Confronting Pro-Occupation Arguments-II by Ran HaCohen 11:45am Wed Sep 4 '02 A year has passed since the first part of this article, in which I confronted a set of arguments justifying the Israeli occupation, eloquently formulated by an Israeli settler, David Moriah. Shortly afterwards came September 11th, and the agenda changed radically. A year later, readers’ letters seem to indicate we are almost back to where we had been: the same old arguments chanted again and again, every chanter believing he is the original poet, while actually all songs and music come from the Israeli propaganda machine and its counterparts abroad. So it’s time to confront the rest of the pro-occupation arguments. print article I said almost - because meanwhile the American Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld has spoken of the "so-called occupied territories". The present American government seems determined to take us all to darkest barbarism, where Holy Wars, Crusades against the Heathen, Axes of Evil, and Spoils of War are legitimate political terms. If Rumsfeld’s conception is true and the occupied territories are not occupied, then Israel is one of the worst racist dictatorships in modern times, where millions of inhabitants are held without nationality and without any political rights for generations. If Gaza and the West Bank are for Israel what Texas is for the United States, just imagine all Texans having no American citizenship and no voting rights for more than 35 years, their lands systematically confiscated and given to American settlers from other states. Strange as it may sound, the concept of occupation is essential for Israel’s democratic image. This is why even settlers try to justify the occupation rather than reject the term. Let’s see how. "4. The occupier [i.e. Israel] has good reasons to assume that a significant part of the occupied inhabitants [i.e. Palestinians] intend to maintain the violence even if the occupation ends. They do not bother to hide their aspirations to totally destroy the Zionist entirely, which they consider a foreign element in the region. (Look at official maps of the Palestinian Authority and search for Israel)." A very persistent argument. And a very dubious one too. Imagine a farmer going to the judge and saying: "My neighbour is beating me every day. Oh, and by the way, I have been occupying his field since 1967." Now I hope the judge would say: "Give him back his own field, then he should stop hitting you. And if he doesn’t, apply self-defence, or come back to me; but don’t take his field ever again!" However, Israel’s favourite judge is expected to say: "Fine, keep his field and hit him back, because he might hit you even if you return it!"... The claim that many Palestinians consider Israel a foreign element in the region may be true. Israel itself is doing its best to remain a foreign element: why, to give just one example, does not every Israeli learn Arabic? At any rate, the "foreign element" claim holds true for many Egyptians (or Jordanians) as well, and yet Egypt (or Jordan) does not engage in any hostilities against Israel: politics and gut-feelings are not the same. The best way to perpetuate the hatred towards Israel, the best way to destroy any hope of its being accepted as a legitimate part of the region, is to continue the occupation. Undoubtedly, some Palestinians (most notably the Islamic Jihad) indeed wish to see all Jews leave the land - precisely like some Israelis who wish to see all Palestinians leave it (though Israel has the might to impose such satanic plans, while Palestinians do not). But whereas Israel’s political centre never expressed a clear commitment to end the occupation, and, more importantly, never took even a single actual step towards ending it, the entire Palestinian political centre, above all the PLO, has been stating time and again for more than a decade that its goal is the territories occupied in 1967, not all of Israel. This position has recently been adopted by the Arab League as well. As for the radicals: first, if occupation ends they might run out of support and have to stop or at least reduce their military activity. Second, it will be easier - militarily, diplomatically and morally - to confront them once occupation ends. This holds both for Palestinians dreaming of Greater Palestine (now engaged in terrorism) and for Israelis dreaming of Greater Israel (now engaged in settler’s terrorism, land grab etc.). The "map" argument is also extremely popular. Very few of those who use it have ever seen the alleged Palestinian maps; neither have I. The map you see above my columns is a Palestinian one; see for yourself if Israel is there. But suppose such maps do exist, then what? When I joined the Israeli army (I wouldn’t have done it today, but back in 1984 things looked different) I received an official gift: a map of Israel. It included all the occupied territories (Gaza, West Bank, Golan); none of them was marked as occupied, there was no Green Line at all. I added it manually, using an old atlas. Or take a look at the weather forecast, every evening on Israeli television: no Palestine, no Palestinian Authority, no occupied territories, no Green Line. It’s all ours. Denying the existence of the other is not a nice side of the conflict. But turning it into a reason to perpetuate the conflict is a bad idea. "5. The small area of the occupying state and the strategic location of the occupied territories, dominating sensitive locations in the heart of this land (like airport and security centres) make an absolute control of the area essential for security reasons." That’s the typical "security" ideology, once popular among non-religious Israelis; they used to put it at the top of their arguments. It is losing ground, though. The old cliche "what if they get a Palestinian State and then shoot down an aeroplane taking off from Ben Gurion International Airport" sounds ridiculous when Palestinian terrorists prove time and again that they can hit any target anywhere in Israel. If there is one thing the Intifada proved, it’s that the occupation and the settlements are, from a military point of view, a burden rather than an asset. Since occupation failed to bring security, why not try ending it? And by the way, how come Israel’s international airport and those other "security centres" are all so close to the Green Line? If it was a mistake, can’t they be relocated? And if they were put there intentionally, should Israel now get those occupied territories as a reward for its malice? "6. The occupying state has raised the life standards of the occupied inhabitants in all areas (infrastructure, water, employment, universities and hospitals) much more than they could have achieved in any other scenario." No joking - that’s an argument you can still truly hear. It was of course much more popular in the 1980’s, before Israel started to systematically reduce Palestinians to poverty by imposing unemployment, closure and siege. I remember my school-teacher telling us how few cars Palestinians had before 1967. A typical colonialist argument: "we brought prosperity to the natives" (who were happy to cultivate our coffee fields in return). Many Israelis are simply unaware of post-colonialist discourse, where such arguments are treated with the contempt they deserve. And the idea that people would trade their right of self-determination for economical welfare has seldom been confirmed by history. Undoubtedly, it’s the Palestinians who brought Israel much more prosperity (by their cheap labour force exploited to build Israel’s economy) than vice versa. Israel hasn’t invested a single dollar in Palestinian infrastructure, unless you count the millions it is spending on destroying it, and has been using and abusing Palestinian land, water and labour force. Whoever knows the terrible conditions of life now prevailing in the occupied territories would agree that this argument is too ridiculous to refute. But pay attention to its inherent hypocrisy. In the past, the alleged "prosperity" of the occupied territories was used to justify the occupation - as if Israel was there just to make Palestinian life better. But now, when unemployment and hunger in the occupied territories reach unprecedented extents, one never hears any of those prosperity-ideologues saying it is time to end the occupation and leave. We’ll confront the rest of Moriah’s arguments in the last part of this article. www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h-col.html add your comments Source file

