Pages

Debunking Lies and Myths

Debunking Lies and Myths
PLEASE VISIT MY OTHER BLOG http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/
Showing posts with label Middle East - Israel - History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East - Israel - History. Show all posts

Sunday, April 22, 2018

PALESTINE'S SETTLERS AND COLONIZERS

©https://debunkingliesandmyths.blogspot.ca/ Unauthorized duplication of this blog's material is prohibited.   Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full credit and link is given to Otters and Science News Blogspot.  Link to this post:  https://debunkingliesandmyths.blogspot.ca/2018/04/palestines-settlers-and-colonizers.html  - Thank you for visiting my blog.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


  • We live in times when important historical facts are being silenced, mostly by those with the leftist ideology now dominant in the media and in educational institutions.
  • Debates involving conservatives are no longer tolerated in universities, and their ideas and pro-Israeli views are automatically rejected as being offensive to socially-conscious students. 
  • Unable to defend their point of view, leftists have resorted to outright censorship, and often to physical violence to silence their opponents.
  • A recent study revealed that two thirds of millennials (generation Y born in the 1980s and 1990s) don't know what Auschwitz is. 
  • When asked about anti-Semitism most Americans think about neo-Nazis and other white racists.  They are unaware of Muslim anti-Semitism, which is based on the Koran and other Muslim sacred texts.  Exposing this and any other negative fact about Islam, is now deemed to be "Islamophobic".  
  • People in Europe have been fired from their jobs, and even charged with a hate crime for posting historical pictures or making factual statements that reflect badly on Islam.   In the meantime a growing Muslim population in Europe is persecuting and murdering Jews.
  • The reason for Muslim anti-Semitism is based on religion, but anti-Israel propaganda is also playing a role. 
  • It is now more important than ever to learn and disseminate facts that debunk the ongoing false narrative of Arab claims to Jewish land.   
The following is a study by Dr. Alex Joffe for BESA - the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.  Although he disproves Arab claims to the land, he bows to political correctness to support its partition to create another Arab state on historically Jewish land.  This is plainly illogical. 
 
When populations invade a land belonging to other people and are later defeated, they don't automatically earn the right to a piece of that land for their own independent country.  The Arab conquerors were from the Arabian peninsula (today Saudi Arabia) and they invaded the land of Israel in the 7th century.  They also invaded the rest of the Middle East, much of Africa, and even parts of Europe.  They were a brutal conquering army - much as ISIS has been in our time. 
 
PALESTINIAN SETTLER COLONIALISM 

 By Alex Joffe,archaeologist and historian,
and Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
  • EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The concept of “settler colonialism” has been applied with almost unique vehemence against Israel. But the fact that Jews are the indigenous population of the Southern Levant can be proved with ease.
  • In contrast, historical and genealogical evidence shows Palestinians descend primarily from three primary groups: Muslim invaders, Arab immigrants, and local converts to Islam.
  • The Muslim conquest of Byzantine Palestine in the 7th century CE is a textbook example of settler-colonialism, as is subsequent immigration, particularly during the 19th and 20th centuries under the Ottoman and British Empires. The application of the concept to Jews and Zionism by Palestinians is both ironic and unhelpful.
 
One of the mainstays of the modern university is the idea of settler-colonialism. This argues that certain societies are birthed by settlers implanted in a foreign territory, either directly by or with the consent of an imperial power.
 
CONTINUE READING

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

THERE WAS NEVER A COUNTRY CALLED WEST BANK or Palestine - THE ORIGIN OF THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION MYTH, by legal expert Dr Howard Grief - The problem of national BETRAYAL by the Israeli elite

