poli-sci (07/20/82)
>From JoSH@RUTGERS Tue Jul 20 10:54:49 1982 Poli-Sci Digest Tue 20 Jul 82 Volume 2 Number 155 Contents: Balloting Eminent Domain (4 msgs) Lebanon, Israel, etc. (7 msgs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 July 1982 03:00 edt From: Schauble.Multics at MIT-MULTICS Subject: "Australian Ballot" and "None of the Above" This is strictly a theoretical question, so I want opinions. Suppose you are doing an election with this type of ballot. There are two candidates. The ballots are maked like so: Number First choice Second Choice 110 Candidate A None of the Above 90 Candidate B None of the Above 50 None of the Above Now, by standard reverse preferential counting, the first count is A/110, B/90, None/50. None is discarded. The second count is A/110, B/90, leaving A elected. Unfortunately, A was considered an acceptable choice by only 110 out of 250 voters. Is this a problem? Is it worthwhile to try to remedy the problem by not eliminating "None" during the intermediate counts? Does this introduce other problems? If you made the change, the count would be: First count: A/110, B/90, None/50, eliminate B. Second count: A/110, None/140, None wins. Comments?? Paul ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1982 11:37:51-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX To: Hank.Walker at cmu-10A Subject: eminent domain If you read the same GLOBE story about roads to the Cape that I did, you certainly didn't read all of it. For one thing, the dispute is about where the road goes, as much as whether; the engineers can't buy the whole farm and have refused to design less disruptively (we're talking about a large chunk of property that they want to go through, rather than small pieces to buy up completely). One could also argue that majority interests would be better served by reviving the Cape railroad. This is an interesting bind to put your by-the-book conservative in (don't ask me which book, just pull a few off the shelves): should opposition to mass transit take precedence over opposition to eminent domain? ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1982 15:07 PDT From: Sybalsky at PARC-MAXC Date: 13 July 1982 1109-EDT (Tuesday) From: Hank Walker at CMU-10A Subject: eminent domain "...This is because some old lady with a farm has refused to sell out." Not quite, friend. She's perfectly happy to sell the state land for the highway--but she wants it to go along the edge of her farm, rather than right down the middle. Frankly, I think she has a point there. The government is entirely too willing to go smashing thru because they have the power to, rather than spend a little reason on a matter. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1982 2136-EDT From: Daniel Breslau <MDC.BRESLA at MIT-OZ at MIT-AI> I don't beleive that ownership is a God-given, absolute right. Hence, I can imagine some cases where public needs can take precedence over private rights. Building a hospital is very likely one such case; building an airport could conceiably be. However, I can't see taking someone's land just for the convenience of people, be they 1 or 1,000,000 in number. Don't tell me that most of those people are being forced to vacation on the Cape! The fact is that they can still get there, and with only about 2% of a weekend (maybe 4% of their waking time) lost to them in the round trip. I do cringe at the amount of gas being wasted, though. As I remember an article in the Boston Globe recently, the woman in question IS willing to sell some of her land, but she doesn't want valuable farm land being cut off from her, which I consider reasonable. I conjecture that the state couldn't afford to buy all her land; so they are only trying to buy part of it. What she has offered seems to me like a reasonable alternative. ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 1982 1045-EDT From: Rob Stanzel <RPS at MIT-OZ at MIT-AI> Some objections to Hank Walker's comments on eminent domain: Unfortunately for those people whose property is expropriated, "fair value" is usually interpreted as the value under normal circumstances. The fact that the property has suddenly become more desirable (hence, more valuable) is not taken into account. Thus, if you're going to take someone's property, the price paid should be royally high. "If you build your house next to something that's likely to expand, you're taking a chance." Sort of a craps game of "the right to life, liberty, and property," eh? As for the woman who is holding out around Cape Cod, there was an article on her a couple weeks ago in the Globe (sorry, date unremembered.) They reported that in fact she is not against the idea of selling her property for the highway, but that she preferred an alternate route. The current route slices her farm in half, rendering all of it virtually useless. She proposed that it bend a little, cutting it into 1/3rd and 2/3rds, leaving the larger section useable for her farm. Yes, this takes the highway out of the way and makes it more expensive. Again, the state is hacking around with individual rights -- how many such disputes could have been totally