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'How Lies on Social Media Are Inflaming the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict' (msn.com) 362

The New York Times reports on misinformation that's further inflaming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: In a 28-second video, which was posted to Twitter this week by a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip appeared to launch rocket attacks at Israelis from densely populated civilian areas.

At least that is what Mr. Netanyahu's spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, said the video portrayed. But his tweet with the footage, which was shared hundreds of times as the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis escalated, was not from Gaza. It was not even from this week. Instead, the video that he shared, which can be found on many YouTube channels and other video-hosting sites, was from 2018. And according to captions on older versions of the video, it showed militants firing rockets not from Gaza but from Syria or Libya.

The video was just one piece of misinformation that has circulated on Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media this week about the rising violence between Israelis and Palestinians, as Israeli military ground forces attacked Gaza early on Friday. The false information has included videos, photos and clips of text purported to be from government officials in the region, with posts baselessly claiming early this week that Israeli soldiers had invaded Gaza, or that Palestinian mobs were about to rampage through sleepy Israeli suburbs. The lies have been amplified as they have been shared thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook, spreading to WhatsApp and Telegram groups that have thousands of members, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

The effect of the misinformation is potentially deadly, disinformation experts said, inflaming tensions between Israelis and Palestinians when suspicions and distrust have already run high.

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'How Lies on Social Media Are Inflaming the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict'

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  • Once upon a time (Score:4, Insightful)

    by lessSockMorePuppet ( 6778792 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @09:36AM (#61387286) Homepage

    We stepped in to help stop a genocide.

    Now, the US is a toothless old hag. There are multiple genocides going on around the world, and we happen to like help funding them by sending military aid or purchasing iPhones through a carefully crafted supply chain to hide the slavery and genocide.

    • by FrizzyHairBear ( 8100074 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @09:48AM (#61387318)
      The majority of people have no problem being fed lies via government propaganda. "Social media" is the prime vector that propagandists use to sew dissonance or support into the population nowadays. Burn it all down.
      • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @01:35PM (#61388064)

        Burn it all down.

        Before you burn down all the social media, you should check the quality and veracity of information available in countries that ban social media.

        Social media can be used to spread lies. It can also be used to debunk lies.

    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:15AM (#61387404) Homepage Journal

      We stepped in to help stop a genocide.

      Not really. We had evidence of the holocaust long before we joined WWII. In fact we were profiting from selling materials to both sides of the conflict. For example, we sold fuel and aluminum to the Axis while we were leasing equipment to the Allies. We stepped in personally because Japan made us look like assholes.

      Now, some speculate that we actually knew Japan was going to attack, and we let it happen in order to drum up public support for the war, and hey maybe that's true. But that's still weak and weaselly.

      Now, the US is a toothless old hag.

      With all due respect, that is stupid and wrong. The US is still militarily dominant across the globe. If we're not entering a conflict it's not because we can't, it's because we won't. Probably for reasons of generation of profit.

      There are multiple genocides going on around the world, and we happen to like help funding them by sending military aid or purchasing iPhones through a carefully crafted supply chain to hide the slavery and genocide.

      This nation was founded on slavery and genocide. Literally.

      • That's also a fair way of looking at the situation. However, we, at least, in theory, are not a corporate state. That IBM and other companies sold materiel to these countries isn't the same as the government and armed forces of the United States becoming involved.

      • We stepped in personally because Japan made us look like assholes.

        Japan attacking pearl harbor made us look like assholes? I don't follow...

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by Atomic Fro ( 150394 )

          This nation was founded on slavery and genocide. Literally.

          Once he said that, you know he is a cultist and knows not of what he speaks. He is the personification of inflammatory lies on social media.

        • Japan attacking pearl harbor made us look like assholes? I don't follow...

          Because we were caught flat-footed. Nobody likes that. It makes them look weak, even if the attack is cowardly and unannounced. What good are military assets if you can be taken by surprise? You essentially have to retaliate massively.

      • But... the Greatest Generation! Once upon a time, we had pretenses!

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:23AM (#61387448)

      We stepped in to help stop a genocide.

      Unfortunately throughout history the USA stepping in hasn't actually resolved anything and in many ways further destabilised the areas where they were active. Also please don't kid yourselves, the USA hasn't engaged in any conflict in which it didn't stand to gain something. The fact that a few of those could be labelled as "stopping a genocide" is just good public relations which you absolutely fell for.

      • The fact that a few of those could be labelled as "stopping a genocide" is just good public relations which you absolutely fell for.

        You're telling this to a publicly avowed propagandist...