 
  • There was never a country called West Bank.
  • There was never a Palestinian people, only Arab clans originating from the Muslim occupation of the Middle East. 
  • Israel is in the ancient Jewish land of Judea and Samaria, as evidenced by history books and the Bible. 
  • Modern Israel comprises the area of the ancient Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judea, most of it liberated from Jordan in 1967 - today generally misnamed "occupied Palestinian territory".
  • THE JEWISH-ARAB CONFLICT 4 BASIC FACTS
    ANCIENT JEWISH KINGDOMS
     OF JUDAH & ISRAEL
    Judea and Samaria
    Jordan (originally called Transjordan) was a country ILLEGALLY created by the British in what was recognized by the League of Nations as the land of the Jewish people. 
  • After the Roman Empire conquest in the first century AD, Israel was subsequently occupied by the Arabs from the Arabian peninsula, and by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, and finally, after World War I, by the British Empire as part of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. 
  • The land was renamed Palestine by the Romans, in order to erase all memory of Judea and Samaria and the Jews, the majority of whom were enslaved, or slaughtered, or dispersed through the world.  A few did remain, however, in the city of Jerusalem and other areas of the country.
  • The Romans eventually failed in their attempt, as the Bible became known world-wide, demonstrating ancient Jewish roots and ownership of the land.
  • After two thousand years of persecution and genocide, the Jews reconstituted their country in 1948. 
  • But the enemies of the Jews haven't given up, as they now call the area 'Palestine'.  
  • Unfortunately, many enemies of Israel are Jews themselves, as the following article illustrates.   
  • There is a mix of Marxists, socialists, anarchists, globalists, and anti-Semites in Israeli society, particularly in the media, academia, and the judicial and political system - all of them Jewish. 
  • Not every Jew lives proudly in Israel.  Some are descendants of European Jews who, before the Nazis came to power, had tried so hard to assimilate and discard their Jewish heritage to become true Europeans 
  • Others are infected by leftist ideology, and thus embrace the same Arabs who want to kill Jews and destroy their country.
  • They have wholeheartedly embraced the Palestinian cause and do everything in their power to undermine Israel's legitimacy and viability. 
  • You have heard about bad Jews such as George Soros.  Israel has that sort of Jews too, and have cause incalculable damage to the country.  Soros himself has been funding subversive organizations in Israel.
  • They are extremely influential, and much more so as they receive support and often considerable funding from anti-Semites in the European Union, mostly through foreign NGOs (non-governmental organizations), of which there are about 400 in Israel. 
  • The US State Department - no matter who is in the presidency - wages its own diplomatic war against Israel from its consulate in the Arab-occupied part of Jerusalem. 
  • Obama is said to have instigated a recent United Nations resolution condemning construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. This has brought to the forefront once again the issue of Israel's legal sovereignty and ownership of the land. 
  • Every fatal decision that has undermined Israel was originated by one or a few individuals, but supported by many others with influence in the country because of ignorance, lack of vision, intimidation by those in power in Israel and abroad, and in some instances, to further their own malevolent agenda to weaken Israel.
  • The late Dr Howard Grief, author of this column, was Israel's most prominent expert on international law as it pertains Israeli legitimate ownership of Judea and Samaria, known by Israel's enemies as 'west bank'.  




The Origins of
the Occupation Myth

By Dr. Howard Grief 

Israel is always unjustly condemned by the United Nations as an occupier of “Arab land” in regard to Judea, Samaria and Gaza. 
 
This condemnation that has no basis in either fact or law. This pernicious myth has provided the UN with the necessary pretext to intervene constantly in the internal affairs of these Jewish lands.
 
Astonishing as it may seem, this myth was created by Israel’s own legal establishment: (1) the Supreme Court; (2) the Attorney-General’s Office; (3) the Ministry of Justice; (4) the International Law section of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and (5) the Law faculties of Israel’s universities.
 

The individual who bore the greatest responsibility for this myth was Meir Shamgar.  Shamgar was Military Advocate-General from 1961 to 1968, and later the Attorney-General of Israel and the President of the Supreme Court.
 
He was behind the decision made by Levi Eshkol’s National Unity Government during the Six Day War to apply not Israeli law but the laws of war to all the liberated Jewish territories, namely, the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.  
 
This application was completely inappropriate given the historical connection of these territories to the Jewish People and their legal inseparability from the Jewish National Home.
 
