and efforts which I guess he can no longer do if an arrest warrant is out for him yeah well
8:12
uh once the arrest warrant is granted that will be true for the time being he can move around uh his name is ishal
8:21
Hana and uh I was surprised that they uh
8:26
included him but I think what's going on here is uh surely Khan understood that
8:32
if he went after Israel he had to go after Hamas as well and if you're going to go after two Israeli leaders it makes
8:39
sense to go after three palestin Palestinian leaders uh so nobody can say
8:45
that you're favoring Hamas um over uh Israel uh and uh so that I think
8:54
explains what's going on here if I I just want to make another point because it's very important to understand this I
8:59
read the report uh very carefully uh and I read the this is the report of the six
9:05
experts and I also read uh Khan's statement and he makes it unequivocally
9:12
clear that he is conducting ongoing
9:17
investigations and those ongoing investigations include what is going on
9:24
in the West Bank and I think if you read the documentation carefully there's
9:29
every reason to believe uh that this is not going to stop with Netanyahu and
9:36
golant uh that there are going to be a number of other Israelis who are singled
9:43
out and I believe uh it's not going to be for what's simply happening in Gaza
9:49
but what's happening in the West Bank as well and my view is that once uh Khan
9:56
opened this door uh once he opened Pandora's Bock there's no telling where
10:02
this is going to stop and the reason I say that is the evidence is overwhelming that Israel has been committing serious
10:09
war crimes that that that of course is true
10:15
however under the rules of the Court wouldn't Benjamin Netanyahu need to be
10:21
physically present in the court in order for them to try him in other words if he stays out of countries where the arrest
10:29
warrant can be executed for the rest of his life he can avoid prosecution am I
10:34
right absolutely and I would bet a lot of money he will never be prosecuted but
10:40
that's not the key issue here whether he's prosecuted right the key the key issue as I understand it uh is the
10:47
international effect of these prosecutions or these indictments and arrest warrants to put
10:55
it in slightly different terms it's very important to create facts uh with the
11:00
Palestinians and their supporters have gotten very good at over the years is
11:05
creating facts and when facts are created by legitimate bodies like the
11:12
icj and the ICC uh they mean a lot uh and what's
11:18
happening here and this is a huge problem for Israel it cannot be underestimated is that the narrative is
11:26
changing in fundamental ways and the narrative is changing in ways that make
11:32
it almost impossible for Israel to counter again the documentation in the
11:38
case of the international court of justice and here with the international criminal court if you just sort of look
11:44
at the documentation it's voluminous uh and this is a huge problem for Israel
11:51
and it all adds up to a serious indictment of that country that I believe will be a permanent stain on its
11:58
reputation so we all know the definition of uh of
12:03
genocide an attempt to eradicate a group based on religion ethnicity or
12:11
nationality but the international condemnation of genocide also includes
12:16
funding it can Joe Biden Tony blinken Jacob suin
12:23
Lloyd Austin also be in the prosecutor's crosshairs
12:29
oh there's no question about it uh there just no question about it they are complicitous it's obvious that they're
12:36
complicitous not only are we giving Israel material support and economic
12:42
support but we're uh protecting it at every turn diplomatically all you have
12:48
to do is look at how we responded uh to the ICC ruling the other day uh by uh
12:56
Khan I mean it's quite clear that the United States is complicities uh in what
13:01
I would call a genocide do you think sometimes that Israel is Its Own
13:08
Worst Enemy there's no question about that I think many Israelis understand that uh
13:15
and furthermore I would go beyond that and say that the Israel Lobby in the United States all these staunch
13:21
Defenders of Israel who go to Great Lanes to protect Israel no matter what it does are doing enormous harm to
13:28
Israel uh they like to argue that it's people like me people like Steve Walt people
13:34
like Jeff Sachs and so forth and so on who were doing real damage to Israel I
13:39
think that's not the case at all they're the ones who are doing great damage and
13:44
they do it by enabling Israel to behave in barbaric ways and foolish ways from a
13:51
strategic point of view uh Israel is in a giant mess it shows no signs of
13:57
getting out of this mess and in fact it looks like they're just digging deeper and deeper and what is
