palestine

AI BIAS?

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, Uncategorized , , , ,

I was checking factual information on some points about the similarities between the progressive reaction to today’s technological age and the progressive reaction to the Gilded Age for a recent post. A simple AI inquiry: “Did the Gilded Age see the greatest leap in living standards in history?” Google qualified the statement with “it’s debated because it also featured severe poverty and extreme wealth inequality.” The summary goes on to spell out social costs of deep inequality, crowded cities, and harsh labor:

The Gilded Age is generally thought to have begun with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 and extended to WWI.

These qualifiers seemed strange first because I didn’t mention social conditions, just the economic advancement, and they’re at odds with the rest of the summary. In the next sentence, after it mentions the inequality and poverty, it states that real wages for nonfarm workers grew by about 53%. It goes on to confirm the Gilded Age’s Leap: with falling prices, things became more affordable to the average person, life expectancy went up, and the new technologies transformed daily life.

Adding in downbeat notes seems at odds with the rest of the findings. If things were so awful, why did millions leave farms, or come from other nations? People don’t migrate to have less. With all those people coming to our cities to take higher-paying jobs, of course there’s a housing shortage.  

Curious, I put the same statement to Microsoft’s Copilot. Its conclusion: The Gilded Age produced the fastest sustained improvement in material living conditions ever recorded for a large population,” confirmed my understanding. Yet it had to echo Google about inequality and bad labor conditions, while adding corruption and racial divisions. “Jim Crow hardened, immigration tensions rose, Native Americans suffered catastrophic losses.” But all of these problems existed before the Gilded Age. What did the Gilded Age have to do with Jim Crow? Again, these nuances are at odds with the rest of the summary.

My curiosity about AI adding extraneous and contradictory information was further piqued when I wondered about the widespread Genocide accusation leveled against Israel. In the modern world, the concept of Genocide goes back to approximately 60% to 65% (or roughly 1.5 million out of an estimated 2 to 2.5 million) of the Armenian population in the Ottoman Empire who died during the Armenian Genocide between 1915 and 1923.

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Trump Can Do Better

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, The Middle East, Uncategorized , , , ,

Donald Trump often sees problems, but as someone who spends little time on in-depth analysis, he comes up with questionable solutions. One example is his suggestion that Jordan and Egypt take in Gazans to ease reconstruction efforts. The two nations immediately shot down the idea, and it isn’t hard to see why. Jordan already has more Palestinian refugees than native citizens. Returning to “Black September” in 1970, their presence has been problematic. They’re not about to add to a problem they never wanted in the first place.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gained his position by disposing of the previous Muslim Brotherhood government. Hamas, which governs the Gazans, is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch. The last thing he wants is to strengthen the Brotherhood’s numbers in his country.  

Trump should’ve known all this and avoided the negative blowback. Still, the president isn’t wrong to wonder, as a builder himself, how you can build a viable Gaza in place of the existing rubble when overrun with 2,000,000 displaced people in just 141 square miles. Gaza was overpopulated and under-employed before the war. Now, the situation is infinitely worse.

Considering Gaza’s makeup, I offered my “Solution for Gaza” posts. Rather than a full-scale invasion, designate areas to be leveled by explosives, inform everyone to leave, then blow them up. Working towards the sea and away from the Israeli border, food and other supplies are landed on the shore by ship. The ships are then required to take women, children, and infirm to safety in accepting countries. If the Arab world and other countries are concerned about these Palestinians, let them show it. International aid now supporting the Gazans would follow them, so there was little if any, increase in cost.

People were horrified, claiming it would level and depopulate Gaza. Looking at things now, with Gaza a pile of rubble and the number of women and children killed, the plan seems a lot better than what has happened.

I never thought the destruction and shipping of refugees would go on for very long before Hamas would give in. Faced with a slow but relentless low-cost action, Hamas couldn’t wait for the last Gazan civilian shipped out of a leveled Gaza. Pressure from other Arab countries faced with accepting Palestinian refugees would leave Hamas little choice.

Even though the situation is different now, with Gaza destroyed, few Gazans have left. We have to understand why there were so many Gazans. In 1948, 7000,000 Arabs fled the new nation of Israel, mainly at the urging of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The U.N. established the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) 1949 to aid them. The agency set up numerous camps ringing Israel:

Why did the U.N. feel it was necessary to create a new refugee agency when the International Refugee Organization (IRO) had existed since World War II and was doing great work in resettlement? This group evolved into the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the primary vehicle for caring for and resettling refugees worldwide. It has accomplished the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees annually.

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The Debate Isn’t About Problem Solving

Dave Davis Commentary, COVID-19, Policy, Uncategorized , , , ,

As we realize the catastrophic impact of our response to the COVID-19 epidemic, it’s crucial to acknowledge the profound, long-lasting effects on our children’s education. Many will struggle to make up for the learning loss from unnecessarily closed schools. The staggering borrowing to offset income losses from a shutdown economy will burden us for years.

Those in charge, like Anthony Fauci, owe the nation an apology on many levels, from scientifically unsupported policies to the apparent coverup of the pandemic’s laboratory origins. Instead, the good doctor gets a friendly reception on his book tour. My series on COVID left no doubt about my feelings about our actions from March ’20 on. Out front of every lousy decision was Dr. Fauci. Yet, welcoming Dr. Fauci as some hero in progressive stops nationwide is commonplace.

It’s as if everything we learned about the pandemic and our awful response missed a large part of the electorate. We see similar blindness among many when it comes to the Gaza War. Brutely attacked, Israel counter-attacked against the Hamas perpetrators. In contravention of the accepted rules of war, Hamas has located its military in heavily populated areas, hospitals, schools, and Mosques. Breaking the prohibition of using civilians, especially women and children, as human shields have resulted in preventable civilian casualties; the leader of Hamas tells the world how little they value Palestinian lives by saying they’re winning world opinion with the increasing civilian deaths. Yet, the progressive left blames Israel.

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Are Things Getting Even Stranger?

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, The Middle East , , , ,

I’ve reached a point where I realize the administration and its media heralds’ approach to the Gaza War has reached the same state of incoherence as their actions in Afghanistan and Ukraine. After a promising start, the former ended in catastrophe, and the latter is headed in the same direction. 

They demand Israel institute a civilian Gazan government before the war is over. Imagine attempting this approach in Nazi Germany while a good part of the Wehrmacht is still intact. The idea of Mahmoud Abbas stepping in to rule the strip is laughable. The Gazans chased his Fatah-ruled Palestinian Authority out shortly after the Israelis left Gaza in 2005.

Producing a reformed, newly constituted Palestinian Authority, even if possible, would take considerable time. Who would rule until then? A coalition of Arab states? How long would that take?

Even if you put some government in place, how would it enforce its rules? Hamas still has an estimated ten to twenty thousand heavily armed fighters. Where are the police or troops going to come from to stop Hamas from continuing to attack Israel or take over the new government?

The U.S. Army recommends 20-25 counterinsurgents to every 1,000 residents. The Gaza population of around 2 million requires 40,000 troops to suppress an armed insurrection. Exactly where are these troops coming from to duke it out with Hamas? Israel isn’t about to accept a Palestinian force of that size. The vast majority of Palestinians support Hamas’s October 7 attack. Such a force might join forces with Hamas and attack Israel. 

Has anyone heard from any Arab nations volunteering substantial military? Even if they did, would they take on a heavily armed opponent?

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Following Up

Dave Davis Commentary, Policy, The Middle East, Uncategorized , , , ,

In my last post, I condemned the president of my alma Mater, Northwestern, as a dishonorable Jew for giving perks to the pro-Hamas demonstrators while doing nothing to make Jewish students and others feel safe on campus. Shortly after, I received an email from President Michael H. Schill, linking to His OP-ED in the Chicago Tribune, explaining his actions. Eagerly, I clicked to see if his assurance that Jewish students were still welcome and safe at N.U. is clearly stated. I’d rather be wrong about him if the campus were welcoming and safe for all. 

It’s sad to say that Schill is even worse than I thought. Even though Jews are the ones most threatened, he only mentions them obliquely, “First and foremost, we needed to protect the health and safety of our entire community, including our Jewish students.” The protestors are pro-Hamas. The group that just murdered and savaged the most significant number of Jews since the Holocaust and still holds hostages. Even with the “settlement, “keffiyeh-wearing demonstrators remain on Deering Meadow for another month. Wearing the headscarves shows solidarity with those desiring to dispose of all the Jews between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

In the 1930s, Germans wore brown shirts to show their hatred of Jews. Now, the protestors wear keffiyehs to convey the same sentiment. How does this deliver any feeling of welcome or safety to Jews on campus?

Understandably, Schill’s “settlement” and actions have drawn Jewish wrath. Rather than fighting the clear and present antisemitism, he equates it with virtually non-existent anti-muslin acts. “Second, we believe in free expression, but that most assuredly does not include antisemitic or anti-Muslim harassment or intimidation.” 

While Schill rolled over and placated the demonstrators, Ben Sasse, the University of Florida President, faithfully adhered to his school’s rules. Those rules allowed free speech, but if you broke them, you faced immediate suspension. As a result, students, including Jews, went about the business of learning without disturbance. 

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