Letter from East 56th Street
by
David A. Harris
Executive Director, The American Jewish Committee
October 1, 2001
As we begin the year 5762, most of us surely are gasping for breath from the year just ended. It’s been a rough twelve months, with little respite in sight.
It started last Rosh Hashanah with the eruption of Palestinian-instigated violence. This could have been a year that built on the historic peace offer presented by Prime Minister Barak, with the active support of President Clinton. Instead, we were compelled to ask whether the whole Oslo process had been a fraud, a diplomatic sleight-of-hand by Chairman Arafat to weaken Israel and move the Palestinians that much closer to their real goal, one that many believed was no longer part of their vocabulary—the destruction of Israel through stages.
However painful, it is ultimately unavoidable to ask the difficult questions prompted by the experience of the past year: Is there, in fact, a Palestinian partner for peace? Is there any reason left to believe that Arafat is either capable of or willing to settle the conflict peacefully on terms that could conceivably be acceptable to any Israeli government? Did Israel so hopelessly delude itself about the entire venture as to help arm an adversary, in the belief that the weapons it transferred were intended for domestic law enforcement in the emerging Palestinian state?
Did the reintroduction of the so-called “right of return” issue at Camp David signal the death knell of the peace process? Do the continuing incitement and education for hate, not to speak of the glorification of suicide bombers, mean that the Palestinian objective is nothing less than unrelenting struggle till the very end? How else are we to interpret the opening of a new Palestinian exhibit last week at the largest university in the West Bank, in Nablus, that pays tribute to suicide bombers, an exhibit that includes, as the New York Daily News reported on September 24, a replica of the August 9 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem “complete with fake body parts and pizza slices strewn all over,” plus, according to Yediot Aharanot, a tape recording that says: “O Believer! There is a Jew hiding behind me. Come and kill him.”
Does the persistent effort to deny a Jewish religious and historical link to any part of the land, including Jerusalem, reflect a deeply embedded Palestinian view that the Jews are nothing more than interlopers, no different than medieval crusaders or other “foreign occupiers” over the centuries, who must be expelled in one way or another?
What about the world’s reaction to events unfolding in the region over the course of the year? Could we find much solace in seeing how many countries—with the United States standing out once again as a laudable exception, joined, on occasion, by a handful of other principled nations—blithely ignored the facts on the ground and, for the sake of expediency, accepted the Palestinian interpretation of events?
And what conclusions could we draw from the way the United Nations and other international organizations treated Israel entirely differently than any other of the 189 member states?
A few examples:
· The UN Commission on Human Rights, for the third year in a row, adopted a resolution on the defamation of religion, which, in its “list” of the world’s religions that are unfairly portrayed, mentions only Islam by name. Needless to say, there is not a peep about the defamation of Judaism in the Arab and Islamic press, much less the destruction of Jewish holy sites in Palestinian hands, including Joseph’s Tomb, over the past year.
· While Israel has no chance even to serve on the 53-nation Commission on Human Rights, Libya was elected a vice-chairman of this year’s session.
· Syria is about to be elected to a two-year term on the powerful UN Security Council, a body Israel has never served on since joining the UN in 1949.
· Among the UN’s special rapporteurs examining specific country situations, only the rapporteur for Israel and the Occupied Territories has no time limit, whereas all the others must have their mandate renewed periodically.
· The signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention are preparing to convene for the second time in order to discuss Israel. These countries have never, not once, met to consider any other country situation since the Convention was first adopted in 1949.
· The International Red Cross Movement continues to violate its own core principles of universality, neutrality, and impartiality by excluding the Magen David Adom, Israel’s humanitarian society, from full participation in the global movement.
To be sure, as painful as all of these developments are, in the end they are only irritants. The UN body with teeth is the Security Council, where the United States, as one of five permanent members, has veto power. There the Palestinians and their supporters have been consistently unable to muster the support required to achieve their overriding goal—the internationalization of the conflict.