14:03
the lobby doing the lobby is supporting them as they dig deeper and deeper uh
14:08
this is a pro-israel approach not my view do you um go ahead you think that
14:17
there are two israels there's sort of the modern liberal high-tech prosperous
14:24
Israel and then there's the theocracy and the theocracy seems to be control of
14:29
the government now or or am I or do you have a different view well I think there
14:35
is a lot of Truth in that and I think if you look at the big fight that took
14:40
place in Israel before and let me underline the word before before October
14:46
7th involving the Judiciary the right isi
14:51
Supreme Court you saw that divide that you just described at play and in fact
14:57
many people were talking about a possible Civil War inside of Israel but
15:03
if you talk about foreign policy and you talk about policy towards the
15:09
Palestinians I believe that that divide that you described is not meaningful in
15:16
any way it's kind of like the Republicans and the Democrats on foreign policy in this country uh the
15:23
Republicans and the Democrats are Tweedle D and tweetle dum it doesn't matter whether Donald Trump gets
15:29
reelected or Joe Biden gets reelected this is not going to be any fundamental change in American foreign policy in my
15:36
opinion in terms of domestic policy there's a lot of difference between those two characters there's no question
15:42
about that and I think that's what I'm saying about Israel in terms of how the Israelis think about the occupied
15:49
territories how they think about a two-state solution how they think about dealing with the Palestinians there's
15:55
just not a lot of daylight between let's call it the s and the right right uh you
16:02
have recently outlined in your brilliant lecture in Australia which is uh posted uh on
16:10
judging Freedom uh four probable scenarios for the end uh of the war in Gaza and I
16:19
would like to address those each of those scenarios with you if I could one is it seems unlikely but I shouldn't
16:26
comment because you're you're the expert Israel becomes a normal liberal
16:32
democracy with equal votes and equal rights for everybody who's there we're not going to see that are we no just we
16:40
want to make sure we're clear that we're talking about greater Israel here
16:45
which plus Gaza plus the West Bank correct from the from the river to the
16:50
Sea yeah as I said in that talk in Australia from the river to the sea is a
16:56
term that Israelis use as well as pal Palestinians and basically you're talking about greater Israel and what
17:03
Hamas wants to do is turn greater isra Israel into greater Palestine but they're talking about the same big piece
17:11
of real estate but the Israelis would never agree uh to turn that into a
17:17
liberal democracy where every person or every adult person got a vote because it
17:23
would soon turn into a Palestinian State and no longer be a Jewish state so that is not happening
17:29
the two-state solution with a free this is the second possible not probable
17:36
possible outcome I suppose anything's possible but we're not in a court of law here uh a two-state solution with a free
17:43
and independent Palestine well the Israelis are adamantly opposed to that is this what
17:50
Tony blinkin wants or and Joe Biden says he wants yes but that's because they're
17:56
delusional it's not could to happen I mean the Israelis call the tune here not
18:02
the Americans and the Israelis have no interest in a two-state solution and furthermore after what happened on
18:09
October 7th uh regardless of what you think about the occupation it is hard to
18:15
imagine any Israeli leader agreeing to a two-state solution because a two-state
18:20
solution means that you get a viable Palestinian State and that viable
18:26
Palestinian state has the military means to defend itself of course that
18:31
Palestinian state would want the military means to defend itself since it lives next door to Israel but from
18:38
Israel's point of view those defensive weapons that the Palestinians had would
18:43
look offensive in nature and given that you have organizations uh in uh the
18:49
Palestinian world who want to take back all of the territory that Israel Now
18:55
controls uh it is very hard to imagine a situation where you get a two-state solution in my
19:01
lifetime or your lifetime or in my children's lifetime the uh third and
19:07
fourth are not unlike what we see now uh an apartheid
19:14
state with genocide well what you have now is an apartheid state let's leave the genocide
19:21
aside Israel is an apartheid state and here we're talking about greater Israel and as I like to emphasize human rights
19:28
watch Amnesty International and Bellum which is the largest uh Human Rights
19:34
group inside of Israel itself all three of these human rights organizations have
19:40
issued lengthy reports making the case that Israel is in apartheid state and I
19:46
think if you read those reports even if you just read the executive summaries of each of the three reports that these
19:54
human rights groups have issued you see that it is manifestly clear that this is
19:59
an apartheid state but it is an apartheid state at
20:06
the present time post October 7th engaged in virulent ethnic cleansing
20:12
which has risen to the level of genocide and for which it has been condemned internationally and for which there is
20:18
as you said at the outset of this conversation and many other conversations and in many of your
20:24
speeches and writings more than ample evidence the case is proven Beyond Reasonable Doubt and to a moral
20:30
certainty that Israel is engaged in genocide but this gets this gets to the
20:37
fourth option the fourth option is ethnic cleansing and my argument is that the
20:45
only way the Israelis can get out of a partide is to ethnically cleanse Gaza
20:53
and the West Bank because once you cleanse the Palestinians then you can
20:59
turn greater Israel into a liberal democracy because most of the Palestinians have been pushed out of
21:06
Greater Israel so it solves that problem it also solves it's worth noting the
21:12
Hamas problem Israel is not going to defeat Hamas as long as the Palestinians
21:18
remain in Gaza but if you ethnically cleanse Gaza you solve the Hamas problem
21:24
so ethnic cleansing solves the Gaza problem I mean the Hamas problem and it
21:30
solves the aparte problem now what happened after October 7th is the
21:35
Israelis saw an opportunity to cleanse Gaza and they started bombing the place
21:42
and trying to make it uninhabitable trying to kill large numbers of Palestinians all for the
21:48
purposes of cleansing the Palestinians from Gaza but they failed nevertheless
21:55
they have continued to try to make that work I believe they're still trying to
22:01
make that work this is why they're now starving the Palestinians they're trying to push them into Egypt and trying to
22:07
push them into uh Jordan but it's not working
22:12
ethnic cleansing is not working so you're back to the third strand which is
22:19
apartheid and what's going to happen when the shooting finally stops is that Israel is going to remain an apartheid
22:26
state and that means the Palestinian are going to continue to resist and we're going to have another October 7th or
22:33
something like it down the road do you uh think that October 7th
22:40
and the events which have followed it uh have effectively uh destroyed the
22:47
efforts of the American State Department to bring about a rapo ma between Israel
22:53
and Saudi Arabia it certainly looks that way the Saudis are in insting that they want a
23:01
deal with Israel and with the United States but in order to get a deal there
23:07
has to be serious movement and I think they mean serious movement toward a
23:12
two-state solution and the Israelis have made it clear that as much as they'd love to have an Abraham Accord involving
23:20
the United States Saudi Arabia and the and Israel they're not willing to make
23:27
any concession on a two-state solution that's just not going to happen so it appears at this point in time you're not
23:33
going to get an Abraham Accord involving uh Saudi Arabia Israel and the United States here here is the Secretary of
23:40
State blinkin yesterday discussing this please uh tell me a little longer than a
23:47
minute a cut number 12 Chris please tell me if you think the secretary of state
23:52
of the United States is right on or is naive uh yes we have uh s to move
23:58
forward in negotiating the bilateral us Saudi aspects of uh a normalization
24:05
agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel but even if we were to conclude
24:11
uh those agreements and I believe we actually can conclude them uh relatively quickly uh given all the work that's
24:18
been done um they could not go forward and the overall package could not go forward absent uh other things that have
24:25
to happen for normalization to proceed and in particular the Saudis have been very clear that would require uh common
24:33
Gaza and it would require a credible Pathway to a Palestinian State and it may well be as you said that in this
24:39
moment uh Israel is not uh able or willing to um proceed down that pathway
24:45
but to the extent that the Agreements are um finalized in principle between
24:52
the United States and Saudi Arabia uh that in effect calls the question and Israel will have to decide whether
24:58
it wants to proceed uh and take advantage of the opportunity to achieve something that it is sought from its
25:07
founding I don't know what he means by Israel has sought this from its founding surely Israel doesn't want the two-state
25:13