Continue reading this article, see link to related material, and watch VIDEOS

Friday, October 28, 2016

BRITISH BETRAYAL OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE - WHY did Britain fight so hard to prevent the rebirth of ISRAEL? - BOOK REVIEW "THE RAPE OF PALESTINE" - Britain continues to this day to fund and empower Palestinian Arabs determined to eventually exterminate Jews and dismantle Israel


  • Although historians and popular culture tend to lay most of the blame for the Holocaust on German Nazis, in fact the Nazis counted on the collaboration of many nations in Europe and elsewhere in the genocide of Jews.  
  • The slaughter of six million Jews was a collaborative international effort.
  • After 1945  the supposedly de-Nazified German government has led to this day an active movement to undermine Israel, and to support and fund the Palestinian Arabs.  And so have other EU governments. 
  • Europeans have contracted out the Arabs for the completion of what Hitler left undone. 
  • An empowered Palestinian Arab population with a state of their own, and a weakened and shrunk Israel is the insidious formula for Holocaust Part II - and they all know it.
  • The British have always been intensely anti-Semitic and, although they've been lauded for playing such a key role in resisting and fighting the Nazis, they endeavored to keep Jews out of Britain AND Palestine during the war, thereby ensuring that they would be slaughtered by the Germans in the millions. 
  • Image result for images BRITISH  REFUGEE CAMPS FOR JEWSAfter the end of World War II the British even imprisoned Holocaust survivors for years in refugee camps behind barbed wire, to make sure they did not return to their ancestral land in Israel.  (See photo on the right.)
  • To this day the British and the rest of Europe enthusiastically sympathize with the genocidal Palestinian Arabs who, by the way, were close allies of Hitler.   
  • As Britain continues to be colonized by Muslims, its foreign policy is bound to get even more anti-Israel. 
  • The British Labour Party is blatantly anti-Semitic.  It is headed by a self-hating Jew, and supported by the anti-Semitic left and the UK Muslim population.
  • Whatever our personal views on the conflict, we should remember that it is NOT between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, but between Jews and Muslims, and between tiny Israel and 1.7 BILLION Muslims. 
  • Jews have been persecuted and massacred by Muslims for 14 centuries, long before the reconstituted State of Israel.  
  • Israel's three major defensive wars for survival (48, 67, 73) were between a few million Jews (six million at the last census) and a coalition of Arab countries representing hundreds of millions of genocidal Muslims. 
The British betrayal of the Jewish people

By Abu Yehuda (Vic Rosenthal)

Even after the war, when the evil consequences of its policies should have been clear, when Germany herself began to recognize her obligation to what was left of the Jewish people, Britain continued to fight against the establishment of a Jewish state, battling attempts to resettle Jewish refugees, even arming and providing military advisors to the Arab armies that in 1948 tried to finish the job Hitler started.
Today the “discovery” of Jew-hatred among British politicians, particularly in the Labour Party, is news. But the relationship of the Jews to Albion, since the citizens of York wiped out their Jewish community in 1190, hasn’t been smooth.
 
Recently, I read a review by Sheree Roth of a neglected 1938 book, William B. Ziff’s      The Rape of Palestine.  (Posted on this page further on.)
 
Although Roth is primarily concerned with the (very important and persuasive) evidence in Ziff’s book refuting the Arab claim to be the “original” or “indigenous” inhabitants of the Land of Israel, the book is primarily concerned with the history of the British Mandatory power over Palestine.  
 
The British betrayal of the Jewish people must be reckoned as one of the great crimes of the 20th century. Entrusted with the Mandate to ultimately make possible a Jewish National Home, Britain instead fought its realization tooth and nail, ultimately becoming complicit in the Nazi Holocaust.
 
Even after the war, when the evil consequences of its policies should have been clear, when Germany herself began to recognize her obligation to what was left of the Jewish people, Britain continued to fight against the establishment of a Jewish state, battling attempts to resettle Jewish refugees, even arming and providing military advisors to the Arab armies that in 1948 tried to finish the job Hitler started.
 
Everyone knows about the series of White Papers issued by the Mandatory Government, which progressively limited Jewish immigration, culminating in the MacDonald White Paper of 1939 which – just as the furnaces of the Holocaust were about to be lit – effectively closed the doors of Palestine to Jews and doomed millions to destruction.
 