        Evey: Who are you?
        V. : Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.
        Evey: Well I can see that.
        V. : Of course you can, I’m not questioning your powers of observation, I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      It's not genocide, it's apartheid. The operational abilities of people in Ghaza got too high and their level of dhimmitude got too low. Shock and awe bombing solves both.

      Israel has no intention to genocide or ethnically cleanse Gaza for the moment, the area just isn't important enough to them. They reserve as much of their political capital as possibe for the slow ethnic cleansing of the west bank and trying to get their annexation and ethnic cleansing of the Golan Heights accepted. The rest can wait.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Dorianny ( 1847922 )
        Apartheid would be an improvement for Gaza. Palestinian's in Gaza are Stateless and under Occupation.
    • Care to provide facts or details on this? Otherwise you are just someone spreading spreading lies on social media.

    • Once upon a time we invaded Panama to literally cut-it-in-half with a canal.
    • The US didn't step in when 12 countries, led by a man who got a live in-person tour of Auschwitz from Himmler, tried to finish what the Nazi's started. Why would it step in now when his successors are still at it?

    • We stepped in to help stop a genocide.

      When was that?

      America didn't stop the genocides in Rwanda or Cambodia. The RDF ended the genocide in Rwanda. Vietnam ended the genocide in Cambodia, and America opposed their action. America also opposed the Indian intervention to end the massacre of civilians in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

      We fought WW2 because Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. It had nothing to do with "stopping a genocide."

  • But not the way you mean.

  • It's the only way to be sure.
  • by Alain Williams ( 2972 ) <addw@phcomp.co.uk> on Saturday May 15, 2021 @09:42AM (#61387306) Homepage

    Is that Israeli settlements [wikipedia.org] force Palestinians out of their homes. This has been condemned many times but nothing happens. What would you do if you were illegally forced out ?

    • by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:23AM (#61387442)

      As the Wikipedia article mentions, those lands were occupied in the 6-day war. Itâ(TM)s their land, they won the war. The history goes beyond the 6 day war though, the Arabs in the region would not be forced out if they were occupying the land legally, paying rent and taxes, but the land is owned by JUUUWS so theyâ(TM)re not paying either rent to the property owners or paying taxes because itâ(TM)s against their religion. Arabs make up a significant percentage of the population in Israel and they seemed to have adapted just fine, even occupying places in government, the high courts and the second largest political party. They even got to decide on the prime minister.

      On the other side Mahmoud Abbas is on his 14th year in a 4 year term and only stirred violence because he was about to lose an election, which he then used as a pretext to cancel elections. Hamas, not to be outdone by just trying to kill Jews on and occupying the Temple Mount, started rocketing Israel and Gaza because JUUUWS. When your electoral campaign centers around who kills more Jews, I donâ(TM)t think you have moral equivalency with a state that allows Arabs, Christians and Jews in its society and government.

      • by colonslash ( 544210 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:49AM (#61387526)
        International Law proscribed the right of conquest [wikipedia.org] in the aftermath of WWII; this is an illegal occupation.
        • by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @12:54PM (#61387946)

          There is no such thing as international law.

          There are agreements between sovreign states, but there is no teeth to these things.

          Occasionally the UN Security Council votes to intervene militarily in some cases of gross human rights violations, but the UN has no military of its own and relies on member states to put boots on the ground.

          This is nowhere near analogous to the concept of law enforced uniformly and impartially against all violators by the armed civilian police or military within a country.

          China seems to be condoning slavery and genocide within its territory. The UN won't do jack shit about it.

          If a law is not enforced uniformly, it lacks moral authority.

          This would be like the US federal government systematically declining to prosecute counterfeiting laws in Montana. If you set up a fake mint and press in Montana, and print fake $100 bills, the feds won't do jack shit about it and will say so in public.

          Would a scenario like that be a curious footnote or will it tank the value of the US dollar and turn it into fancy toilet paper the world over?

      • They didn't leave because they didn't want to pay taxes, they left because they feared for their lives and then got stuck in a prison.

        • But, but, antisemitism⦠how can Zionists continue to play the victim if you keep using facts?
        • That's literally what's happening in Sheikh Jarrah right now. Jews bought empty desert in the 1800s, nazi war criminals slaughtered or expelled them in 1948 and colonized it, in 1967 the jews (and non-genocidal arabs making up 20% of Israel's population) returned and the surviving families returned with them. The nazi-led colonialist occupiers were given "protected tenant" status by the courts, but they've refused to pay rent.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by quantaman ( 517394 )

        As the Wikipedia article mentions, those lands were occupied in the 6-day war. Itâ(TM)s their land, they won the war.

        You don't get to keep land when you win a war, that was one of the things people figured out after WWII since land transfers turn out to cause a lot of wars.

        The history goes beyond the 6 day war though, the Arabs in the region would not be forced out if they were occupying the land legally, paying rent and taxes, but the land is owned by JUUUWS so theyâ(TM)re not paying either rent to the property owners or paying taxes because itâ(TM)s against their religion.

        Yes, it goes back to the early 1900s when a segment of the Jewish population decided to recolonize biblical Israel (despite it being already occupied). And the rulers of the territory (Ottoman's, then later British) didn't do anything to prevent it, meaning the Palestinians got pushed out of their own land.

        I can definitely understand why Jewish settlers

        • You realise that "palestinian" at that time referred to jews right? The Palestine Post became the Jerusalem Post, the Palestine Orchestra was made up of jews, etc. There is not nor has there ever been a "palestine" as you are using it, the term is as meaningful as saying "midwesterner".

      • the Arabs in the region would not be forced out if they were occupying the land legally, paying rent and taxes, but the land is owned by JUUUWS so theyâ(TM)re not paying either rent to the property owners or paying taxes because itâ(TM)s against their religion.

        Do you have a source for this? Are you claiming that Israel is expanding settlements as a form of repossession for non-payment of taxes instead of divine right? Haven't heard that one before.

        Arabs make up a significant percentage of the population in Israel and they seemed to have adapted just fine, even occupying places in government, the high courts and the second largest political party.

        That's great for them. We're talking about the people in the west bank though.

        On the other side Mahmoud Abbas is...

        off topic. Unless you're suggesting that corrupt Palestinian leadership (debatable) is an excuse for apartheid?

    • What would you do if you were illegally forced out ?

      Move to Arizona.

  • Jews have offered a two state solution five times in the past 80 years, many times with a land split that heavily favored their Arab neighbors. If the Arabs were going to take anything less than the genocide of the Israeli population, it would have happened by now. Educate yourself: https://youtu.be/76NytvQAIs0 [youtu.be]
    • Would you shut up with the lies already?

      By 2010, when direct talks were scheduled to be restarted, continued growth of settlements on the West Bank and continued strong support of settlements by the Israeli government had greatly reduced the land and resources that would be available to a Palestinian state creating doubt among Palestinians and left-wing Israelis that a two-state solution continued to be viable.[23] In January 2012 the European Union Heads of Mission report on East Jerusalem found that Israel's continuing settlement activities and the fragile situation of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem, as well in area C, was making a two-state solution less likely.[24] The Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected this EU report, claiming it was "based on a partial, biased and one sided depiction of realities on the ground."[25] In May 2012, the EU council stressed its "deep concern about developments on the ground which threaten to make a two-state solution impossible'.[26]

      On 29 November 2012, the UN General Assembly voted by 138 to 9, with 46 abstentions to recognize Palestine as a "non-member observer state". On the following day, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced the building of 3,000 new homes on land to the east of East Jerusalem, in an area referred to as "E-1".[27] The move was immediately criticized by several countries, including the United States, with Israeli ambassadors being personally called for meetings with government representatives in the UK, France and Germany, among others. Israel's decision to build the homes was described by the Obama administration as "counterproductive", while Australia said that the building plans "threaten the viability of a two-state solution". This is because they claim the proposed E-1 settlement would physically split the lands under the control of the Palestinian National Authority in two, as the extent of the PNA's authority does not extend all the way to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea.[28][29][30][31][32] Israel's Labor party has voiced support for the two-state solution, with Isaac Herzog stating it would be "in Israel's interests".[33]

      in March 2015, Netanyahu declared that a Palestinian state would not be established during his administration,[34] while he also stated that he disapproved the one-state solution for the ongoing conflict between two people.[35]

      After controversial Jerusalem recognition by Trump administration in favor of Israel in December 2017, Palestinian officials said the policy change "destroys the peace process" and the decision indirectly meant the United States was "abdicating its role as a peace mediator"[36] that could no longer act as a mediator in the peace process because the United States had become a party to the dispute instead of neutral intercessor for negotiations.[37]

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The last time they offered a two state solution, the key Israeli behind that negotiation was assassinated by his own countrymen [wikipedia.org].

  • Given how origins of such videos are quickly unearthed in the past, I find it hard to believe someone would be so deliberately stupid.

    • This is quite a new one for Netanyahu's government.

      The last time the cease-fire was broken, and the US media was screaming about Hamas being the ones to break the cease-fire, Netanyahu went on international TV and announced that Israel was actually the one to violate the cease-fire, and called it a "pre-emptive strike".