solution has never sought it a no Israeli Prime Minister has you can respond to that also this is an odd
25:19
phrase I never heard before might be my own ignorance common Gaza is that a
25:25
technical phrase or is that just an adjective he threw in I I never heard the phrase before and
25:31
I'm not sure what he meant uh okay and I think your first criticism of his of his
25:37
is on the money but I think it's of minor importance I think that blinkin basically laid out the situation as it
25:44
is which is that the Americans and the Saudis are ready to jump in bed with
25:50
each other uh and we want to bring the Israelis on board and that includes the
25:55
Saudis uh but what has to be done here is there has to be movement on a two-state solution and blinkin surely
26:03
understands after the Israelis have beat him over the head so many times since October 7th that that is not likely to
26:10
happen or in my rhetoric is not going to happen and he didn't appear to hold out
26:16
much hope that it's going to happen for good reasons I'm sure do you think that when he's with Netanyahu he even raises
26:23
the two-state solution with him oh I'm sure he raises it but
26:28
the question is whether or not he or Biden are willing to get tough with
26:34
Netanyahu the United States has a tremendous amount of potential leverage
26:40
over the Israelis the idea that we can't coer them to do all sorts of things that
26:45
we want them to do that they don't want to do is simply uh not true we we could
26:52
course them to do lots of things we could have CED them long ago into accepting a two-state solution the
26:58
United States is a remarkably powerful country and Israel is extremely dependent on us but we are almost
27:06
completely unwilling to exercise that leverage and Tony blinkin uh and uh Joe Biden are
27:13
certainly not going to get tough with the Israelis so he probably raises it in a very soft Manner and Netanyahu puts
27:21
him in his place Professor Mir shamer why are Arab leaders not coming to the A
27:28
of the Palestinians well I think that most Arab leaders have long had little Sympathy
27:37
for the Palestinians and they're mainly interested in pursuing their country's own interests and for the most part that
27:45
means cooperating with Israel quite a bit and
27:50
allowing themselves to be pushed around by the Americans who of course support
27:56
the Israelis Hook Line and sinker so if you're Jordan or you're Saudi Arabia and
28:02
you depend on the United States for security and the United States tells you that we'll give you security if you're
28:09
nice to Israel you'll be nice to Israel uh so the leaders in most of the Arab
28:15
world are not terribly sympathetic to the Palestinians it's the populations
28:21
that are really sympathetic well we've talked about this before I suppose it is
28:28
probable certainly possible that the populations could become so passionate
28:34
and so unified that they would almost terrify their leadership into doing
28:40
something for fear of domestic uh disturbances over it yeah well I think Jordan is the best
28:47
example here because inside Jordan you have a huge population of Palestinians and they have been protesting against
28:54
the Jordanian government uh uh almost continuously since October 7th uh so uh
29:02
the jordanians uh really worry about pressure from down below and I think the
29:07
Saudis although they don't have uh anywhere near as much pressure coming up from below nevertheless do have a lot of
29:15
pressure from below and are worried and that's why the Saudis I think can
29:20
consummate an Abraham Accord with Israel and the United States until you get a
29:25
Palestinian state is Israel imperialistic much as the United
29:32
States is do you see a pattern in Israel's wish to expand and NATO's wish
29:39
to expand and the US popping up military bases is over a thousand now all over
29:45
the world no I don't I think the United States is a great power and you could
29:52
say that it has Imperial Ambitions and NATO expansion is one piece of evidence
29:57
that supports that argument but uh the United States is a class all by itself
30:03
when it comes to expansion uh I mean we basically believe we should be running the planet and that we have the right uh
30:10
and the responsibility to intervene in the domestic politics of every country in the world the Israelis are not in
30:17
that category at all uh the Israelis have basically been interested in taking
30:24
these two big pieces of territory that they conquered in 196 67 the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and incorporating
30:32
them into a greater Israel I think if they had their DRS there's other territory that they might take uh for
30:39
example in southern Lebanon uh and at one time there were a lot of israelies who wanted to take the East Bank of the
30:46