resolved by some additional expense? Rob ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1982 11:57:58-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX To: leavitt at usc-isi Subject: Israel As noted previously in this space, THE NEW REPUBLIC is not a reliable reporter when it comes to Israel; the cover plainly states that it is a journal of politics (i.e., not a newsmagazine). Unfortunately, Israel seriously taints its claims to security when it starts talking about Biblical justification for occupying territory outside the pre-1967 borders. The tales I have come across suggets that Israel is capable of greater religious tolerance than most of the Arab nations, but that's not saying much. A clear indicator of how intolerant Israel's neighbors are is that a standard smear is to claim that your enemy is Israel's friend. This gets particularly funny in the current Iraq-Iran conflict, in which both sides are quoted as claiming the other side is helping/helped-by Israel. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1982 0918-PDT From: FC01 <FC01 at USC-ECL> More on the PLO: The cold hard fact is that the PLO has sworn to die trying to kill every jew on earth, if you don't think this is true, you have never talked to a PLO member as I have. I notice that the people of Lebanon are not real anxious to have the PLO remain. They are in fact in support of the 'invasion' by Israel, it is the only hope they have of self government, and they are tired of living in terror. Notice how the rest of the world embraces the PLO as the group with the right motives - notice how they are all clammering to have the PLO come live with them. I guess the point here is that if you have the idea that you are going to kill everyone you don't like, you had better give it up or die trying. The PLO wants to die trying, but their fearless leader seems to prefer life in exile to death with his men. The cold hard facts of politics. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1982 2002-PDT Subject: Re: Israel From: Mike Leavitt <LEAVITT at USC-ISI> As for THE NEW REPUBLIC being biased--I couldn't agree more. That explains why they would pick up on a piece that helps make the Israeli point. That in no way invalidates the point, however. If you have evidence to the contrary about what the UN said, by all means introduce it. But on this issue, I doubt that you will find such evidence. As for the Biblical claim as the justification for Israel's actions--if that were the only claim, it would, of course, be weak. It isn't the only claim, however. There are dozens of better ones. Coming up with a weak justification doesn't weaken the point unless it's the only justification. Enough for now. Mike <Leavitt at USC-ISI> ------------------------------ Date: 17 Jul 1982 01:45:59-PDT From: Kim.arens at Berkeley Subject: More on the invasion of Lebanon (long) This is a response to Mike Leavitt's unfortunate piece in Poli-Sci Digest V2 #154 (7-16-82). In my original article to poli-sci about the Israeli invasion of Lebanon I believed I was doing something very simple and clear -- I took several statements concerning the invasion that had been made repeatedly by official Israeli spokespersons, and I demonstrated that they were lies. I'll repeat these myths here again, and let the readers judge for themselves if these are not in fact fair representations of official Israeli claims -- 1) The invasion was in retaliation for the wounding of the Israeli ambassador to Britain by PLO guerrillas. 2) The invasion was necessary in order to end incessant shelling by PLO gunners of towns and cities in northern Israel. 3) Israel only wishes to push PLO gunners 40km so that Israel is out of their range. 4) The PLO threatens Israel's existence. Leavitt tells us in his article that "[these] claims are close enough to the truth to sound plausible, but far enough from the truth to totally mislead". I claim that what Leavitt is saying is nonsense, as anyone who has heard Israeli representatives recently knows. The second and third myths are almost literal quotes from an interview with the Israeli ambassador to the US on ABC's Nightline two (or three) days after the beginning of the invasion, and if Leavitt doubts the first and fourth I will make the effort to come up with precise sources for them too. I trust that is not necessary. So much for Leavitt's claim that these myths were "straw men". Now comes the boring part where I have to go over all the preposterous claims and defenses of the Israeli position made by Leavitt one by one and show where he's wrong. I would really hate to waste everybody's time in this manner. Instead I will go over enough examples to demonstrate that Leavitt is completely ignorant of the history and current situation in the Middle East. This will also put his other statements in their proper perspective. If Leavitt (or anyone else) still feels that I haven't responded to any of his points satisfactorily feel free to post a question to the net and I promise to reply. Leavitt says: "Israel was invaded by the armies of half-a-dozen countries when it became independent. All but one of those countries continue to claim to be at war with Israel, and a few of them have never recognized any cease-fire in the war." Everything in this paragraph except for the fact that Israel was invaded by the surrounding Arab states after its establishment is either misleading or simply false. In 1949 after talks held in the Greek island of Rhodes, all the warring countries reached armistice agreements with Israel. The SOLE exception to this is Iraq, which indeed recognizes no cease fire to this day. Oh yes -- Iraq doesn't even border on Israel, and its participation in all the wars in the region to this date was a token one at most. No other country in the region is in a state of war with Israel. Now, one might justifiably argue that armistice agreements don't matter and anyone can invade anyone else. That is obviously true, as Israel was the first to demonstrate when it invaded Egypt (cooperating with the British and the Frech) in 1956. But this does demonstrate Leavitt isn't very intimately familiar with the situation in the Middle East. Also, as Leavitt correctly notes, it makes no sense to consider the situation starting from an arbitrary point in time. But the war of 1948 is an obvious outcome of Zionist settlement of Palestine starting in the late 19th century. If Leavitt wishes to discuss the whole Zionist enterprise we will have to do it some other time. However, even he will have to agree that nothing could be more confusing than starting a description of Israeli-Arab relations with a sudden unexplained invasion of Israel. Leavitt seems to insist that the PLA (Palestine Liberation Army) played some major role in what happened. I must admit I'm somewhat perplexed by these repeated references to the PLA. The PLA is one of several smaller Palestinian groups and no one has claimed (up to Leavitt's letter) that it has had any special importance in the events leading to the current invasion. The Israeli position is that the main umbrella organization of the Palestinians, the PLO, was its target. It would seem that Leavitt thinks that the PLA is the army of the PLO or something like that. This does little in the way of convincing me of Leavitt's familiarity with the PLO. In another reference to the PLO Leavitt writes: "The PLO's goal has always been the elimination of the state of Israel -- nothing more and nothing less. [...] When it talks about Israel's giving up the "occupied territory" it is referring to the entire state of Israel. [...] Although they have been given innumerable opportunities to do so, the leadership of the PLO has never denied it". Again, this statement demonstrates ignorance of the true nature of the PLO. Proponents of Israel complain that the WRITTEN documents of the PLO demand a "secular democratic state in all of Palestine" (what's so bad about that?), and that oral pronouncements to the effect that the PLO will agree to a separate state are meaningless in the absence of written changes. This point is arguable, but no one can claim that PLO leaders have never acknowledged the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the state of Israel. Just this morning I spoke with a friend of mine who has just returned from a trip to Paris. He spoke there with Issam Sartawi, the PLO representative there who is said to be close to Arafat. Sartawi has met many times in the past few years with moderate Israelis and discussed the possiblity of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Sartawi told my friend that after lengthy discussions within the PLO, they had agreed to publicly announce their acceptance of the idea of a separate state coexisting with Israel. This announcement was supposed to take place on June 14 of this year (Remember! You heard it first on poli-sci!). This fact was known in advance by the US and by Israel. I'll let you all make a guess as to whether this had anything to do with the timing of the invasion. And if you don't wish to believe my contacts and me, I urge you to read the excerpts from an interview Yasser Arafat gave to Uri Avneri, an Israeli journalist, which appeared on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times of July 13. In this interview Arafat states as clearly as can be expected considering his situation that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza strip coexisting peacefully with Israel is possible. And as to the nature of the PLO, it is much more than an organization "whose goal has always been the elimination of the state of Israel -- nothing more and nothing less". In an excellent front page article in the 7-12 issue of the LA Times Leavitt could have read that, "In the 17 years since the PLO was founded, the guerrilla movement has transformed itself from a small group of gunmen to a reasonably sophisticated political and social services machine. "Although its reputation was made with the gun, the PLO has its own hospitals, factories, security force, daily newspaper, magazines, radio station, schools, payroll and pension plans for the families or war dead. "It has its own research center, a "think tank" planning center and a small computer center. "The PLO, a government without a