The Ideology of Occupation by Ran HaCohen 11:47am Wed Sep 4 '02 print comment Israel Tries to Excuse the Inexcusable In an excellent recent article, leading Palestinian intellectual Edward Said cites the "astounding result" of a poll conducted among US citizens by the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, according to which less than three or four percent of the sample had any idea that there was an Israeli occupation. This seems to confirm a general rule: as far as the Middle East is concerned, American public consciousness lags decades behind Israel's. Obsolete Zionist propaganda, based on manufactured "facts" that no one in Israel would use anymore, is recycled by prominent American columnists (of the subspecies Thomas Friedman) as uncontroversial truth. "The main narrative model that dominates American thinking still seems to be Leon Uris' 1950 novel Exodus," says Edward Said: a narrative that collapsed in Israel itself about two decades ago. In some senses, the Oslo "peace process" was a huge success for Israeli colonialism. The "ongoing negotiations" – which allow the Palestinians to choose between either willingly accepting Israel's terms or having them imposed on them unilaterally – enabled Israel to expand its settlements on Palestinian lands with virtually no resistance. The Israeli "peace camp" was effectively soothed by false promises of "peace with settlements," American hegemony in the world media silenced any international criticism, and the "process" that was supposed to end Israeli colonialism broke down violently, with about twice as many Israeli settlers as seven years earlier. However, not all the malicious objectives of the "peace process" succeeded so well. The attempt to take the Palestinian issue off the international agenda was not very successful and got crushed completely when the Intifada broke out. The Israeli attempt to convince the world that the occupation has ended and that the Palestinians are now free and thus responsible for their own suffering failed too. It failed thanks to perhaps the single wise step (not) taken by Arafat during these seven years, i.e. his refusal to declare his besieged enclaves "an independent Palestinian state." Such a declaration would have been disastrous to the Palestinians because their struggle against the Occupation would have been supplanted by a standard border-conflict between Israel and "Palestine" as two independent states – a safe way to bury the conflict altogether. Even the zealous attempts of pseudo-dovish Israeli intellectuals, such as writer Amos Oz, who in 1996 claimed the Palestinians were already free and independent, failed to obscure the basic fact that the Palestinians are living under a cruel Israeli occupation. This may surprise 96 percent of Americans, but it is a known and accepted fact in Israel – so much so, that, recently, a "moderate" settler – David Moriah, chairman of the "Efrat settlers' committee" – published an interesting ten-point article (in Hebrew only) explaining – not why the Occupation is not an occupation – but why it is "one of the most justified cases of occupation in world history." Since his eloquent arguments concisely comprise almost the entire ideological arsenal of the non-fundamentalist Israeli hawks (and mainstreamers, and, ludicrously enough, of many "doves" as well), and since his arguments have been propagated worldwide, it is worthwhile to consider them one by one. "1. The Occupation was an act of self-defence against an aggressor that rejected the international resolutions to divide the land." This argument – and several of the following ones too – represent a universally popular strategy: distracting the discussion from the present to the past. History contains a myriad of details; you can always find some detail that will embarrass your opponent. And if you can't find one, invent one – who can check? Moreover, there are always several competing historical narratives for any set of events. Israelis (or Palestinians) first endorse the Israeli (or Palestinian) historical narrative, and then – surprise, surprise – they find out that all the Israeli (or Palestinian) claims are perfectly anchored in history. It is a vicious circle. We shall not fall into this historical trap here. Historical arguments will be dealt with only en passant; critical Israeli historians and sociologists have done a great deal of work exposing the myths and lies of the Zionist historical narrative, but we shall not use their results here. A short remark concerning Israel's selective hearing will have to suffice. The celebrated UN resolution on the establishment of a Jewish state (every Israeli town has a street called "November 29th," commemorating the day in 1947 when the resolution was adopted) had a second part, calling for the establishment of a Palestinian (Arab) state too. Israel has been rejecting this part ever since. Deriving legitimacy for Israel's own existence from half a resolution is problematic enough; deriving legitimacy for the Occupation of the Palestinians from the very resolution that granted them a state, is utterly absurd. And, by the way, if "international resolutions" are the ultimate code of virtuous national conduct, how about several other ones, like Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, calling on Israel to withdraw from the Occupied Territories, or the idiotic declaration that was canceled, and is being revived now in Durban, equating Zionism with Racism? All these counter-arguments may be true, but again: the discussion should concentrate on the present. History is no escape. No matter how the Occupation