      This time, they're just flat out making shit up.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        Ain't making this up: https://councilforthenationali... [councilfor...terest.org]

        Netanyahu shot first.

        Though the war-crimes allegations came from respected sources, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the National Lawyers Guild and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the central message that Israeli forces were protecting Israeli citizens from Hamas rockets was so ubiquitous in the Western media as to eclipse the war crimes charges. Pervasive self-defense claims against rocket fire have been crucial to Israeli political and military leaders maintaining impunity and avoiding accountability for their periodic assaults on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

        For example, on July 1, 2014, the United States Senate unanimously adopted a resolution, “Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding United States support for the State of Israel as it defends itself against unprovoked rocket attacks from the Hamas terrorist organization.”

        However, the facts are otherwise.

        This submission to the Commission presents facts showing that Israeli air and ground attacks preceded Hamas rocket fire. Because Israeli armed forces launched large-scale attacks on the West Bank and Gaza during a period when a cease-fire with Hamas was in place, while Hamas continued to observe the cease-fire, before any Hamas rockets were launched from Gaza and while no non-Hamas rockets were being fired at Israel, Israeli forces could not have been defending Israeli citizens from rocket fire.

      • Israeli Attacks Escalate in 2014

        An escalation of Israeli attacks in early 2014 is evident from PCHR’s “Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 1st Quarter of 2014.” Among the violations presented in the report, 20 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces during this three-month period, including 11 civilians of whom two were children; 259 were wounded, of whom 255 were civilians, including 53 children. “The majority of these Palestinians, 198, were wounded during peaceful protests and clashes with Israeli forces.”

        Notwithstanding the Palestinian casualties accumulating since the end of the 2012 war – and the increasing rate of Israeli attacks counted during the first three months of 2014 – Hamas launched no rockets during that period. Each Palestinian casualty during the 20-month period between the major Gaza assaults showed that it was Israeli forces who were violating the 2012 cease-fire agreement.

  • by timematters ( 5083631 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @09:48AM (#61387314)

    Could we just as an experiment turn off all social media for a week? Not the users, but the platforms. Turn it all off for a week. See what happens.

    • Might as well try shutting down all the liquor stores and bars for a week. See what happens.
      • Might as well try shutting down all the liquor stores and bars for a week. See what happens.

        Erm bro where have you been for the last year???

        • Suppose I should have said shut off the flow of booze. Although crack cocaine and crystal meth might be better analogies. People be jonesin' for their facebook.
    • by elcor ( 4519045 )
      I'll tell you what will happen because I did that for 3 days: day 1 - people feel elated and free day 2 - they scramble for activity day 3 - they try anything to shut down their parasitic thoughts day 4 - hell day 5 - the inner monologue slows down day 6 - emptiness day 7 - heaven day 8 - back to normal
  • Call in the Press (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Saturday May 15, 2021 @09:51AM (#61387326) Homepage Journal

    What we need is good on-the-ground reporting!

    Oh, wait - Israel just targeted and destroyed the AP/Al Jazeera building in Gaza.

    • While I also love jumping to conclusions, I'll wait and see how many Hamas militants were actually in that building. Both sides are playing a bit of a PR game here. It's so terrible when a hospital is razed to the ground until you relise that's where the rockets were being fired from. And honestly Hama's use of civilian infrastructure (and actual civilians) as shields is as sick as that infrastructure being bombed.

      Leadership on both sides of the war deserve to be wiped from history.

    • Attacking the press is one of the steps toward totalitarianism.

      Also, committing a (slow-motion) genocide is probably on that list, too.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      They also just bombed a refugee camp and murdered 10 civilians, 2 of whom were women and 8 of whom were children. [aljazeera.com]

      Today. This day. Right now. The Israelis are literally murdering defenseless, unarmed refugee women and children. There are no justifications.

  • by BardBollocks ( 1231500 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:16AM (#61387408)

    Despite the effectiveness of their Hasbara operations fooling people into thinking this is anything but an ethnic cleansing expansion of Israel, people are starting to wake up to what has been going on here.

    Israel has extended far beyond the borders that it was established with - anyone can look at the partition map and a current map.

    To do so it has perform ethnic cleansing, illegal invasions, terrorism, murder, collective punishment, usage of chemical weapons and other banned weaponry.

    It has committed so many crimes against humanity and warcrimes in pursuit of its ethnic cleansing that the US has had to veto Israel being held accountable by the United Nations Security Council dozens of times.