But Ziff explains how, long before 1939, British authorities used every bureaucratic device possible to reduce the number of Jews allowed into the country, while completely overlooking the uncontrolled immigration of Arabs who flocked in to take advantage of the jobs created by the Zionists. “Illegal” Jews were hunted down and punished.
 
Continue reading Abu Yehuda's article, the ME Quarterly article from where he quotes, as well as other related items.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

ISRAEL AND PALESTINE, A BRIEF STORY OF TWO STATES, one a successful one, the other mired in hate, violence, and corruption unable to take off the ground

Some people just can't be helped 


By Vic Rosenthal

When the Zionists began to build the yishuv, the enterprise that would become the Jewish state, they had to develop an economy, a political system, an army for defense, a legal system, an educational system, a transportation network, a postal service, and countless other things.
 
They got help, first from wealthy benefactors like Montefiore and Rothschild, and later – when they needed to resettle hundreds of thousands of often penniless refugees from the Holocaust and, later, from the Muslim world – from organized appeals in the Diaspora.
 
In a highly controversial arrangement, Holocaust survivors in Israel also received billions as reparations from Germany (the state also received several hundreds of millions).
 
The Jews created cooperative enterprises in every economic sphere which enabled them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, despite a war of independence in which they lost 1% of their population, and massive immigration.
 
Later they surprised the world by repeatedly defeating their more numerous enemies, and little by little transformed their economy to a more entrepreneurial model. Today Israel, despite the challenges, is a remarkable success, economically, socially and culturally. Not perfect, but still a remarkable success.
 
Despite what people think, Israel does not receive non-military aid from the US, and only modest amounts of money from Diaspora charities. Indeed, many Israelis think we can and should end the military aid, which comes with many strings attached.
 
Now let’s look at another group that ostensibly aspires to a state, the ‘Palestinians’.
 
Take the Gaza Strip, with 1.8 million residents, 72% of them with refugee status, wards of the international dole. There is no economy to speak of, except that created by UNRWA which feeds and educates its population with funds provided primarily by the US and Europe, and Hamas, which manufactures rockets, digs attack tunnels and prepares for war.
 
This population is rapidly growing; it is expected to reach 2.1 million by 2020, with a fertility rate of 4.2 children per woman (a conservative estimate). For comparison, the fertility rate among Arabs in Judea and Samaria is only 2.8. 21% of Gazans are between the ages of 15 and 24, and 64% under 25.
 
This huge ‘youth bulge’ combined with a lack of employment, is a guarantee of continued violence. And it is all paid for by the West, which, through UNRWA’s welfare policies, incentivizes Gazans to have children. Welfare costs for Palestinians increase every year, along with the population.
 
The West went along with Arab demands to prevent any resettlement of ‘Palestinian refugees’ and the UN granted refugee status to anyone who lived in pre-state Palestine for as little as two years – and to all their descendents in perpetuum, something done for no other refugee population.
 
99% of UNRWA employees are Palestinians, and the curriculum in UNRWA schools is aimed at keeping alive the narrative of Arab dispossession and dishonor that fuels the conflict. UNRWA does not ameliorate the conflict, it nourishes it.
 
Consider also the Arabs of Judea and Samaria, the great majority of whom live under the control of the Palestinian Authority. The PA, like UNRWA, is totally dependent on American and European money.
 
The PA burns through most of the more than $1 billion a year it receives on corruption and its multiple ‘security forces’ (which sometimes engage in terrorism).
 
It also disburses large payments to the families of prisoners in Israeli jails for security offenses, and to families of ‘martyrs’, including suicide bombers. The PA and its official media continue to incite violence and murder of Jews, and treat terrorists as heroes.
 
Large monopolies, like cement and telecommunications are in the hands of PA insiders. Crime is rampant and economic activity is stunted.
 
Both Israel and the Palestinians received injections of capital from abroad. Israel used it to help build the infrastructure of a state, and turn her refugees into productive citizens.
 
The Palestinian Arab leaders stole much of the money, nurtured their people’s hatred and created a permanent class of stateless refugees as an army to fight Israel. Indeed, even if a Palestinian state were created in the territories, the refugees would not be welcome in it, because according to Palestinian dogma, the only way to stop being a refugee is to ‘return’ to ‘your home’ in Israel!
 