In the fall of 2000, we also witnessed an unprecedented spate of anti-Semitic attacks around the world in democratic countries, especially in France. Jews once again experienced a profound sense of vulnerability, and Jewish institutions required increased protection. Yet, despite the number and viciousness of many of the scores of documented attacks in France, not a single person today, I am told, sits in a French prison for any of the crimes committed.
By the spring of 2001, our attention was increasingly drawn to the World Conference Against Racism, to begin at the end of August in Durban. While the final outcome of the official governmental conference was not as bad as originally feared, it provides small comfort. The months of negotiation preceding the gathering were troubling in the extreme, and those Jewish delegates who attended the conference will not soon forget the harrowing experience.
How galling it was that a forum aimed at combating hatred was turned into a vehicle for its promotion. How tragic it was for those countries and NGOs that truly sought a discussion on the ills of racism and the best ways to grapple with it to see this international gathering hijacked by Arab nations and their supporters. How outrageous it was that everything was put on the table by the anti-Israel crowd—the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Zionism, you name it; nothing was off limits. How disturbing it was that, despite an agreement long in advance that no country-specific situation would be discussed, Israel was once again the exception. How dismaying it was that many countries, and even more nongovernmental organizations, went along with this charade. And how shocking it was that Durban became the venue for an “orgy of anti-Semitism,” as one participant described it, where Jewish delegates were harassed and threatened to the point that many required police protection, while the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion was being distributed together with publications equating Zionism with Nazism.
Within days of the Durban debacle, we were faced with the calamitous attack on America, about which I wrote in a letter dated September 15. Since then, the focus of attention has broadened from the human drama of the tragedies themselves, the thousands of lives lost, the heroic rescue efforts, and the nation’s anguished mourning, to a closer look at the enemy, an examination of the military and geopolitical challenges faced by the United States in pursuing the investigation, the creation of an international coalition, and the coordination of a multifaceted response.
In considering the current situation, we need the intellectual wizardry of a chess grandmaster, who is able to visualize a board in which every move can trigger six, eight, ten, countermoves, and who, at the very same time, must be thinking ahead several steps.
In fact, it’s even more complex, since the board, in this case, is not two-dimensional, but multidimensional. Imagine one axis lined with dozens of countries, while other axes deal with the diplomatic, political, strategic, military, intelligence, religious, and other dimensions of this unfolding drama, and add to this geometric structure the element of time, i.e., what may obtain today in a given situation may or may not be different in a week, a month, a year.
No one can predict with any degree of certainty what will happen. To be sure, there are more and less well-educated guesses, but no one has a monopoly on wisdom when it comes to the period ahead.
That applies to our government as well. I say this as someone who strongly supports our government, but for whom such support can never be allowed to translate into blind faith.
Previous administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have on occasion made serious policy errors when navigating the shoals of the Middle East generally and responding to international terrorism in particular. If I cite a few examples, it is to remind us that in the conduct of international relations, the precision of science is tempered by the vagaries of human nature. This is especially true in a region of the world where the cultural divide with the West is especially pronounced.
It was, for example, President Jimmy Carter who, in December 1977, declared: “Because of the greatness of the Shah, Iran is an island of stability in the Middle East.” Less than 13 months later, the Shah left Iran never to return, paving the way for the Islamic fundamentalists to gain power, which resulted in incalculable damage to American interests in the region.
In the 1980s, we armed the mujahadeen, the Afghans and their supporters from the Arab and Islamic worlds who came to fight a jihad against the Soviet occupiers of the land. They were more than a match for the better-armed Soviets, killed tens of thousands of Soviet troops, and eventually forced the Kremlin to withdraw its army in humiliating defeat.
But in a perfect illustration of the Law of Unintended Consequences, many of the mujahadeen, including Osama bin Laden, flush with victory and confident that God was on their side, next turned their wrath—and their American training—on nations supporting the United States, and then on America itself.
Throughout the years, we chose to ignore, or so, at least, it seemed, the link between Saudi Arabia and the spread of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, in the Muslim world, which, in turn, fueled more religiously driven extremism.