Jordan which is now the country of Jordan uh or part of the country of
30:52
Jordan but I think uh they're just at this point in time the Israelis uh
30:58
interested in consolidating their position in Greater Israel there's a
31:03
famous historical anecdote I don't know if it's true or not of Benjamin Franklin
31:08
uh walking out of the notoriously secret closed door sessions that produced the
31:16
Constitution and a journalist said to him what have you given us and he said a republic sir if you have keep if you can
31:24
keep it I would argue we haven't kept it it's now an Empire do you agree
31:30
Professor mimer well I think that the United States uh has always had uh a very
31:39
ambitious foreign policy since the end of the Cold War it's got even more ambitious uh but at the same time it's
31:46
had a liberal democracy inside of its borders and I think there was always a
31:52
tension between those two things because I think the more more ambitious your
31:59
foreign policy is and the more you get interested in trying to run the world the more damage you do to the liberal
32:06
democracy at home and I think uh enormous damage has been done to our
32:12
liberal democracy since the Cold War ended uh and I think that uh what is
32:19
going on today with regard to Israel is doing even more damage because if you
32:25
look at what's happening inside the United States with regard to freedom of speech because of our support to Israel
32:31
right anybody who's really concerned about the future of our liberal democracy can't help but be sick to his
32:37
or her stomach about what's happening so I think a very powerful case can be made
32:43
that aerial Ambitions to use your rhetoric does damage at home in ways
32:50
that are not good for Liberal democracy before we leave uh minutes before we came on air uh this afternoon afterno
32:58
the British prime minister Rishi sunak uh announced what the British call a snap election an election for a new
33:05
Parliament on of all dates for the Brits to do this July 4th I guess he doesn't have an eye on
33:12
history or maybe it doesn't resonate over there but uh that's uh only six weeks from now um do you see the
33:19
conservatives getting their clocks cleaned that's certainly what the polls seem to indicate and given the
33:26
performance of the conserv atives uh it's hard to believe that they won't get
33:31
their clocks cleaned but as you and I have learned over the years you know uh
33:36
six weeks is a long time and a lot can happen but uh I would imagine that the
33:41
conservatives will get their clocked clean they're clock clean and by the way I don't think it will matter at all in
33:48
ter right that's what's my next question does it make a difference will will sir
33:54
Kier Storer who's the leader of Labor and the likely prime minister is he going to free Julian Assange is he gonna
34:02
stop dealing with Tony blinkin is he gonna stop sending arms to Ukraine I'm
34:08
gonna guess no no and no well I don't know what he'll do with a Sange uh let's
34:13
hope that he freeze aange but uh with regard to foreign policy I don't think he'll change at all you want to remember
34:19
that his predecessor is the head of the labor party labor party was Jeremy
34:24
Corbin and Jerry Jeremy Corbin got smeared mightily and pushed out of his
34:33
position as the head of the labor party for being an anti-semite and I do not
34:38
believe for one second that Jeremy Corbin was an anti-semite uh and I think what happened
34:44
was that the lobby in Britain which is very powerful understood that Jeremy
34:50
Corbin would have changed British foreign policy towards Israel had he been elected right Corbin's views Israel
34:58
are not much different than your views or My Views but they wanted to make sure
35:03
that didn't happen he was pushed overboard and again the lobby played the principal role in uh throwing Corbin
35:11
overboard and then in came Storer and you can rest assured that he understands
35:17
that if he doesn't dance to the lobb's tune he'll get thrown over board as well
35:22
so he's Chang we're we're about to post uh on judging Freedom a talk given to a
35:31
crowd Yesterday by Julian assange's sister after the court announced uh that
35:38
it's allowing an appeal because it rejected the tepid uh guarantees that
35:44
the United States purported to send it by a political appointee rather than by the doj itself however that's not my
35:50
point my point is that in the audience of that speech cheering her on was
35:55
Jeremy Corbin the the the the almost Prime Minister of Great
36:01
Britain I'm not surprised at all uh and uh I think again if Corbin had been
36:08
elected British policy towards Israel would have changed in a fundamental way and would have been freed oh there's no
36:15
question about that yes uh Professor Mamer
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