When the international community gave the Palestinians money for building infrastructure like waste treatment plants or power stations, they built mansions for PA and Hamas officials.
 
Hamas took cement for rebuilding homes after the last war and used it to line attack tunnels. The only area in which they have shown any initiative is getting attention by killing people.
 
Do you see the difference here? The Jews really wanted a state. They were ready to sacrifice and struggle for it. They took advantage of the aid that was available and used it to build something. The Arabs aren’t even trying. All they want is to destroy our state.
 
The ‘Palestinians’ have contributed nothing to the world except violent terrorism since they invented themselves in order to oppose Jewish sovereignty some 60 years ago. It’s time to start weaning them off welfare. If they can switch from stabbing to state-building, then they should go for it. In any case, the world can’t afford to keep feeding them.
 
Source
 
This column originally appeared on author's Vic Rosenthal's website, Abu Yehuda
 
 
 

Thursday, March 24, 2016

EXPOSED: THE UK ENCOURAGED GENOCIDAL ARAB ATTACK ON ISRAEL back in 1948 - And to this day it continues to support those same aims under the guise of "land for peace"



Intelligence obtained by the French secret services in the Middle East sheds new light on Britain’s role in the Arab-Israeli War of Independence.
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin.
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin

On this page:
  • Read research article by historian Meir Zamir
  • See photos of the Israeli War of Independence - 1947-48
  • See map for UN proposed partition of  Israel then
  • See map of White House and EU proposed partition of Israel now.
  • And read brief outline of the War of Independence by historian Netanel Lorch
 
September 11, 1947. On the eve of the Arab League’s political committee meeting to decide on the Arab response to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) report [supporting the end of the British mandate and partitioning the land between Jews and Arabs], the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient published an article.

Continue reading. 
See pictures of the War of Independence
and a brief outline of the War

Sunday, March 23, 2014

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BEDOUIN IN ISRAEL - PART 2 - ARE THE BEDOUIN VILLAGES HISTORICAL?


For part I, click HERE

Six part series on the claims of Bedouin tribes in the Negev, based on research by REGAVIM and aerial photographs.
 
Myth 2 : Are the Bedouin Villages Historical?
 
In the past few years, the Bedouin of the Negev and extreme left non-government organizations (NGO’s) have repeatedly claimed that most of the Bedouin villages are “historical” and that Bedouin have inhabited these villages since before the creation of the State of Israel. Take, for example, the Joint Position Paper: Bill on Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, of May 2013).[4]

Friday, March 21, 2014

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BEDOUIN IN ISRAEL - PART I - ARE THEY "INDIGENOUS"?

 
6 Part Series: The Truth About the Negev Bedouin, Pt. I
 
A comprehensive research paper in six parts, divided into "myths".
 
By Jewish land rights organization REGAVIM
 
 
Myth 1: Are the Bedouin “Indigenous”?
 
Around twenty-five years ago, a global  discussion began surrounding the term “indigenous peoples” as it relates to ethnic minorities throughout the world.
 
International law, however, began to address the issue of indigenous peoples as far back as the 17th century, and by and large the matter was left to the discretion of the individual states. With the passing of the years, the law began to recognize the independent status of indigenous ethnic groups (such as the Indians and the Aborigines) in a way that was bound together with previous legal agreements regarding preservation of culture, holy sites, and other factors.
 
The International Labor Organization (ILO) associated with the United Nations tried to advance two international treaties concerning the rights of populations that define themselves as indigenous, yet were unsuccessful in formulating a statement, due to the differing views of each country on sovereignty and indigenous populations.
 
In the past few years, key figures in the Bedouin sector in Israel began to apply this term to themselves as defining their independent status, together with a demand for recognition of their historic ownership of lands across the Negev.
 
