From: perlman@qso.Colorado.EDU (Eric S. Perlman)
Subject: Re: Hamas
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:56:23 GMT

In article <1ghva1INN9k0@manuel.anu.edu.au> bdm@cs.anu.edu.au writes:
>In article <1992Dec13.171353.14338@colorado.edu> Eric Perlman writesL
>>In article <1geqdcINNhqk@manuel.anu.edu.au> bdm@cs.anu.edu.au writes:
>>>In article 12736@colorado.edu, perlman@qso.Colorado.EDU (Eric S. Perlman) writes:
>>>>  And, it should be added, Jews were a 60%+ majority in
>>>>the part allocated to Israel 
>
>>>About 55%.  The usual figure ignores the Negev bedouin.
>
>>>>- which did *not* include Jerusalem (and
>>>>Jerusalem c. 1948 was roughly 70% Jewish).  
>
>>>The international enclave of Jerusalem had marginally fewer 
>>>than 50% Jews.
>
>>The international enclave also included several suburbs.  The city
>>itself was roughly 70% Jewish (we've discussed these statistics before).
>
>>>>So the partition was quite fair.
>
>>>About twice as much land (with more than twice the average
>>>economic value) per Jew as per Arab.  If a little circle was
>>>drawn around each Arab house and the remainder was given to the
>>>Jewish State, the latter would have been 100% Jewish and so
>>>even fairer, according to your logic. 
>
>>This is the most ridiculous misrepresentation of my views I have
>>seen in quite a while.  You're implying that I don't think
>>there should be Arabs inside Israel, or any Jewish state.  That's
>>complete hooey.  Balderdash.  You should be ashamed of yourself for
>>misrepresenting my opinions so.
>
>Oh, fair shake of the stick, Eric.  (Is that expression known in the
>US?  I've been across the Pacific so many times I can't remember who 
>says what where.)  

I'm not immediately familiar with the expression, and I've been to a
fair number of the states - but I think I understand what you're trying
to say thereby.

>I didn't imply any such thing; all I did was prove 
>that your reasoning is inadequate.  Of course I know very well that 
>you don't hold such views, so let nobody think I claimed you did.
>
>Let me spell it out.  A number of times recently you have made
>statements equivalent to "the partition was fair because the
>Jewish part had a Jewish majority".  I don't believe that is 
>a reasonable indicator of fairness, and I proved that by applying
>the same indicator successfully to a partition which is obviously
>unfair.  Reductio ad absurdum.  If you want to keep the theorem
>you have to upgrade the proof.  That's it.

International relations is not a field that can be determined by
mathematics; you and I both know that.  While if you speak in terms of
land value, what you're saying may be true (though I disagree, since the
Negev - most of which was allocated to Israel - could not have been
counted as valuable agriculturally then), you also need to take into
account that within a decade, the situation would most probably have
been reversed, due to large scale Jewish immigration  - not only new
arrivals, but also those who finally could get in after not having been
able to for years.  Think about it for a few minutes and you might
change your mind.

-- 
"How sad to see/A model of decorum and tranquillity/become like any other sport
A battleground for rival ideologies to slug it out with glee." -Tim Rice,"Chess"
     Eric S. Perlman 				 <perlman@qso.colorado.edu> 
  Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast