Rent-seeking behaviour of retaliating agents

This paper has examined a rent-seeking game where the players take a more sophisticated approach to evaluating the potential strategies and counter-strategies of their rivals than in the standard Nash case. We have derived the conditions for the existence of symmetric and nonsymmetric equilibria for the game and derived the properties of these equilibria. Three results merit repeating. First, we find that rent dissipation will not, in general, be complete. Second, and in contrast to much of the traditional literature, we find that the socially optimal result of zero rent-seeking is sometimes a feasible equilibrium outcome for our game. Finally, there exist rent-seeking configurations in which the best play of one of the rivals is to withdraw from the game or, alternatively stated, where it is not optimal for a rival to contest the rent by entering the game. In these nonsymmetric cases it would appear that Tullock's conjecture about the value of preemptive moves remains valid. This is true even when the strategies and counter-strategies available to the players are much more complex than in the traditional Nash approach.As a final point we raise the issue of whether or not it is reasonable to suppose that the players in rent-seeking games will take their strategy and counter-strategy sets to be as large as we have assumed in this paper. Players may well make their moves and counter-moves based upon rules of thumb or other considerations that effectively bound the strategy sets of the players. As well, it may be useful to consider games where players, upon entering the game, commit themselves to a given level of expenditures. Many of these issues are considered in a related paper by the authors.     

No Place to Hide: Intelligence and Civil Liberties in Israel

In its quest for security and under constant threats, the Israeli state has assigned wide-ranging powers to its intelligence services. These powers include deep incursions into individual liberties and privacy, powers of detention and interrogation, as well as involvement in assassinations. To ensure that those powers are only used legally and against real threats, a system of legal controls and parliamentary oversight over the intelligence community has developed incrementally. The article examines the development of intelligence oversight in Israel and analyses its performance and limits. The article begins by examining historical milestones in the development of intelligence oversight, including the Tubianski affair, official assassinations and ‘Committee-X’, and the ‘Bus 300’ affair. It then analyses the 2002 General Security Service Law and the work of the Intelligence Community Disciplinary Court and the Knesset Intelligence Sub-committee. The roles of Commissions of Inquiry and of the State Comptroller are discussed against the background of various intelligence failures and scandals. The article concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of intelligence oversight in Israel.     

Soviet Espionage in Israel, 1973–1991

In June 1967, the Soviet Union abruptly cut off diplomatic relations with Israel and withdrew its embassy staff from Tel-Aviv, including its large KGB Rezidentura. To develop new sources of intelligence in Israel, the KGB recruited under duress hundreds of Russian Jews to spy in Israel in return for allowing their families to leave the Soviet Union. Most of these ‘recruits’ abandoned their task once they reached Israel, leaving Soviet intelligence with only a small number of agents in Israel who were handled by KGB illegal case officers working out of Russian churches. These agents were able to make careers in Israel and obtain some access to confidential military information, but generally failed to reach Israel's inner circle of political and military decision makers. This inner circle was only breached in 1983 by the treachery of a highly placed former Mossad officer who offered his services to the Soviets and became the KGB's best source for secret information deep inside the Israeli government.     

Water-soaked evidence: detectability of explosive traces after immersion in water

Various factors governing the detectability of explosive traces after being soaked in water were studied. The variables are: the type of the surface (surfaces liable to be found in aircraft were chosen), the type of explosive, the type of water (tap or seawater), and movement of the immersed surface in the water. The maximal immersion times (tmax) after which explosive detection was possible were evaluated. This datum was found to depend on the type of explosive (one of the important factors is solubility in water), the surface material and the environmental conditions (tap or seawater movement). Detection of PETN on high-density polyethylene, linoleum, glass and aluminum, by the chemical Explosive Testing Kit (ETK), was possible even after a month of soaking in seawater. In addition, it has been found that movement of bulk water around the samples with deposited explosives considerably decreases tmax values. It is, therefore, recommended to retrieve samples for explosive analysis as soon as possible and in areas where the currents of water is minimal.