state, has a budget approaching $1 billion a year, with most of that going to non-military programs. One Western diplomat, a commercial officer in his embassy, said several months ago that the PLO was the second-largest employer in Lebanon, behind only the Lebanese government." Again, so much for Leavitt's familiarity with the PLO. Now let's see how much Leavitt knows about what goes on in Israel: "Think of living in a city where you must carry around a weapon, preferably a submachine gun, at all times. Think of living in a city where everytime you see a strange package in a public place, you think it may be a bomb--and you are often right. Think about living in a city where you and your family sleep in concrete bomb shelters. This is what goes on in much of Israel." Now look, I lived in Israel myself for 17 years and I know what life is like there. I assume some of the other readers of this letter have visited Israel. All I can say is that either Leavitt is crazy or else he's knowingly lying. No other way about it. Sorry. Yigal Arens, UC Berkeley ------------------------------ Date: 18 Jul 1982 13:24:41-EDT From: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX To: LEAVITT at USC-ISI Subject: Re: Israel In response to your message of Fri Jul 16 23:05:51 1982: Have you seen anything other than Biblical justification for the efective annexation of captured territories? It's one thing to hold them and fortify them as a buffer zone; colonizing some of them, as Israel has done, is something else---and will make Sinai-type agreements far more difficult in the future. On the other hand, what I've seen suggests that no country can be proud of its actions in and around Jerusalem. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 82 19:53:03-EDT (Fri) From: J C Pistritto <jcp@BRL> Israel in Lebanon: One point that Yigal Arens makes, (by stating the converse as a 'myth'), is that the PLO does not threaten Israel's existance, through the existance of huge caches of arms in Southern Lebanon. When the Israels overran Sidon and Damour, they found enough weapons to equip 'an army of a million men', in the words of an Israeli commander. Over 400 tanks were discovered in PLO hands, thousands of anti-aircraft guns, even including SAM 6 and 7 missiles. In fact, a major component of the US intelligence community now believes that this equipment, along with similar stashes in Libya and at one time in Egypt, serve as 'prepositioned material' for the Soviet military. (The US does this too, but most of our stuff is stored on special pre-positioning ships anchored throughout the world). If I were an Israeli, I damn well WOULD consider that kind of weaponry stashed 30 miles from my borders to be VERY threatening. Many people make the assumption that because Israel is strong, it doesn't have to worry about military security so much. That's analogous to saying that because I have an insurance policy, I shouldn't lock my car doors... -JCP- ------------------------------ Date: 19 Jul 1982 1900-PDT Subject: Re: Israel From: Mike Leavitt <LEAVITT at USC-ISI> To: csin!cjh at CCA-UNIX There are at least three ways of discussing Israel's treatment of the "captured territories" that have nothing to do with a Biblical justification. You may disagree with them, but I think you will agree that they are justifications at some level, and entirely non-Biblical in origin. 1) Making facts. The Arabs seem to think that time is on their side--that they just have to keep working on Israel, and eventually Israel will collapse from the weight of the effort. Israel's policy of slowly making it more difficult to withdraw was explicitly chosen to try to convince the Arabs that time was not on their side, and that the sooner they accepted Israel and stopped making war, the easier it would be to retrieve some of what was lost. 2) Making security. Israel's post-1967 area was a much more defensible area than the pre-1967 one. In the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) the length of the border was reduced, as it was in the Gaza; a defensible natural border was substituted for a line on a map in the Sinai; and the high ground was substituted for the low ground it dominated in the Golan. Holding these areas until peace is made is not particularly Biblical--it is just simple defense against people who are at war with you. 3) Restoring the status quo. Most Americans are not aware of it, but the borders that came into existence with the 1948 cease-fire were no more recognized internationally than were the 1967 borders as far as Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem are concerned. Jordan never had sovereignty over the area west of the Jordan--they simply had occupied it at the termination of a war that they started. The justification for Israel staying there is simply that it belongs to Israel as much as it belongs to anyone. Of course, an official international border can be defined in the process of making a peace treaty. Any takers? So you see, there are some dandy non-Biblical justifications. Mike <Leavitt at USC-ISI> ------------------------------ End of POLI-SCI Digest - 30 - -------