    It seems that the Holocaust is an excuse to perpetrate one on Palestinians. Whenever Israel murders people, the Holocaust is rolled out and used to attack those pointing out what is going on. The Holocaust is irrelevant outside of recognising what was done, and ensuring it doesn't happen again - yet it is being used TO perpetrate another one.

    Even moderate Jews, who were targeted hardest by Zionists for brainwashing even more than the general public, are waking up to the wolf amongst them and realising that Israel is being attacked not because of antisemitism, but because it is an Ethnic cleansing Apartheid State that is run by a clique of criminals and is actively involved in a slow drip Genocide of the Palestinian people in an attempt to Establish a greater Israel.

    If you support Israel, you do it out of ignorance, or you're a complete asshole. History is NOT going to be kind to Israel. As it is not kind to Nazi Germany, Pol Pot, The Turks and their Armenian Genocide, the Belgians in the congo and other evils.

    • by elcor ( 4519045 )
      turks are doing just fine the belgium as well, they control world finance
    • If this is a genocide then why is the population of Gaza and the territories continuing to GROW every year? Why is life expectancy rising every year?

      Your entire understanding of history is utterly backwards, and your post is filled with outright blood libels. Al jazeera just the other day literally took a video of a jew being dragged from his car and lynched and cut out everything but the last few seconds where he lost control of the car and crashed, claiming he was a jewish terrorist committing a car rammi

  • Zero state solution is the only solution, nuke the middle east to glass
  • How the hell is this story supposedly about falsehoods promulgated on social media? It's about a falsehood sourced from 2018 social media, and promulgated today by the Prime Minister of Israel, through his spokesman!

    The actual headline here should be 'Israeli spokesman misrepresents video footage lifted from social media', or words to that effect. Media need to put the responsibility for things that governments say and do, in the here and now, squarely where it belongs. In this case, on the Israeli governme

  • by boudie2 ( 1134233 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:51AM (#61387530)
    Palestinians have no money. Israel got it all.
  • It's DISinformation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @11:16AM (#61387578)

    Disinformation, not misinformation.

    They know the video does not depict what they say it does. It's intentional. Disinformation.

    If someone is misinformed, and mistakenly spreads something false, it's unintentional. Misinformation.

  • ...are a threat to valid & accurate news, to rational & sincere public debate, & ultimately to democracy. It's time to pull the plug on them. We'll all be a lot safer & happier as a result. (& no more embarrassingly stupid clowns as political leaders).
  • They can burn each other to the ground for all I care. I refuse to be part of this game that's always played on the American psyche in regards to this conflict.

  • by schwit1 ( 797399 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @11:36AM (#61387644)

    Hamas represents Hamas, not the Palestinian people.

    Roger Simon:

    The Jerusalem Post has an article on what can be done about these myriad social media lies about Israel [jpost.com]. The Post’s intent is laudable, but the reality is it’s unstoppable. Social media, we should all know by now, is the Devil’s spawn. Believe it at your, and the world’s, peril.

    But there is something that can be done about Hamas.

    Israel, and those of us who support her—even some liberal Jews, if they can be shaken from their morally narcissistic lethargy—can ignore public opinion for once, it’s not going to get better anyway, forget this “light unto the nations” business that no one could live up to in the first place, and go full bore on the terrorists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

    No mercy, this time. Full Dresden—or enough Dresden for them to know for once you’re very serious, desperately wave the white flag and disarm the way Germany and Japan did.

    If you don’t win a war, I mean really win it, as both the United States and Israel have seen to their detriments, you are going to fight it again and again and again.

    Winning a war seems awfully unconventional, but it would be nice to give it a try for a change.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      From your own post,

      Another short clip selects a narrow view of an Israeli soldier dragging a Palestinian on the ground during a recent confrontation. The use of compelling music sensationalizes the episode. The video got 158,000 likes and close to 13,000 shares.

      No refutation that it happened, just a complaint that it included music?

      THIS is the lie. You just claim your opponent's video is fake. You don't even bother denying that the events happened as described, but somehow the video is "fake".

      FSM... also, you're calling for genocide. You're a real piece of shit. A disgusting excuse for a human being.

      At least 140 Palestinians, including 39 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Monday. Some 950 others have been wounded. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed at least 13 Palestinians.

      At least nine people in Israel have also been killed, with one new death reported on Saturday in Ramat Gan. The Israeli army said hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.

      Thousands of Palestinian families are taking shelter in United Nations-run schools in northern Gaza to escape Israeli artillery fire. The UN has said it estimates approximately 10,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Gaza amid the Israeli offensive.

      I am in incredible amounts of disbelief that you find it okay to murder hundreds of people after you've occupied and bulldozed their country illegal

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