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Netanyahu’s coalition lost its majority. His challengers didn’t win one. Where does Israel go from here?
Recorded live on election night, 30 minutes after the polls closed, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi react to exit polls that leave Israel deadlocked: Likud still the largest party, Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc ahead but short of 61 seats, and Arab parties at a record high. They debate Donniel’s “Torah of Dayenu” against Yossi’s insistence on accountability, weigh whether a minority government or a new partnership with Arab parties could break the stalemate, and ask how a deeply divided, deeply devoted country moves forward.
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Join Arc Plus to get ad-free access to every episode of For Heaven's Sake, and help support independent Jewish media. Join at arcmedia.org. [Instrumental music] You are listening to an Arc Media podcast. One part of the country says, "We must have accountability for October 7th, full stop." And the other part of the country is saying, "We must ensure that the gains we won in the battlefield are preserved."
How do we reconcile these two needs? The Torah of Dayenu, the Torah of the Jewish people being able to say thanks even though they don't get everything they want. Tonight, we haven't lost Israel. We still don't know which Israel is moving forward. The Likud voters are part of my Israel. They're all part of my Israel. [Instrumental music] I'm Deborah Pardes, the host of Arc News Daily.
What's happening in Israel and the Jewish world right now matters, but it can be hard to keep up, let alone make sense of it all. That's why we started Arc News Daily. Every weekday morning, I walk you through the most important news, give you the context you need, and let you know what to look out for next. I don't try to convince you of anything, and I don't waste your time.
On most days, I'll be in your ears for about 10 minutes or less. Then you can move on with your day, hopefully a little bit smarter than before. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or follow the link in the show notes. I hope to see you tomorrow. Hi, friends. This is Daniella Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi from the Shalom Hartman Institute, and this is our podcast, For Heaven's Sake, in collaboration with Arc Media.
Today is Tuesday, October 27th, 10:30 at night, 30 minutes after the polls. Our theme is Israel Votes: What Next? Just for those of you who don't know the numbers, the exit poll of Channel 12, all the exit polls have the current coalition at 50, while the three other exit polls vary between, for the opposition or the Eisenkot block, between 53 to 52, with the Israeli-Arab parties, the coalition of Israeli-Arab parties being between 17 and 18 seats.
In all the polls so far, Netanyahu and the Likud turn out to be the largest party, 25 or 24. Yashar is either between 21 and 23. Gadi Eisenkot's party. Gadi Eisenkot's party. We'll analyze all of the above. And all I could say is that I've been waiting, just like you, for these elections for four years. We've been waiting for our people to say what do they want? Where's the future?
Before we analyze what we think happened here, Yossi, I think you need this question [laughs] because I was speaking to you throughout the day and you were so optimistic. You were excited. You were Daniella. Mm. You allowed yourself to be Daniella for a day, and I'm sitting next to you, my friend, and I want to hug you. So Yossi, how are you feeling? I feel like I need a hug. [laughs] Here, I'll give you a hand.
I can give you a hand. Well, I did let my wary guard down, and I was caught up in the drama of seeing tens of thousands of Israelis living abroad flying in for the elections, a phenomenon that, you know, no other country would experience such a thing. And these are the Israelis who left, and they still feel this, such a deep sense of attachment and love and concern for the country.
Friend of mine has a son living in Australia. He flew in for three days just to vote. The traveling time is more than three days. [laughs] Yeah. So [laughs] and, and so I allowed myself to get hopeful, and these elections are a very accurate reflection of a deeply divided, deeply ambivalent, and fearful society.
You know, in some ways, a- and again, I'm not speaking rationally now, I'm speaking emotionally, the worst of these results is that the Likud is the largest party. Now yes, they can form a coalition. The Netanyahu coalition has gone down from 68 seats to 50. That's all good. But the fact that Netanyahu is the head of the largest party, that for me is a punch in the gut.