Despite the lack of an international agreement as to the definition of “indigenous”, the general recognition of indigenous peoples uses several parameters, focusing on the following:
  • Original Inhabitants – Indigenous peoples are descendants of the first peoples to inhabit a particular territory.
  • Extended Period of Time – Indigenous peoples have lived in a territory “from time immemorial”, over a period of thousands of years.
  • Pre-Colonial Sovereignty – Indigenous peoples had territorial sovereignty before the arrival of a  developed nation that took possession of the region.
  • Group Connection to the Land – Indigenous peoples have a spiritual connection to the land on which they live.
  • External Validation – Indigenous peoples are recognized by other external groups which affirm that they are in fact indigenous.
Professor Ruth Kark of the Geography Department of the Hebrew University, considered an expert on issues of land ownership in traditional and pre-modern cultures, in an article that appeared in the “Middle East Quarterly,”[1] enumerates the generally accepted parameters of the term “indigenous,” and explains why the Bedouin cannot be included in this category. Here is the synopsis of her conclusions:
 
Original Peoples – Many groups preceded the Bedouin in Palestine in general and in the Negev in particular, including Jewish inhabitants who maintained an uninterrupted presence in the land since the days of the Bible. Therefore, the Bedouin cannot claim that they were the original inhabitants of the land.
 
The Dimension of Time – The variable called, “from time immemorial” requires a long-standing presence on the territory. The Bedouin tribes currently living in the Negev have been there for about two hundred years [2]. As such, they cannot claim that their presence predates the arrival of a foreign power, such as the Ottoman Empire, which preceded the current Bedouin tribes present in the Negev by hundreds of years.
 
Sovereignty –The Bedouin of the Negev never had sovereignty over the region. When they arrived, the Negev was already under Ottoman control, followed by British and then Israeli control.
 
A Unique Spiritual Connection to the Territory – Nomadic life precludes any specific fixed connection to the land. There is no long-standing proof in Bedouin tradition establishing a spiritual connection between them and the Negev, a logical result of their relatively brief presence there and to their nomadic lifestyle. Indeed they claim the Arabian Peninsula to be their historic homeland.
 
Today, the Bedouin are not claiming collective rights to the land, but are rather demanding fulfillment of private land ownership claims of individual families, giving them the possibility of selling the lands and transferring them to a third party.
 
Such individual demands are contrary to the spiritual dimension, and point to the fact that the main aspiration of the Bedouin is financial gain, with no collective character that would support their campaign to be recognized as indigenous.

The Group Defines itself, and is regarded by others, as indigenous inhabitants of the Territory – The claim of the Bedouin as indigenous is quite recent, and was first mentioned only a small number of years ago [3]. Previous studies did not find that the Bedouin regarded themselves as indigenous and no researchers made the claim as such.
 
Although the UN Committee on Indigenous People did bestow indigenous status on the Bedouin of the Negev, the fact that no other Bedouin tribe in the Middle East ever made a claim of being indigenous raises questions as to the motives and authenticity of such a claim.
 
The fact that the Bedouin of the Negev, in many cases, are part of the same tribe that dwells in neighboring countries, also makes it illogical to say that only the Bedouin who live on the Israeli side of the border should considered indigenous.
 
Conclusion:
 
The narrative according to the Bedouin claim that they are “indigenous” does not fulfill the world’s accepted criteria for being considered indigenous.
 
 
Sources:

1. “Are the Negev Bedouin an Indigenous People? Fabricating Palestinian History”. Havazelet Yahel, Dr. Seth Frantzman & Prof. Ruth Kark. Middle East Quarterly. Summer 2012, pp. 3-14
 
2. Ottoman tax records from the years 1596-97 specify the names of forty three Bedouin tribes in what was to become the Palestinian Mandate, including three in the Negev, yet the names of the tribes living today in the Negev do not appear in this list.
 
3. The first articles to relate to this claim appeared about ten years ago in the platforms of organizations identified with the radical left in Israel such as “Adalah,” “the Negev Co-existence Forum,” and “Human Rights Watch.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14722#.Uyw9EZuPKM8

 
RELATED
 
Jews are the indigenous people of Israel - Palestinians are historically recent migrants
 
Debunking the 'Palestinians as Native Myth'
 
A Native and a Zionist - An Canadian Native supports Jews as the Aboriginal people of Israel
 
******************************************************************************