Category Archives: Political Psychology

FTAC: MEC: A Possible Beginning to the End of the End

07 Sunday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Gaza Suzerain, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Political Psychology, Politics

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While powerful mercenary, political, and religious forces sustain the Middle East Conflict (MEC), one may hope that nothing evil lasts forever.  That is the one hope that should bridge what most divides Israelis and Palestinians ready to move on with their lives as well as the great wall that exists in time between the region of feudal absolute power and that of the modern democratic distribution of power, rule of law, and responsible and responsive governance.

In the course of a day — and just about every day — the editor of this blog visits the “camps” in which complaint and demonizations prompted by attacks, injuries, and deaths are par for conversation.  Few, however, either side, take in the scope of the conflict in its post-WWII East v West / Moscow v Washington / Feudal v Modern aspect, so BackChannels tries (and tries and tries) to get to thought that is both short but broadening.

Palestinian Incitement –> “Actions” –> IDF Response –> Bereavement, Complaint, Further Incitement –> -/-

For the most part, the angered narrow their vision, speak their own truth, and summon their own choruses when it might prove more helpful to grasp the greater politics and the historic manipulation attending the same.

There are angels and devils in the details.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_security_assistance_to_the_Palestinian_National_Authority

International Trade Administration. “Qualifying Industrial Zone (QIZ).” Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA).   http://web.ita.doc.gov/tacgi/fta.nsf/7a9d3143265673ee85257a0700667a6f/196ed79f4f79ac0085257a070066961d

Related (from the other side): https://www.merip.org/mero/mero111910 (Bahour, Sam. “Economic Prison Zones”. Middle East Research and Information Program, November 19, 2010).

The end of the Cold War should have produced a Moscow different from the one that groomed Arafat, established the PLO, and introduced the world to airline hijacking (in association with the “Palestinian cause”).

It didn’t.

While the Communist Party Soviet Union (CPSU) found itself diminished and disfavored, the methods, relationships, and rhetoric survived the transition, and I think it’s those phantoms that continue cycling the Palestinians through the same old same old and go nowhere / get nowhere political habits supporting incitement. There’s dirty arms and narcotics money in the conflict also (Barack Obama’s $1 billion cocaine “grant” to Hezbollah — https://www.politico.com/interactives/2017/obama-hezbollah-drug-trafficking-investigation/ . It has paid “the other side”, which is larger than it first looks, to keep the Palestinians boiling with the Big Lie — “Israel stole your land” .

I don’t know if there’s too much money in war.

What happens beneath the table produces a lot of heat — defense R&D, manufacturing, trade — on the surface. I believe — or would like to believe — that Moscow benefits more from the sustained conflict than Washington. Be the truth as it may be, the “Phantoms of the Soviet” have rather cooked down their own interests: Assad has pretty much destroyed his own state; irksome Hamas appears not to want another war; Abbas with his KGB record has turned into an old man rattling on about “resistance” without any place to take it.

Should the Middle East Conflict remain a reliable focal point for “east-west competition” with feudal structures and criminality on one side and constructive democratic features and the semblance of order on the other?

After 70+ years — and 26 years past the end of the Cold War — the MEC has to come down, but Palestinian political “cadre” and the main base susceptible to last century’s messaging and propaganda need help figuring out how they’ve been used — and they need to wake to the idea that peace would serve them (and everyone else) much, much better than a continued and mindless “resistance” based on the myth of their own myth founded on simple face-saving misdirection.

Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/07/29/ftac-antidote-to-what-poisoned-the-palestinians/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/09/23/ftac-these-too-are-palestinians/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/library/russian-section/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/02/06/set-palestinian-kgb-and-other-backchannels-observations-related-to-the-middle-east-conflict/

Funny thing about “the truth”: all the small parts fit — the contributions of events and personalities add up — and the whole right image of the past grows stronger with time.

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FTAC: Middle East Conflict: Harmonizing on One Page

02 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Books, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Philology, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics

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The issue: the symmetrical treatment of history such that Israelis and Palestinians should teach both “The Holocaust” and “The Nakba”.

Rubbish.

Israelis and Palestinians would do well to research and teach history in the direction of nonpartisan and well substantiated truth.

The idea that “history is written by the victors” should be today an artifact of the medieval world, i.e., the world of “absolute power” and thuggish personalities.