It means that we still are not prepared to demand accountability. Just on that level alone, that he's still in the game, that for me is- Is devastating... it, it's, it- I, I hear you... you know, the bottom drops out. And so yes, you know, one can analyze these elect- these election results- We'll do that at the end, yeah...
you know, and, and you can see rationally there are some very positive indications here. Ben-Gvir's down and... But, but that, you know, the 24 seats, that's a tough one. How about you? Um- I mean, you, you protected yourself. You know, Daniella- I did it, Yossi. See, I am an optimist when I'm facing a non-falsifiable future. When I'm, when my optimism is not falsifiable, when it has a horizon of work and education and teaching, and I do believe our world is progressing. Today, I couldn't be an optimist Because I was expecting these results.
And just for the audience, it's important the results might change. All the exit polls are very similar, but they might change one or two, and that's significant which way they might change. And the truth is, Daniel, that when you said that you were expecting these results, there were very little surprises here given what we've been seeing in the polls the last few months. Right. The only surprise is the size of the Likud. Yeah. And the size of the Likud basically we'll talk about this took people on the right, on the far right in the Netanyahu block, and he basically took votes from Ben-Gvir, he took votes from- Winter... from Winter.
So his party, you know, in the most realistic, he was raging between 18 to 21. He took some seats from people who were thinking, "You know what? I want Netanyahu, but I want him to sit with this person." And those people, those no Netanyahu buts went back to Netanyahu by and large. So I'm sad. Yeah. I can't say these are the results I wanted.
What I really wanted was for Eisenkot to get 55 or 56, and we don't know. Now he's at 53, 52. He might end at 51. It might be 50/50. Who knows how it's going to end out? It can't be 50/50 actually, because the Arab parties aren't going to rise to 20, the Israeli-Arab Palestinian parties. So I'm sitting here, it's disappointing, but I didn't have as existential a need for the country to say no to Netanyahu. I wanted them to say yes to a new future. And the reality is, is that they did and didn't.
They did and didn't. So you have these 17, 18- They did in the sense that the coalition is down significantly. The coalition is down from 67 in the current Knesset to 50. That's 17 seats out of 67. What is that? That's 25%. That's a huge turnaround. Huge turnaround. So this represents, you know, the marketplace of a split country, and now we go to the next stage. So what do we do? What do we do?
Let's start with the most-- the other major surprise. You spoke about, uh, Netanyahu getting 24 or 25. Eisenkot is getting more or less what he polled. But the parties that have surprised the most is the Israeli-Arab parties, 17 or 18 unprecedented. Unprecedented. And the challenge for all of Israel is that while the Haredi are kosher for the Likud coalition, the Israeli-Arab Palestinians aren't kosher for the Eisenkot coalition, which creates a huge disparity.
And for the first time, the Israeli-Arab parties are equal and even surpassing the Haredi parties in their size. So what are your thoughts about this? I think they're the only winners in this election. The coalition failed and the opposition failed. The opposition failed to sustain the advantage that they had for most of the last three years, and they blew it.
And it would be interesting maybe to discuss why at some point. But the coalition failed because it went down, as you noted, by at least 25%. So neither the opposition nor the coalition has reason to celebrate tonight. The Arab parties, on the other hand, are the big winners. They've done better, I think, than the Arab parties have ever done in any election. In their history. That's correct. Any election.
I think that it is a deceptive victory for them because if Arab voters wanted to have influence on the government, they should have figured out a way of forcing the liberal Jewish parties to take their concerns more seriously and to vote for those parties. The Arab parties, as it seems now, certainly the joint list will remain untouchable by mutual agreement.
The joint list wouldn't join a Zionist coalition, and no Zionist parties would have the joint list. The joint list is frankly anti-Zionist, opposed to an- any of Israel's military actions. You can't create a government with the joint list. Mansour Abbas's Ra'am, as we've discussed here, is a more complicated story. He personally has made a real effort to reach out to the Jewish parties.
He has accepted the fact that Israel w- is, and r- as he put it, will remain a Jewish state. Uh, he has not accepted the legitimacy of Israel, but he has accepted the reality of a Jewish Israel. I don't know w-what that distinction is exactly. The dist- well, the distinction is first of all important for the Israeli Jewish public. Whether the distinction is important or not is a separate question.
But the fact that for the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews, what they need, what I need to hear from our fellow Arab citizens is, "We accept your, your legitimacy here. We need you to accept the legitimacy of a Palestinian people, and we accept your legitimacy. We accept that you're an indigenous part of this region." And we need that because of our insecurities.