was born 34 years ago – as self-defence or as aggression – there is no justification whatsoever to deprive millions of Palestinians living now of their basic human and political rights. Punishing people for alleged sins of their ancestors contradicts each and every moral principle. "Everyone shall die," says Jeremiah (31:30), "for his own iniquity." As with some UN resolutions, Israel is now implementing only the first part of Jeremiah's verse. "2. It is obvious that the aggressor was part of a struggle aimed at destroying the Israeli political entity, and massacre of individual Jews was also most likely to occur. (Let us not forget that leaders of that nation were willing to participate in the ‘final solution' for the Jews on behalf of Nazi Germany.)" Text-only printable version of this article Ran HaCohen was born in the Netherlands in 1964 and has grown up in Israel. He has B.A. in Computer Science, M.A. in Comparative Literature and he presently works on his PhD thesis. He lives in Tel-Aviv, teaches in the Department of Comparative Literature in Tel-Aviv University. He also works as literary translator (from German, English and Dutch), and as a literary critic for the Israeli daily Yedioth Achronoth. His work has been published widely in Israel. His column appears occasionally at Antiwar.com. Archived columns The Ideology of Occupation 9/4/01 The Chosen Pariah 7/31/01 Mideast War – Really Imminent? 7/24/01 The State of the Army, Part Two 6/22/01 Building Settlements, Killing Peace 5/26/01 The State of the Army, Part 1 5/8/01 Israeli Left Sells Out Peace 4/13/01 Barak's Legacy 3/23/01 Again, the heart of the argument is historical, and we shall not follow it back to the past. But what is the function of such an argument for the present reader? It is clearly meant to supplant the present power relations by their very opposite. Israel has one of the strongest armies in the world, on a level with those of superpowers like France or Britain. It possesses not only the most sophisticated American weapons for air, sea and land warfare, but also intelligence backup from outer space as well as atomic, chemical and biological arsenals. It has some 100,000 regular soldiers and three or four times more in reserve. Israel's military force has been built so as to defeat all the Arab armies together. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have about 30,000 to 40,000 lightly-armed men, defined in the agreements as "policemen" and equipped accordingly. Their weapons include pistols, revolvers and hand grenades, not to mention sharp knives and very big stones. They have no artillery, no helicopters, no jets, no navy, no tanks, no armoured vehicles and no bulldozers. They have no heavy weapons of any kind except for homemade mortar shells and explosives, and probably a limited smuggled stock of antitank missiles. They have no satellites, no sophisticated communication systems and no super-computers – and, unlike Israel, they do not receive 3 billion dollars per year of American military aid. When the Israeli Goliath is crushing Palestinian David with such an overwhelming superiority, an especially strong ideological twist is necessary in order to turn these power relations upside down. The manipulation starts with a hypothetical "massacre of Jews" that could have happened but never did (unlike several actual massacres of Palestinians, from 1948 to very recently), and ends up, expectedly, by evoking Nazi Germany. "3. There was no independent nation in the occupied territories, but a mixture of inhabitants, and the only country that had any linkage to the area (Jordan) renounced it publicly." Again, the past tense is used. Golda Meir made the notorious claim that "there is no Palestinian people." It is quite ironic that Jews, whose own nationhood has been denied by many non-Jews and Jews alike (but emphasised consistently by Zionists and anti-Semites) doubt the nationhood of others. Indeed, Israel has been doing its very best to divide the Palestinians into numerous subgroups, following the ancient Roman wisdom of "divide and rule." There are Palestinians "within" (inside Israel, further divided into "Druze," "Bedouins," "Christians," "Moslems," etc., divisions strengthened and constantly manipulated by Israel), Palestinians "without" (refugees outside historical Palestine) and Palestinians in the occupied territories, themselves divided by Israel, in contradiction to its obligation to regard the Territories as a single unit, into scores of disconnected enclaves ("areas" A, B, C, etc.). In spite of this brutal policy of division, there seems to be little doubt that there is a Palestinian people, definitely to a fuller extent than there is a Jewish one. But all of this is beside the point. Human beings have rights – including political rights – even if they are not a nation. Since 1967, Israel has been vetoing any settlement that might grant political rights to the Palestinians. Israel offers the Palestinians neither independence nor annexation. One could only applaud the recent suggestion of the Libyan Foreign Minister Shalgam at Durban, that "Jews and Arabs must learn to live together in one democratic and non-racist state"; but Israel rejects this solution too: for fear of losing Jewish majority, it never offered to annex the Palestinians. It is interested only in robbing their land and natural resources, while depriving them of any rights, both individually and collectively. (We will analyze other justifications for the Occupation in the second part of this article.) www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h090401.html add your comments