In the modern world — and should it wish to be a good one — scholarly integrity should matter most of all (and Muhammad himself is reputed to have said, “One scholar is worth more against the devil than one thousands worshippers”).

The barbarism known to history — medieval rape and rapine, ethnic cleansing, genocide — need not be known to the future, but as much becomes the province of those alive today. If Muslim Fulani gangs and war parties wish to continue their program of razing Christian farming villages — and kidnapping, raping, and slaughtering the residents — that is really up to them, there being no sufficient power (yet) to stop them where they roam, plan, and execute foul deeds.

Integrity, rightness, and righteousness should have qualities that transcend small interests. As often as we may find that not true, we may hope that one day as much will be true.

https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300172348/palestine-betrayed

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A Comment on Kavanaugh and How He Has Handled the Accusation

27 Thursday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Political Psychology, United States of America

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Ford claimed that, thirty-six years ago, Kavanaugh held her down on a bed against her will, groped her, and covered her mouth when she tried to scream. Ford made the allegation anonymously in a letter to her congresswoman, Anna Eshoo, and Senator Dianne Feinstein, who originally declined to share the letter and later referred the matter to the F.B.I. for investigation. Ford has since come forward publicly; her lawyer has stated that she and her family have received threats since her name became public. Kavanaugh has responded with a categorical denial, saying in a statement, “I have never done anything like what the accuser describes—to her or to anyone. . . . I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself.”

The New Yorker. “Live Stream: Watch the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing With Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford.” September 27, 2018.

Loyalty to President Trump and possible-to-probable interference in judicial processes have been thematic from the start of President Trump’s Administration.

While charges remain “alleged”, BackChannels believes Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey Ford utterly authentic.

IF public and Senate opinion comes to the same conclusion, then what will matter most will not be whether as a 17-year-old boy Kavanaugh had assaulted Ford but how he handled the accusation.  He has by his blanket denial effective removed claim to the defense of juvenile behavior and will have been caught lying — and in a breathtaking abuse of power libeling his accuser — as a fully fledged adult.

What malign narcissism brought these politics to the once ever believing, confident, and idealistic United States of America?

Kavanaugh-SenateHearing-180927-1527

Screen capture from hearing, September 27, 2018.

While Kavanaugh brags about his carefully kept calendars / calendar-journals, his voice breaks.  Of course, had he committed an assault with great ambitions in mind, the calendar or the journal would have been the place to write the incident out of the record by not including it.

Also on the Web

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/26/651941113/read-christine-blasey-fords-opening-statement-for-senate-hearing

In one passage, beginning on Page 92, Judge describes his time working at a grocery store in the context of his drinking problem. Emphasis added.

It was the summer before senior year, and by now, even though I wasn’t drinking every day, I was completely hooked. Going a week without getting drunk was unthinkable. I was spending between four and seven nights with the gang, either at a party or at O’Rourke’s.

Elsewhere in the book, Judge describes one of his acquaintances at the time, someone named “Bart O’Kavanaugh,” who vomited in a car after a party.

Bump, Philip. “Mark Judge’s book validates Christine Blasey Ford’s timeline of the alleged Kavenaugh Assault.” The Washington Post, September 27, 2018. Inset: Judge, Mark Gauvreau. “Wasted: Tales of a Genx Drunk”. Hazelden, May 1, 1997.

Epigram by Maimonides

“Truth does not become more true if the whole world were to accept it; nor does it become less true if the whole world were to reject it.”

“The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.”

September 28, 2018 (and live at posting here).

“The basic principles that underscore the Senate’s constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less than a careful examination of the accusations and facts by the FBI,” said Robert Carlson, president of the organization, in a Thursday night letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein.

“Each appointment to our nation’s Highest Court (as with all others) is simply too important to rush to a vote,” Carlson wrote. “Deciding to proceed without conducting additional investigation would not only have a lasting impact on the Senate’s reputation, but it will also negatively affect the great trust necessary for the American people to have in the Supreme Court.”

Raju, Manu. “American Bar Association: Delay Kavanaugh until FBI investigates assault allegations.” CNN Politics, September 27, 2018.

Kav-Sen-Hearng-Sheldon-Whitehouise.jpg

Kav-Sen-Hearng-Klobuchar.jpg

Related Online

Khan, Shamus. “Kavanaugh is lying: His upbringing explains why.” Op-ed. The Washington Post, September 28, 2018.