And again, whether that's rational or not is a separate question. If you're looking at the hard political reality, an Arab political leader that can't say after 80 years of Israel's existence, "I accept the legitimacy of a Jewish and democratic state," is not going to be an acceptable partner. Okay. I have a feeling, [laughs] and I don't want to say, that we've now reverted back to Yossi the pessimist and to Neal the optimist again.
[laughs] There's, I- I think Ra'am and Mansour Abbas has done exactly what you want, but I think this, from the- Well, let me give you a positive scenario here. Okay, go, please. My hope is that in the next few days, Mansour Abbas, together with his Jewish partner, Sagolovich, who is an avowed Zionist and, and joined Ra'am to try to make Ra'am acceptable to the liberal Jewish parties, they call a press conference, and they say, "We accept Gadi Eisenkot's three principles. The first principle was Israel is a Jewish and democratic state.
The second principle is we accept the definition of Israel according to the Declaration of Independence, and the third is universal service. In the case of Jews, that will be military service. In the case of Arabs, most likely civic service. We accept Gadi Eisenkot's three principles. Now, we'd like to join with you."
I think what this election, and we'll talk about the future, like what next, one of the things that's placed on the table to all of Israeli Jews is that the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian society has stood up and said, "Hineini kan. I'm here. You can't keep on ignoring me. And more than that, if you want a coalition which moves in the direction of your liberal values, you're gonna have to talk to me. You're gonna have to talk to me the way the Likud is willing to talk with the Haredi."
It's a difference. The way it's... The w- I know, I know. Big difference. I didn't say... I-- Yossi, I know there's a difference. But they're saying to them, "You're gonna have to talk to me." And it might take, just like the new Haredi party which you were so excited about, it might take one or two cycles. It might take a few years. Fair enough. Fair enough.
But there's something in which the Israeli-Arab- Yes... Palestinian- Yes... they said, "I count." You have no pathway. There's two pathways forward for the liberal, for the anti-Netanyahu, let's call them the liberal democratic right center and left center left parties. You have two paths forward. One path is a national unity government with either the Haredi or the Likud. Haredi, you're, you can't, so maybe with the Likud. Or you could start talking to me. And to what extent are you gonna start being realistic?
Because to say like Lieberman said, "I can't even build a minority government with the abstention of Ra'am," there's a purity which doesn't belong in a world of political compromises that Netanyahu understands very, very well. He understands it very, very well. So does Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. All of them have said, "I have my beliefs, and I'm not gonna be pure, and I'm gonna have to make compromises."
So of course you could say there's differences here or there, but at some point the Israeli Arabs have stood up and said, "Hineini kan." And I think in the long run, doesn't help me right now, doesn't help you right now, unless maybe that press conference, which would be very smart to do. That would be groundbreaking. That would be groundbreaking.
So this story is a big story, and, and I think it's gonna require of both sides to sit down and say, "What is your place in Israeli society?" And you're right, the joint list is very ambivalent. They're not all the same in the joint list. There's the Hadash, the Communist Party. They're not all anti-Zionist to the same degree. There might have to be distinctions there.
But certainly Ra'am, their voters are gonna have to get up and say, "What do you want? You're an Israeli citizen. What do you want? Do you want to be the one who just says, 'I'm here, but I can't play'? Or do you want to say, 'I want to play'? Now, if you want to say you want to play, under what conditions do you want to play?" And when both sides say they want to play, then there's room for compromise.
Okay, so the only Arab party so far that has said, "We genuinely want to play," is Ra'am. And Ra'am was part of the coalition in, uh, 2022, and by all indications, they were a, uh, a good partner. Of course, uh, October 7th has changed what Israeli Jews are prepared to accept compared to what, uh, we were prepared to accept in 2022, and that's part of the problem. It's-- Mansour Abbas was groundbreaking for his time, but he's been overtaken by events. The question is whether he can meet the new challenge.
I don't know that any Arab politician can give the Israeli Jewish public what it needs and survive in his own community. Their maximum is not our minimum. So that's what's gonna happen. That's part of the tragedy. That's part of-- That's the tragedy, or that's what we're gonna have to find out. 'Cause just like, and I know it's not the same, just like the question is what's the maximum and the minimum of the Haredi parties?