And we misread Saddam Hussein in the months leading up to his occupation of Kuwait in August 1990, failing to grasp his aggressive designs on the tiny, oil-rich neighbor, indeed, perhaps even inadvertently encouraging him by the ill-chosen words of the American ambassador in Baghdad at the time. Subsequently, after an impressive military campaign, spearheaded by Washington, that ousted Iraqi troops from Kuwait, the coalition forces declared victory. There was one small detail, though: Saddam Hussein remained in power, his elite troops free to commit wanton massacres against Iraqi Shiites and Kurds, and his appetite for weapons of mass destruction undiminished, if temporarily disrupted by the UN inspection teams (which haven’t been able to visit the country for nearly three years).
In the same vein, we have, at times, erred in our approach to international terrorism.
Yes, it’s easy to second guess, to look back on history with perfect clarity of vision, but in these particular instances the American Jewish Committee was right on the money. Just as we tried to sound the alarm bell about Saddam Hussein in 1990, as the Bush administration was opposing congressional sanctions against Iraq and a group of senators were being charmed by the Iraqi leader, so, for many years, have we been urging a more consistent, persistent, and resilient policy to deal with the worldwide phenomenon of terrorism.
Without doubt, our nation had its share of successes in the war against terrorism—important investigations and courtroom verdicts, and any number of foiled terrorist actions through early detection.
Too often, though, our nation struggled with terrorism as if the struggle were a legal issue and not a war. Admirable though this approach may have been in adhering to the rule of law and high-minded principle, it meant we had at least one hand tied behind our back, hampering our effort to fight what is, in essence, a dirty, shadowy war with enemies who flout the law and scoff at principle.
Can anyone truly say that our nation’s response to previous terrorist strikes against American targets was adequate?
President Reagan pulled U.S. troops out of Lebanon after 241 Americans were killed in a suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut in 1983, sending a message that we didn’t have the will to take on the murderers.
The missile strikes ordered by President Clinton against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, in the wake of the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed at least 220 people, were totally ineffective, and if there were other, below-the-radar actions, they obviously didn’t produce the desired results.
I could go on.
The United States has experienced damage to its own intelligence capabilities, both domestic and international, particularly in the realm of human intelligence gathering. We have created a number of budgetary, political, and legal hurdles that inevitably took their toll.
Remember the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center? Later, it was revealed that the FBI had piles of tapes of intercepted recordings, all in Arabic, which sat in storage rooms for weeks, perhaps months, because the bureau didn’t have enough Arabic-language translators—and the funds necessary to hire them. Perhaps some of the information would have been relevant to the attack.
Further, in AJC’s many conversations with law-enforcement officials, it has become abundantly clear that, because of political and diplomatic concerns, from time to time they have had to tread very lightly.
This was true overseas, where we had to be acutely sensitive to Egypt, for example, in the investigation of the 1999 crash, off Nantucket, of the EgyptAir flight that resulted in 217 fatalities (Egypt unconvincingly insists the crash was due to mechanical failure, while American technical experts believe the plane was brought down by a suicidal act of the copilot), or to Saudi Arabia, in a frustrating effort to identify the perpetrators of the 1995 and 1996 bombings of American military installations there that killed 26 people.
It has also been true here at home. While law-enforcement agencies long suspected the presence in the United States of groups sympathetic to radical Islamic movements, the impression we got was that these agencies were often held on a tight leash. The administration was skittish about pursuing at least some of the suspect groups for fear of being labeled anti-Arab or anti-Muslim, an accusation the groups were quick to level.
Regrettably, the Clinton administration went a step further by conferring legitimacy on several Arab American and Muslim organizations operating in the United States that have defended radical Islamic ideologies. Despite warnings, the White House and State Department opened their doors to representatives of these groups.
The Bush administration has continued the practice. Last week, for example, the president met with a delegation of Arab and Muslim American leaders who represented some of the more notorious groups, including the American Muslim Council, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
It was a spokesman for CAIR, for instance, who, just last month, defended a fatwa issued against Khalid Duran, the Muslim author of a book on Islam in the AJC-sponsored Children of Abraham series. Duran and his family have been in hiding ever since the Jordanian fundamentalist cleric announced the fatwa.