Liptak, Adam. “A Bitter Nominee, Questions of Neutrality, and a Damaged Supreme Court.” The New York Times, September 28, 2018:

“The Supreme Court,” he said, “must never be viewed as a partisan institution.”

His performance on Thursday, responding to accusations of sexual misconduct at a hearing of the same Senate committee, sent a different message. Judge Kavanaugh was angry and emotional, embracing the language of slashing partisanship. His demeanor raised questions about his neutrality and temperament and whether the already fragile reputation of the Supreme Court as an institution devoted to law rather than politics would be threatened if he is confirmed.

Yourish, Karen and Troy Griggs. “Brett Kavanaugh Testimony: Three Inconsistencies the F.B.I. Investigation Could Address.” The New York Times, September 28, 2018.

Political independence may be America’s greatest prize for free thinkers.  BackChannels’ editor left the Democratic Party about nine years ago and has not registered with the Republican Party since then.

Regarding Shamus Khan’s piece, one may suggest the following, which has been copied from the editor’s portion of The Awesome Conversation online:

What would be tyrannous would be to allow the privileged to mask away crime and impose their will on others without criticism or notice and with impunity. The combination of humanism (all the way back to Cyrus and his cylinder), British empiricism, and American ideals beg for and rely on the thorough examination of criminal acts and, at times, libelous claims.

The FBI has now an additional week to explore the validity of both Kavanaugh’s and Blase Ford’s testimony, and we will see — or hear — how evidence acquired adds up.

It’s not enough to be angry or partisan in such a matter: it’s important to reject assumptions and beliefs in favor of examination taken with the highest integrity.

This morning saw a follow-up:

The survival of a democratic state depends on the confidence of its constituents. Toward that end, the Senate delayed its vote in favor of a one week extension for supplemental FBI investigation.

Finger pointing serves no democratic ends.

Most tyrannies know well “reflection in the mirror”, i.e., accusing targets of harboring the aggressive plans that are the speaker’s own.

Considering the term Supreme Court justices enjoy . . . what’s another week?

I think it’s good to see “checks and balances” in action.

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FTAC: Toward Dignity and Freedom: Qualities of Living and the Defense of the Radical Moderate

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, International Development, Philosophy, Political Psychology

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We had been talking about South America, the promotion by the Left of anti-western and frequently anti-Semitic ideas.

The only defense against indoctrination: critical independent reasoning and research.

The Left leverages the sense of hardship and resentment known to “the masses” — or just plain too many people. To undermine that leverage, the responsible wealthy have indeed to program some to produce a less discomfited but more positively motivated general population.

QUALITIES OF LIVING

Physical Comfort and Security

–basic reliable clothing, food, housing

Psychological Comfort and Security

–basic responsible autonomous personal decision making: aesthetics; ethical, moral, social: dignity and freedom.

Political and Social Comfort and Security

–basic human rights and defense / freedom from criminal enterprise and intent

For the most part, those who are affluent or reliably employed enjoy the positive attributes of the above dimensions, and so much so that we don’t even think about them. We have our “basics” covered and our public security institutions and systems, so we believe, “have our backs”: we are free to be ourselves, to work as we may or must, and in a manner of our choosing.

Where the above are lacking is where the Left / Far Left finds leverage: injustice, insecurity, insolvency (III).

The three “I’s” involve always degraded personal security and the extension of that out to related family and community.

Well recognized universally: many forms of crime committed against persons may be also crimes committed against the state. In the case of murder, for example, whether or not anyone else cares about the deceased, the good state cares.

Where the state cannot defend the natural and right interests of The People — the dignity and freedom of the lawful — the Left / Far Left finds purchase in the interests of the same.

Conservatives, of course, may know abuses too but when empowered without restraint are the more likely to abuse their dependents and labor because . . . they can — too much money, narcissism, and will may produce a ferocious power giving way to the worst expression. Then “absolute power” becomes the power to visit suffering on others with impunity. In that regard, Far Left and Far Right authoritarianism bleeding into fascism may produce similar conditions, and those who would be free and possessed of dignity would from the moderate ranks rise and separate themselves from either extreme to battle back excessive political and social control and exploitation.

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FTAC: “An Unbounded Narcissism . . . .” A Comment on Absolute Power

23 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Religion

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It’s a bit preachy keen, but someone “Liked” it, and so I’ve elected to share it.