What's the maximum and the minimum of a Ben-Gvir party? There's always these compromises, and the question is whether we're willing to have that conversation. I think part of the camp which you and I belong to are gonna have to ask ourselves serious questions along with the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian society. Otherwise, there is no path forward. No path forward.
And when the Eisenkot government was getting 58 or so over the last year or two, the Israeli-Arab parties were getting together 10, 11. So the change is clear and where it has to come from. We'll be right back. This show exists because we think disagreement, done honestly, is how you actually learn something. ARC+ members make that possible.
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So now let me ask you a hard question for how you're feeling right now, okay? And you can tell me, "Daniel, I don't want to talk about it." [laughs] Okay? Is there any optimism that you have? Is there anything that you say, "Oh, you know, I, I could go to sleep tonight, even though when I'm looking at you, I see you're really struggling"? Yeah, I am really struggling. I, I will say one thing.
You know, I've, I've spoken to a lot of people in the last few weeks. Across the board, if I'm in a restaurant, I'll ask the waitress, "Who are you voting for?" Over and over again, I-- going to the shuk, to Machane Yehuda, the market, and- Just don't tell me you asked a taxi driver, 'cause I'll vomit. I didn't say. Good, good, 'cause I can't stand- I didn't say...
this mythic status of the taxi driver. I didn't say. Thank you. But I al- but I also did. [laughs] The mythic taxi driver of-- who's all-wise for this country. No, no. So, but, but really was- The all-wise taxi driver... but I've been speaking to, to- Lots of people... dozens and dozens of people. Many of the conversations were frustrating, maddening, but they all had one thing in common. Everyone cares passionately about this country.
And in a way, our greatest asset is also our greatest liability, the fact that people care so much about this country. Everyone feels such a personal stake in the fate of this country. That is largely why our schisms are so profound and sometimes so ugly. I, I don't know if this gives me hope. It's just something that I've been trying to remind myself of.
The other camp loves this country as much as you do, and that's really important to remember now, especially given the fact that we may well have to think of a unity government with the Likud. Now, I can't see a unity government with Netanyahu. For me, that's obscene. That's really a "yehareg ve'al yavor," a red line, a bright red line. But the Likud voters are part of my Israel.
They're all part of my Israel. And so after the final tally is in, that's what I'm left with. I'm left with the realization that I am stuck in this little overheated country with lots and lots of people who I think are taking us down an incredibly dangerous path, and we will all pay a price for that.
And at the same time, these are people who are my partners and love this country as much as I do. See, I have more optimism than you. I've been speaking all across America. I just came back right be- the day before the election. And I knew we weren't gonna win. We spoke about this on the podcast, that every we, in some sense, is gonna have to come to terms with the fact that we're not gonna win. And I started to speak about the Torah of Dayenu, the Torah of the Jewish people being able to say thanks even though they don't get everything they want.
"God, thank you for splitting the sea, but we would give thanks if you split the sea but didn't open the waters, or put the waters back on top of us, or you brought us to Mount Sinai and didn't give us the Torah, or gave us the Torah and didn't even bring us into the land of Israel." And so the Jewish people and the secret of Jewish history is a people who are able to give thanks over little bits and to hold onto it and not allow a fatalism or a depression to take over.
And I've been w- thinking a lot about this, so I feel like I'm more prepared for tonight. So you know what my Dayenu for tonight was? It's enough. My Dayenu for tonight was that Netanyahu can't form a government. Now, we're going to sleep, and we don't know. There's 600,000 votes in what's known as double envelopes, and those are Israeli citizens principally in the army or people who were evacuated from the north and the south and couldn't vote in their polling stations.
And there's-- it'll take till Thursday night till all of these votes come forth. And sometimes these polls are not that accurate, and I'm worried still. It's still there. But when Netanyahu has 70 seats against him, he can't be asked by the president to form the coalition. And even if he's asked, he has no pathway to form that. So that itself, we have brought this government to a, an end.