The "map" argument by Joel Weller 4:10pm Thu Sep 5 '02 print comment "The "map" argument is also extremely popular. Very few of those who use it have ever seen the alleged Palestinian maps; neither have I." You must not have looked very hard. It took me only about two minutes to find a Palestinian web site with the map of Palestine (pre-1948 borders) as the background. There are plenty more out there. Here it is: http://www.hejleh.com/countries/palestine.html but maybe it is "bad form" to confront a leftists with facts. add your comments

Maps and facts by Alberto G 10:32pm Thu Sep 5 '02 print comment I assume I am not talking to an eight year old boy whose stupid parents think that Internet works better than TV as a babysitter. If you're that young, please call mom and tell her you should not be left alone until you have developed the critical attitude you need to stay in front of a computer connected to Internet. Did you care to take the look at the page you suggested? I cared. Do you dare to call the background graphics a "map"? Are you joking? Geography (and antropic geography too) are based on principles that are more solid than that. More facts: the first few rows are taken from an Encyclopedia, namely the Columbia Encyclopedia. Did you care to read that too? Of course not. Did you care to take a look at the maps that are proposed by that page, from Encyclopedia Britannica and the like? Of course not, because all those maps tell me that you are a liar. Watch better and elsewhere, because I won't do it for you: maybe you'll find the kind of map you're searching for. And if you don't find one, make one yourself, so you can think you are right, and maybe fool other fools. Is this the only fact you have on your side? It seems way too poor to confront HaCohen's logic. My only regret is that no Italian journalist has Hacohen's witty analysis and historical knowledge when it writes about Middle East. Or should I think you're part of a left wing or Arab conspiracy trying to show that all people supporting Israeli occupation are stupid? If so, you cheated me. add your comments

alberto is right by Anna 4:29pm Sun Sep 8 '02 print comment Joel Weller gives a interesant link but his conclutions are not intact! add your comments