And it was the leader of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, present at the White House meeting, who declared on radio station KCRW on September 11:
“If we’re going to look at suspects [for the four plane hijackings and the carnage that ensued], we should look to the groups that benefit the most from these kind of incidents. And I think we should put the State of Israel on the suspects list, because I think this diverts attention from what is happening in the Palestinian territories….”
Why this seemingly shortsighted, if not self-defeating, practice? There appear to be two principal reasons. First, the Arab and Muslim communities, whatever their actual numbers—there are widely varying estimates—are seen as a factor in American life, not least on Election Day. Second, genuinely moderate spokesmen for these communities have been marginalized, blocked by the more extreme voices that dominate communal life.
All this said, the United States has been light years ahead of European countries in trying to cope with the global challenge posed by Islamic extremist terrorism.
While Washington was trying to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein, one of the principal addresses of international terrorism, it could count on the unstinting support of London. But Paris was another matter.
While Washington was trying to isolate the mullahs in Tehran, arguably the biggest backers and bankrollers of international terrorism in the world since the 1979 overthrow of the Shah and the 444-day captivity of 52 American hostages (1979-1981), many of the European Union nations were falling all over each other to penetrate the Iranian market, especially its oil and gas sectors.
While Washington put Syria on the annual list of states sponsoring terrorism, the French government rolled out the red carpet for Syrian president Assad in July 2001, and he was also received in Germany, with less fanfare, and Spain.
While moderate Arab states like Tunisia were practically begging Whitehall to curb the political activity and fund-raising of groups seeking to topple the Tunisian regime, the British turned a deaf ear to the requests, citing the values of an open society. (The United States, it must be said, has been similarly accused by some moderate Arab regimes, which fear that America has been naïve and gullible in offering extremist exiles the protections of a democratic country.)
And even a brief look at the history of Middle East terrorism on European soil suggests that too many countries sought to appease or negotiate quietly with violent groups—and the countries that offered the terrorists sanctuary and support—rather than to confront them head on.
But that was then and this is now. As Marlin Fitzwater, the spokesman in the first Bush White House, said in 1990 regarding a national security matter: “This strategy represents our policy for all time. Until it’s changed.”
September 11 marked a turning point. Whatever happened before—and, yes, it is very relevant to the discussion—a moment of truth has now arrived. War has been declared on the United States, and the final toll of victims on this day of infamy may end up being as much as three times higher than on the first day of infamy, December 7, 1941.
The Bush administration has handled the national response with remarkable skill and has enjoyed record public support. It resisted the understandable impulse to unleash the military immediately, recognizing instead that the best decisions are made not in the heat of the moment, but with the benefit of careful deliberation. The added benefit is that such deliberation keeps the enemy off guard, uncertain where, when, or how the response will come, but under no doubt that that there will be a certain reply.
[The public may not be the first to know about military action, either, because of the shadowy nature of any pursuit of Osama bin Laden and his associates.]
The tactic of deliberation has permitted the government to consider carefully the eventual scope of a war against terrorism. Clearly, that’s not an easy issue, both because of the internal debate in the administration and because Washington seeks to build the widest possible international coalition.
On the one hand, the broader the coalition, the narrower the consensus among the members on possible targets, military or otherwise, is likely to be.
On the other hand, some members of the coalition believe the terrorist threats they face have been given short shrift over the years. For example, when an American Jewish Committee delegation met with Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov for a 90-minute meeting on September 21, he emphasized that the Chechen threat was cut from the same cloth as Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s “holding company,” as this terrorist network has been described. He suggested in no uncertain terms that Washington ought to rethink its hitherto sympathetic approach to the Chechens.
The careful planning has also allowed the Bush team to put in place a multi-pronged strategy, with both military and non-military dimensions, that suggests a far-reaching assault, at least on the Al-Qaeda network worldwide. Savvy diplomacy has won the endorsement and cooperation of NATO, the European Union, the UN Security Council, and key countries around the world, including those closest to Afghanistan. And the president and his advisers have gone to great lengths to ensure Arab and Muslim participation in order to avoid any hint of the civilizational conflict that Harvard professor Samuel Huntington foresaw in his important book, The Clash of Civilizations.
[Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi introduced the civilizational element last week by declaring that the West is superior to the Islamic world because freedom is not part of the “patrimony of Islamic civilization.” Notwithstanding the withering criticism he received from many quarters, he reaffirmed the view the next day. No doubt the timing, if not the substance, of the Italian leader’s comments was not appreciated by Washington.]
Looking ahead, there are several issues, as an American Jew, that particularly concern me.
First, will Israel somehow be linked in the public’s mind with the events of September 11? It shouldn’t be, unless the connection is to prompt greater sympathy and understanding for the wave of suicide terror attacks Israel has endured and Israel’s need to respond forcefully.
After all, this was an attack on America, not because of any link to Israel, but rather because of who we are and what we stand for. As President Bush said in his eloquent address on September 20:
“Americans are asking, ‘Why do they hate us?’ They hate what they see right here in this chamber, a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.”
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an important related point during his testimony before the Government Reform Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on September 20:
“The soldiers of militant Islam do not hate the West because of Israel; they hate Israel because of the West—because they see it as an island of Western democratic values in a Muslim-Arab sea of despotism.”
Even so, we need to be aware that Israel-bashers are trying to link Israel to the events of September 11 in two ways.
For one thing, rumors are being spread that the Mossad was behind the terrorist attack. Absurd as the idea may be, these rumors persist and have made it into the press from Greece to Pakistan. Among the accusers has been none other than the father of Mohammed al-Atta, one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, who met with a New York Times reporter after the attack and gave entirely new meaning to the definition of chutzpah:
“Someone like Israel’s intelligence agency had the capacity to organize such an attack, the father said. But his son, an urban planner, did not. ‘I do not believe my son did it; I am sure he is alive,’ he said. ‘He was afraid of flying.’”
For another, some are suggesting that American support for Israel, or Israel’s alleged unwillingness to negotiate with the Palestinians, are at the root of the problem. The argument is demonstrably false, but it is being peddled by those who wish to do Israel harm.
Second, what will be the impact on Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship of the American effort to build a worldwide coalition against terror?
In the long run, it should further strengthen ties between two democratic states that have the shared experience of facing suicide bombers bent on mass destruction. (Bear in mind, for example, that the June bombing of the Tel Aviv discotheque resulted in 21 fatalities. Given that the U.S. is close to fifty times more populous than Israel, that would translate into over 1,000 deaths in American terms. Indeed, since the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords, more than 400 Israelis have been killed in terror attacks, the equivalent, in American population figures, of approximately 20,000.)
Moreover, the success of the American-led coalition becomes Israel’s success as well. Any weakening of the Islamic terror network also benefits Israel, as does any dent in state-sponsorship of the terrorists.
In the short run, though, it is less clear where Israel will stand. Washington is putting intense pressure on both Israelis and Palestinians to resume talks, any talks, and get the conflict out of sight of the cameras of Al-Jazeera, the Qatari-based television station that broadcasts throughout the Arab world. But the Palestinians aren’t necessarily cooperating, and Israel must continue to defend itself against waves of violence that may be calculated to put additional pressure on Jerusalem at this delicate moment.
Third, what will be the price demanded by Arab and Islamic countries for their entry into the U.S.-led coalition? And what will be the price demanded by the United States for the admission of Arab and Islamic countries into the coalition?
These questions have particular relevance for such countries as Syria. Here’s a nation that, by any reasonable standard, ought to be a target of a war on terrorism, but could end up, as it did during the Gulf War, on the American side. And what about Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which were noticeably absent from the terrorist list issued by the White House last month (though they were part of President Clinton’s Executive Order on terrorist groups signed in 1995)? How, if at all, will this be addressed by the coalition? Let’s just say that it’s not yet clear.
Fourth, what exactly constitutes the scope of the war on terrorism? If it doesn’t target state sponsors, then what long-term impact will the current effort have? After all, terrorist groups will continue to organize and operate as long as they have the protection of sovereign states that harbor, finance, and, in some cases, train and equip them.