We don't have a future yet as to which government we want. We don't have a future yet to be able to rule. And it's true, Yossi, your deep feelings that I never shared to the same degree, even though the last couple of days I was getting closer to the just not Netanyahu as I began to hear the things that he was planning and the things that he's said over the last few- The fact that he wanted to take us to war to stop the election- Yeah.
All of it... and was prevented- I got you started... from doing so. By the chief- That's who we're dealing with. We know that the thing-- I'm with you. He is not a partner. Yossi, Yossi, I'm with you. He's, he's not a partner for the next government. Yossi, Yossi, all of the above was a discussion till 9:59. Now the people have spoken. I'm not saying he's a partner.
This coalition is not gonna join with him a- as prime minister. But at some point This process that I've been going through this for the last month, month and a half of accepting that I wasn't gonna win. And so my first Dayenu is, and there's a distinction, is if this government continued, I felt that I was gonna lose my Israel. I was gonna lose my Israel. I was not gonna leave. I wasn't gonna stop my support for Israel.
But it would require of me a whole new recalculation of how I live here and what I do and what the institute does, and what's the mission of my life. Tonight, we haven't lost Israel. We still don't know which Israel is moving forward, but there is a clear opposition which says, "No. Netanyahu, you're not getting the mandate. Eisenkot, we don't know if you're gonna be able to form it."
But then now let's have-- This is your challenge. It's a challenge for all of you. It's a challenge for all of you not to sit necessarily with Ra'am, but let's say you get fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty, fifty-three, whatever it is. Lieberman, get over your declarations. Form a minority government for a fixed period of time, not one which says that we're in power. No.
In November, what is it, November seventh or eleventh, something like that, when the official results come out and the Knesset is convened, change the Speaker of the House. Form a minority government and say, "I am forming a government for a year. The people are split, but one thing this election has told us is that they don't want this government.
And we're gonna answer to that, and we're gonna form a coalition, a minority coalition government, and we're gonna pass a number of laws, and then you'll see the country is gonna have another choice." Tell them in advance, maybe it's in June, maybe it's in October, and then let's decide again. Who do you want? You've said no to Netanyahu, but I need you to say yes to me.
And if you haven't said yes to me, we have to go to elections again. Just like you wrote the speech for Ra'am, I could write the speech for Eisenkot. I have a mandate. We have a mandate to say no. I need a mandate to say yes. Let's not go through three-month, four-month cycles. Let's try, and then you will pick.
And then Lieberman is gonna have to face a very clear, clear choice 'cause he's the only one who said, "I won't sit in such a government," unless Lieberman comes forth and says, "I know that's what I said. But under these circumstances, I think this is the best choice." And let's see. And then whether in that environment Netanyahu ultimately leaves or we don't know. But our Dayenu, Yossi, is we didn't lose.
You needed to win. I've gotten over the need for a complete victory, not 'cause I didn't want it, but because I began to adjust that I wasn't gonna get it. I needed for Netanyahu to no longer be in the picture. I know. All the rest of these results I can live with, and I can live with your Dayenu. I appreciate- And I can- So you didn't get your Dayenu. This...
None of that for me was the minimum, is that after October seventh- Interesting... after twenty years- I appreciate that... in power, this guy is no longer in our lives. I appreciate that very much. And that was it. That's, that was it. That was your... It's like the song Dayenu starts with, "If you had only taken us out of Egypt," and then everything that. You n- he was- My Egypt was- Was Netanyahu...
take, was freeing us from Netanyahu. Yeah. And I didn't get it. And you didn't get it. So I don't have my first Dayenu. I appreciate that. And I have-- And now I have to look at- Adjust... look at the results and adjust. Now, you're right, and, and it's a really beautiful way to put it in, Daniel, which is that everyone's Israel is still in play. The coalition's Israel is still in play. They're not out. The Likud is the largest party.
And our Israel is still in play. So this is a precise reflection of Israel post October seventh. And you know, it's interesting because think of these elections in the context of October seventh. There were two consequences to October seventh. The first was a deep need among Israelis for accountability, for a reckoning.
Seventy-plus percent of Israelis want a national commission of inquiry, which Netanyahu, of course, has prevented. That was one consequence of October seventh. The other was a significant shift to the right. Both were results of October seventh, and if you look at these elections, you see these are the two results that, in a way, have stalemated each other.