In the faith communities referencing Moses, competition for power and wealth through subscription and the many demonstrations of devotion and loyalty have produced some bloody “competitions” across time and space. The pious have long fought among themselves — schisms will do that — as well as taken aim at external enemies.

Has as much not been the way of the world?

This day is a little different: we may see one another through what we have to say, and hearing and seeing more, we may think a little more as well.

Moses challenged politically absolute power and with the guidance and power of God removed from it the Jews and the “mixed multitude” that would join them. Not much has changed. No one likes to be tyrannized.

The Jewish liberation story and much else about Judaism proved potently attractive enough to inspire uptake — give Hillel the Elder some credit — by the “restive of Rome”, i.e., those tiring of the brutality and excesses of the powerful. Even with eased conversions, the tribal ethnolinguistic culture (perhaps) could not begin to absorb the numbers, and the Romans looking for a new answer may have had other cultural needs better addressed by Jesus / Paul.

With Christianity in place, General Constantine finds his mission, and about 300 years later, General Muhammad develops his.

The Jews: they appear to worry much less about subscription, power, and wealth, and it’s pretty clear where and how the Hebrews have settled.

Aside: in 12th Century Hungary, laws designed by a Christian government to discriminate against Jews were upon activation applied equally to Muslims (ref. Raphael Patai’s _The Jews of Hungary).

This may be the best time to get off the medieval merry-go-round by looking forward while leaving some attitudes and beliefs plus archaic doctrines and methods far in the past where they belong.

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Re. Syrian SAM Shoot-Down of Russian Surveillance Aircraft

18 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Israel, Middle East, Political Psychology, Russia, Syria

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Moscow (CNN)Syria inadvertently shot down a Russian military plane after an Israeli attack on Syrian positions, killing 15 people on board, Moscow said.
The Russian military said Tuesday that the Russian maritime patrol aircraft was shot down by Syrian regime anti-aircraft artillery amid the Israeli attack on Monday, state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Moscow blamed Israel for putting its aircraft in the line of fire, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.

Starr, Barbara, Ryan Browne and Nathan Hodge. “Syria accidentally shot down a Russian military plane.” CNN Politics, September 18, 2018.

While it’s good that the IDF took out advanced weapons manufacturing facilities focused on producing missiles intended to challenge Israel’s existence (from the CNN report: “from which systems to manufacture accurate and lethal weapons were about to be transferred on behalf of Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon”), the attack will bring into focus the greater east-west conflict and run-up, perhaps, to greater direct engagement between Russian and Israeli (western-backed) forces.

Here’s the verbatim from earlier comment the editor made on Facebook:

Clearly, “Assad v The Terrorists” has half destroyed Syria (in the years since 2011 — give him a few more years in power, and the state will be gone altogether) but in a surreal fashion clings to the hope of destroying Israel and the Jews. The IDF’s target(s) appears to have been advanced weapons manufacturing facilities from which the output would have been used to challenge Israel.

Medieval Russia has been trying to recover its imperial and imperious attitude in its middle east presence. It may be suggested — at least I will do it — that it may have been shielding the Syrian manufacturing site with the presence of its surveillance aircraft. If true — and we may never know — that would account for Israel short notification to Russian military.

In the larger window: Washington has closed the PLO office serving as a proto-embassay and expelled its representative, a move congruent with the expulsion of Russian spies in the past couple of years. Before that closure, there has been of course the advancing of the U.S. Embassy into Jerusalem, another step forward toward forcing a conclusion to the middle east conflict.

This latest attack may represent further progress against what I have been calling the “phantoms of the Soviet”, i.e.,the continuation of older KGB-managed arrangements in the middle east.

What’s happening between Moscow and Washington and Damascus and Jerusalem is always war, as such may be in the nature of the political lives of nations, but this morning BackChannels feels it is seeing an amplification of conditions.  CNN last week reported a build-up in the presence of Russian warships off the Syrian coast (September 13, 2018).  About two months ago, the west appears to have  evacuated Syrian civilians and White Helmet volunteers into Jordan from  Assad’s theater.  Clearly, the west has been with the Syrian people — and Syrian Sunni Arabs — against the ravaging sadism of the Assad regime and its chief enablers in Moscow and Tehran.

This morning, one of BackChannels contacts said in a brief audio exchange, “The Syrian people are closer to the west anyway.  They would rather have Israel prevail in Syria rather than Assad and Iran.”