Fifth, recalling the Gulf War experience, is it conceivable that Saddam Hussein or, say, Hezbollah, might try to attack Israel as a diversionary measure to divide the coalition? If so, how would Prime Minister Sharon react? How would Washington handle the situation?
And sixth, here at home, is it just possible that the Arab and Muslim communities will emerge from the current crisis with enhanced political strength? It could well happen, and the Jewish community will have to assess the long-term impact of such a possibility.
The wave of sympathy for those Arab and Muslim Americans (not to mention Sikhs) who have reportedly been harassed after the events of September 11, bespeaks volumes about the great reservoirs of kindness and compassion that characterize America’s pluralistic society. In this spirit, American Jews, including prominently the American Jewish Committee, have always stood foursquare against any form of bigotry and defamation and in favor of extending the hand of friendship to America’s increasingly diverse racial, religious, and ethnic communities.
But every once in a while there’s more going on than meets the eye.
Take, for example, a feel-good New York Times article (September 21) entitled “Abhorring Terror at an Ohio Mosque.” It recounted the story of Imam Fawaz Damra, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, who “prayed” for a man who, in a fit of anger after September 11, rammed his car into the center. Sounds inspiring: the cleric is represented as a man of peace and forgiveness. But if the Times had dug deeper, it would have discovered, as The Tampa Tribune did a year ago (October 9, 2000), something disturbing.
The Florida newspaper published an article describing an Immigration and Naturalization Service tape showing Sami Al-Arian, head of the active arm of the Islamic Jihad, with the same Imam Damra at a rally. “[Al-Arian] walked behind Damra as the introduction began…no visible reaction is displayed when Damra mentions a direct relationship between his organization and the Islamic Jihad,” the newspaper reported.
Damra’s new public posture of solidarity with terror victims prompted AJC’s Cleveland office to reintroduce that city’s news media to the imam’s record of support for terrorism—a record that included, as The Plain Dealer reported on September 27, his calling for “directing all the rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation and that is the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews.”
Or, consider a speech given by a Chicago rabbi in the wake of reports of hate crimes. Apart from making an unfortunate comparison to Kristallnacht, the rabbi spoke about his willingness to help form a human chain around the Bridgeview (Illinois) Mosque in order to protect it from anyone who might seek to damage it. This speaks volumes about his admirable sensitivity. Unfortunately, he may not have known what the FBI, The New York Times, the American Jewish Committee, and others long knew—the Bridgeview Mosque, as reported by Judith Miller in the Times on September 21, is a center for Hamas activity in the United States.
As they say, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
I suspect that by now some readers of this letter may be suffering from an acute case of depression. After all, this has been a very difficult period in our lives. But I want to end on an upbeat note—not because of any sense of guilt, much less, manufactured optimism, and not because I underestimate the difficulties ahead, but rather because I believe it may actually be warranted.
When told that a man who had been unhappy in his marriage remarried shortly after his wife died, Samuel Johnson, the 18th century English writer, remarked famously that “it was the triumph of hope over experience.”
In my case, it is the triumph of hope because of experience.
Despite a wrenching year militarily, economically, and, not least, psychologically, Israel remains strong, unbent, and determined to defend itself, as it has since its founding in 1948, and, at the very same time, unwilling to abandon the hope for an eventual peace accord.
Despite all the challenges connected to the Middle East, anti-Semitism, and Durban, the Jewish people throughout the world—from France to South Africa, from the United States to Russia—continue to stand tall, proud, and committed.
And despite an unprecedented attack on America, this nation’s beacon of freedom shines as brightly as ever, and the resolve to hunt down and destroy our enemy should leave no one in doubt.
Note: “Letter from East 56th Street” draws on speeches I made at the American Jewish Committee’s New York Chapter Town Hall meeting, at New York University, and to a visiting delegation of senior German (and other NATO) military officers during the week of September 24.
This letter is the thirteenth in an occasional series. For copies of previous letters, please contact Alina Viera of the American Jewish Committee at vieraa@ajc.org or 212-751-4000, ext. 203.