Maps are easy to find by Paul 1:23pm Thu Sep 12 '02 seperite@yahoo.com print comment Are you kidding? Finding an official Palestinian map that doesn't pay any credence whatsoever to the existence of Israel is painfully simple, both in print and online. Here's an official link, from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics: http://www.pcbs.org/english/pal_map.htm Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria are marked. No recognition of Israel. The entire thing is "Palestine". Ron HaCohen's pitiful research is obvious and apparent. In addition to being unable to find a map (which was the central crux of one of his three arguments and which takes about 10 seconds to find online) his logic for refuting the argument for 'occupation' is similarly faulty. I'd love to take it apart - and I'm going to; tomorrow. Right now it's 6:20 AM, I just got in and I'm exhausted. I'm too tired to type. But I will. And Ron, do your research. You do no justice for the legitimacy of your cause when you publish inane babble and are unable to look up the simplest, "officialest" of websites to back up (or in this case, refute) your hollow arguments. add your comments

Broken scales by Alberto G 7:48pm Sat Sep 14 '02 print comment No, I'm not kidding, and my glasses are clean. Yours a bit less. Apart from the different drawing technique, the map you proposed is (with the exception of some minor differences that are in most cases glitches)identical to the one proposed by Haaretz Daily as map of Israel. I'm sorry I cannot read arabic, because I'd like to know what's written on it. The coloured areas in the map seem to be administrative regions. I cannot see something like 'Palestine' written in the yellow area, and it seems that since there is no subdivision in that area the Palestinians claim no authority or any administrative power on it. You know what the yellow area is? Do your homework. I see no 'Palestine' written in Haaretz's map too. Do your homework once again. But if you were intellectually honest you could simply admit that both those maps do not advocate the seizure of Israeli or Palestinian territory, or they both do. But first you have to tell me what the arabic writings on that map say... Do you know it, or did you have an incomplete possibility to examine map like I had, but you are unable to admit it? In conclusion: you cannot state by that kind of map that it claims some sort of authority on Israeli territory. Better yet, Haaretz' map is less politically correct than the Palestinian one. Check the map of Israel on www.antiwar.com, in HaCohen's section. That is a good map. I'm calling for the next one to tweak the correct perception of a 'map', although this attempt was better.. Oh, still too tired to answer? Your 'tomorrow' seems to come late. Nevermind, I'm patient with people wasting their time trying to subvert a correct perception of reality sacrificing their integrity. Although I generally do not advocate their usage, perhaps neuroleptics will suit your illness. Or better yet, do your geography exams at the University before bothering me with such silly things, or even before proposing another stupid Mercator vs Peters debate. Again, do your homework! add your comments

Broken scales by Alberto G 7:58pm Sat Sep 14 '02 print comment No, I'm not kidding, and my glasses are clean. Yours a bit less. Apart from the different drawing technique, the map you proposed is (with the exception of some minor differences that are in most cases glitches)identical to the one proposed by Haaretz Daily as map of Israel. I'm sorry I cannot read arabic, because I'd like to know what's written on it. The coloured areas in the map seem to be administrative regions. I cannot see something like 'Palestine' written in the yellow area, and it seems that since there is no subdivision in that area the Palestinians claim no authority or any administrative power on it. You know what the yellow area is? Do your homework. I see no 'Palestine' written in Haaretz's map too. Do your homework once again. But if you were intellectually honest you could simply admit that both those maps do not advocate the seizure of Israeli or Palestinian territory, or they both do. But first you have to tell me what the arabic writings on that map say... Do you know it, or did you have an incomplete possibility to examine map like I had, but you are unable to admit it? In conclusion: you cannot state by that kind of map that it claims some sort of authority on Israeli territory. Better yet, Haaretz' map is less politically correct than the Palestinian one. Check the map of Israel on www.antiwar.com, in HaCohen's section. That is a good map. I'm calling for the next one to tweak the correct perception of a 'map', although this attempt was better.. Oh, still too tired to answer? Your 'tomorrow' seems to come late. Nevermind, I'm patient with people wasting their time trying to subvert a correct perception of reality sacrificing their integrity. Although I generally do not advocate their usage, perhaps neuroleptics will suit your illness. Or better yet, do your geography exams at the University before bothering me with such silly things, or even before proposing another stupid Mercator vs Peters debate. Again, do your homework! add your comments