BackChannels doubts that Vladimir Putin, whose forces have bombed so many Syrian hospitals and abetted so much horror, pain, and sorrow visited on the children of Syria — adults and children — that the west would have him were he to somehow pivot westward.  Again, he has engaged in or produced active — blood soaking — conflicts in Syria and Crimea and appears to be surrounded in the chaos and horror he himself may have wanted as the “Phantom of the Soviet”.

Also from the awesome conversation:

The timing of this news is propitious, for today marks the evening start of Yom Kippur. The Jewish high holy days remain ever the target dates for anti-Semitic aggressors, essentially pulling the IDF and their support out of the synagogues and away from family on the most cherished and respected of religious observances.

Update – September 18, 2018

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Tuesday that Israel did not shoot down a Russian military reconnaissance plane with 15 people on board, saying the downing of the plane by Syrian air defenses was a “chain of tragic accidental circumstances.”

Agencies and TOI Staff. “Putin says Israel did not shoot down Russian plane, calls it a tragic accident.” The Times of Israel, September 18, 2018.

Related comment from The Still Awesome Conversation:

Putin knows that to hold Russia’s place and avoid further ruin, he has to make Russia THE responsible actor in a different kind of competition with the west. In the TI piece, he may have signaled a small shift toward the west. No one knows, but now he has as much as said that he’s not going to act — at least not rashly — for Assad and Khamenei. He’s not going to play Erdogan demanding an apology from Israel for the Mavi Marmara incident — and, in retrospect, what a hideous thing that apology was!

Update, September 23, 2018

AP. “Russian Blames Israel for Downing of Plane by Syrian Forces.” VOA, September 23, 2018.

But Konashenkov on Sunday accused Israel of using the hotline to mislead Russia about its plans. He said the Russians were unable to get the Il-20 to a safe place because an Israeli duty officer had misled them, telling them of an Israeli operation in northern Syria while the jets were actually in Latakia, in the country’s west.

Konashenkov said an Israeli fighter jet flying over Syria’s Mediterranean coast shortly before the downing deliberately used the Russian plane as a shield, reflecting “either lack of professionalism or criminal negligence.”

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FTAC: Forked: Loyalty to a United States President v Obligation to the Constitution of the Nation

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Free Speech, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Journalism, Political Psychology, Politics

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President Donald J. Trump at Rally, Evansville, Indiana, August 30, 2018

President Donald J. Trump at Rally, Evansville, Indiana, August 30, 2018.

President Trump’s own behavior x actions x associations x utterance speaks for him, and the so-called “biased media” is only turning up what may be associated with his real estate enterprises and his name.

Perhaps some Americans demand to see a memorandum of understanding between Putin and Trump that doesn’t exist, but the Trump associates going to jail, plea bargaining their way down, or hiding behind some convoluted national security screen (Felix Sater) very much exist (ask their kids) and the impression of collusion (much like the appearance of conflict of interest that executives should seek to avoid) only worsens.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2018/09/07/mafia-don-laundering-the-authoritarian-presidents-image/

If the east-west conflict game of choice is chess, then perhaps Americans have been forked between the obligation to defend the Constitution of the United States and continued loyalty — when it matters — to a President suspect, at least, of eliding the law for his business interests and treating issues concerning himself as if he were the unquestionable leader of a feudal estate.

Also Related on BackChannels

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/02/02/united-states-of-america-basic-training/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/10/23/fake-news-genuine-fake-news-the-real-fake-news-get-your-fake-news-here/

Related Online

Glader, Paul. “10 Journalism Brands Where You Find Real Facts Rather Than Alternative Facts.” Forbes, February 1, 2017.

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FTAC: A Short Note on “Returning” Jerusalem to Muslims

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Philology, Political Psychology

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Jerusalem is not even Israel’s to “return” to anyone but the Hebrews who created her 5,778 years ago. It cannot be returned to the Canaanites who melded with the Hebrews; it cannot be returned to the Romans who burned and sacked it early in the Common Era; it cannot be returned to the Nazis or the Ottomans who no longer exist but in the fantasies of a few bigoted Germans and Turks; and it cannot be returned to an “Ummah” that did not even think to exist until the 7th Century and that today finds itself bullied, controlled, slaughtered by its own zealots.

In the medieval mode, the evil demands property . . . just because.

Jerusalem-GMap-180912-1014v1-900x

Screen capture – Jerusalem-GMap-180912-1014v1-900x.

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