One part of the country says, "We must have accountability for October seventh, full stop." And the other part of the country is saying, "We must ensure that the gains we won in the battlefield are preserved, and no more talk of a false and deceptive peace. This is our October seventh agenda." And so how do we reconcile these two needs? My October seventh need overwhelmingly was for accountability. I'm not getting it unless we do go for a minority government, and the first thing that government does is vote for a commission of inquiry, which I think is the first thing they will do.
Gadi Eisenkot said his very first move will be a national commission of inquiry, so maybe I will get my minimum. We'll wrap this up now. I'll just give some thoughts, and then if you have any final thoughts. As I watched this election campaign, I expected more or less these results. But when I watched them and I watched Netanyahu functioning In this election campaign, I realized that even though he's not my red line to the extent that he is yours, he crossed so many red lines for me in this election campaign. He did. Again, he started to speak about the Arabs are coming, are running out to vote. Like, how do you even speak that way about fellow citizens, this mutual hatred? And then the, the fact that he was probably gonna go to war.
Just like trying to convince Trump to get us to go to war, and the fact that he has no plans for how we're supposed to adjust to the international campaign against us other than reclaiming again some Sparta nation ideology, but now with the help of crypto, somehow we will survive. Startup nation will start doing under-the-table crypto deals in some obscene conversation. The fact that he went and again embraced the Torah study and that we are gonna strengthen... His whole world is not my world.
And what I realized, I want more. But I have, when I look at these elections and I see that he's still getting 24, 25 seats, I see how much work we need to do to develop the type of moral Jewish value language in this country. So this election has us at a standstill. I haven't lost. That's my Dayenu.
And now I realize how much work that you could actually still vote for someone who says such things, for whom these things are mainstream. And Netanyahu doesn't say anything unless he feels it polls well. And so we have a lot of work to do. So here it is. Some of us needed complete victory. Some of us knew we weren't going to get it. We have a lot either way.
We have a huge amount of work to do, both within Jewish society, within Israeli-Arab-Palestinian society, within our two societies together, and to see what will be the next step, what will be the next political step, and what will be the next societal step. Last thoughts, Yossi? You know, my consolation, if we can call it that, is that no one is happy tonight. And that's interesting.
You know, these elections could have very easily turned into one half of the country rejoicing and the other half of the country mourning. And tonight, no one is satisfied. Everyone is disaffected. So maybe that's a moment. And so it could be a moment if Netanyahu weren't the obstacle. He has so poisoned the atmosphere.
If he weren't in the picture, there would be a national unity government emerging from these results. And that's part of the tragedy of Netanyahu. And it's our tragedy. He remains stuck in our throats. He's the only one who might be happy tonight because he could go to his block and say, "I'm still the best show in town." I'm still here. I'm still standing.
But we have to stand up and say, "You're standing, it's true, but you have no pathway to leadership." And that has to be our Dayenu. Yossi, it was a pleasure talking with you. Always a pleasure, Daniel. Imagine a gap year that's not a detour, but a launchpad. At the Shalom Hartman Institute's Havruta Gap Year Program, students spend a year after high school in the heart of Jerusalem, immersed in serious Beit Midrash learning with Hartman's world-class faculty, including leaders such as Donil Hartman, Tal Becker, and Ilana Steinhaim.
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Here are some other things that are happening at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Earlier this month, the fifth and largest cohort of the Hartman Teen Fellowship had their opening Shabbaton. Over 450 fellows from 33 different US states and Canadian provinces spent a weekend building pluralistic community and engaging with important questions about Jewish life in the 21st century.
These conversations will continue through the school year with virtual learning guided by Hartman faculty. We are eager to see how our fellows grow, learn from each other, and put ideas into practice through leadership. [instrumental music] For Heaven's Sake is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute and Arc Media.
It is produced by me, Daniel Goodman, with help from Miriam Jacobs, Adar Taylor Schechter, and Aviva Katmanor, and studio support from Go Live Media. Our music was composed by Yuval Samal. Past episodes can be found at arcmedia.org, where you can explore more of Arc Media's podcasts. You can watch the video versions of our episodes on our YouTube channel. Follow the YouTube link in the show notes.
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