Sorry for the double posting by Alberto G 8:02pm Sat Sep 14 '02 print comment sorry for the double posting (I erroneously clicked the refresh button in the wrong window). To IMC personnel: please hide this comment and the duplicated one if you have time, thank you. add your comments

ran you're a fool by f 9:25am Sun Sep 15 '02 print comment Ran, taking anything that any Arab organization(plo, arab league, etc) at face value is a sign of stupidity. Another words you're an idiot. add your comments

The Tickets by Dov Shemtov 11:47am Sun Sep 15 '02 print comment Big difference: Palestinians always knew the faces of the 3 + religeons and communities - Judaic, Christian and Muslim. Jews worldwide know something about religeous customs and a lot about political systems but they could not believe (I mean before Orwell's 1984...) that something so beautiful and so cannibalistic as Israel could be built by their relatives. They did not, especially non-Americans, have a chance to smell Judaism and Zionism in Berkley or Irkutsk because the faraway circus had very well preserved the known style of hiding real intentions. Today many of them are locked in Israel being brought here under the false premises. The only thing they want is to leave Israel to Palestinians. The map...They would find cosy to poison any Jewish brother who keeps them against their will in Israel. They do not study the map as they are just not interested in the fate of their racist relatives. It has nothig to do with the family matters, it's because of the stunk. They do not want to become Jewish plantators, Jewish artists or Jewish professors. They do not have many arms and want just to leave anywhere as far from American, Dutch, Russian, Peruvian or Israeli Jews as possible. The traumatic experience - the encounter with the Zionazism, Judaism and the Zionist institutional rape - have influenced their psyche the same way the sexual rape may influence the life of the victim. They do not have the means to leave Israel, to buy tickets for all members of their families, to get jobs in other parts of the world, to rent rooms in other, non-Zionist and non-Judaic, countries, to start new lifes with new names and identity papers, the chance the victims of rape have in civilized social universum. Arab community knows about the situation. But Palestinians do not have means to help. It would be very fruiful if American Jewish Agency could unite with the governments of Libya and Iran (still not at war and getting more and more dollars for their oil thanks to Zionists and Al-Qaida) and fund a new global oranization with the headquarters in Jerusalem and offices in every other city and, later, every kibbutz, the organisation which shall finance the aliya to Russian Siberia, to Brazilian villages, to African mountains, anywhere in the world where they would not be confronted every day with the swastika or the stolen star of David, anywhere they would not here Hebrew which sounds to their ears as German to Jewish ears in June 1945 in East Europe. Well, American Jewish Agency may be blown up tomorrow by Jewish Al-Qaida but Saudis, Iranians, Libyans and Swiss can provide the needed funds. It will save the lifes of a lot of people and show that human side of Jewish civilization which we all enjoy so much. add your comments

I disagree by J. Weber 5:11am Fri Oct 4 '02 josweber2002@yahoo.com print comment I disagree with you. Jews are people and have human rights too. One is self-determination. The Palestinian Arabs say in their mosques and schools that the Jews everywhere are all to be killed (www.memri.org). The Palestinian Arabs "deny their history of denial of Jews' rights to be there. This leads them into the same pattern in each conflict: a proposal is made for the division of the land, this proposal is rejected by the Palestinians as inadequate, a war ensues, the Palestinians lose, and then they make demands based on the terms of the offer that they had rejected." (Quote from LA Times letter by Richard Larson.) add your comments

Unreliable sources and their by Alberto G 10:18pm Sun Oct 6 '02 print comment Stop quoting memri, or get informed before mentioning it as a reliable source. This time I won't be doing homework, I'm tired of all the lazy people hanging around. I guess it's time to do something more then spending useless words. So, I'll just try to do it. add your comments