Evidence & the Gaza War

RUSI - the Royal United Services Institute has done an interesting piece about the IDF's use of AI for military targeting & says it's "more about speed than accuracy". RUSI "outlines broadly how targeting cycles operate, including the critical points where technology could limit or expand civilian deaths". It's a long read & you may not want to read it all. But the conclusion is that the IDF use it's systems  " not to refine targeting, but to expand & expedite it's target cycle...which constitutes a systematic devaluation of Palestinian lives, which could be reasonably considered collective punishment."

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/israel-defense-forces-use-ai-gaza-case-misplaced-purpose

I have followed the creation of the state of Israel since I was in my teens & read "Exodus" by Leon Uris, published in 1958. No one should minimise the history of Jews around the world. They have suffered more than most. Notably at the hands of the Nazis. The creation of a Jewish state after the Holocaust seems necessary & inevitable. 

I do have a huge issue with the way that the Israeli very right wing government & the IDF have conducted the war against the Palestinians. I have tried to find evidence supporting the claims of the IDF that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields & justification for bombing hospitals, schools & refugee camps. I am struggling to find any. In addition they have killed aid workers & journalists. 

"Oxfam and Human Rights Watch have observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in Israel, imposed collective punishments on the civilian population, deprived the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival, and used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. These are all grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law. The vast majority of Gaza’s population has also been forced to flee their homes, many as a result of Israeli actions that amount to war crimes". 

Amnesty International says the IDF are creating a "buffer zone” along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip (which) should be investigated as the war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment." This is 16% of the entire occupied Gaza Strip. Also "Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighbourhoods, including homes, schools and mosques". 

There is so much evidence to support the conclusion that what the Israeli government & IDF is doing, not to mention what they are tolerating settlers doing to Palestinians in the West Bank, you would imagine that they would would be committed to providing plentiful evidence to support the claims they make about Hamas & Hezbollah (in Lebanon).  But although I understand that what is effectively a guerrilla war is very difficult to win - Afghanistan is a prime example, I haven't seen the Israeli information machine provide very much evidence at all to justify it's actions.

In the absence of evidence I have to conclude that they are behaving illegally, the death & destruction is completely unacceptable & the USA & UK need to stop supporting this onesided war. There also does need to be a legal holding to account.

One of the worst things about this war is that although the IDF do not allow any journalists into Gaza, which to my mind speaks volumes for the fact that they can not justify it, there is plentiful verified evidence from brave journalists & NGO's, plus from Palestinians themselves, which we see daily on our TV's.

We all know what is happening.

 

We don't need no education....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iITFrcNLcA  Pink Floyd "The Wall" 1979. The year I became the head of a primary school at 34.

I had been trained in the 60's. I espoused, Montessori, Piaget, Steiner. I believer in child centred education & learning by doing, not by rote. Since then the world has changed immensely. So have I.

I still believe the child should be the centre of what is taught. They should have a really broad based education & learn by experiencing. No one learns to drive a car from a book or how to play football from a video. But we have AI. We have sophisticated technology. We have interactive whiteboards & computers. The rate of change is exponential.

Even more importantly than that the world is simply not the same place it was in the 70's. We have mass consumerism, but many of the old industies & jobs have gone. We have limited natural resources & need to find different ways of doing things. Family structure & parenting has changed out of all recognition. Populations are more mobile. In many ways we are more fortunate, but we have also lost reliability & structure. The needs of individuals & society are worlds away from the 70's.

But although education has changed I really don't think it has been given the time to really think about the needs of modern children, the state, the world & the system. What's more, I think we desperately need to do that or our children won't be prepared for an uncertain & changing world.

Education is both individual & societal. Both need to benefit. If we don't equip our children with the skills to be happy, balanced & productive individuals at whatever level, our society will not flourish. Most educational change is imposed from the top. From politicians. The world & it's wife thinks that they know what education should be because they went to school. But by definition their education is out of date. 

We need people with real experience & expertise to look at educational trends around the world & select the really good tested methods. We also need an open public discussion about what we as a society want education to be. We are in the 21st century, but education isn't. It's all about testing, examinations, administration & box ticking, putting huge pressure on the teaching force who are leaving in droves. No one wants to be a head now. 

A good education depends on good teachers who are well trained, creative & dedicated. It's a caring profession. It runs on goodwill. That has been eroded away by bureaucracy & overwork. 

But the most important thing is that our children need to enjoy school & feel that it is relevant to their lives now & in the future. I seriously doubt that it is.

Hope

Hope is not the same as wishing. I can wish I might win a million, but it's unlikely, a) because I don't gamble & b) because the odds are stacked against it.

I can hope. My hopes are fairly simple - good health & lives for my family & friends, a good death eventually for me, to do more good than harm in my life. 

But what hope do so many people in the world now have? If you follow the news you don't need me to enumerate the many devastating & utterly pointless conflicts, or the malnutritian & famine, or the crimes against women, the lack of basic human rights, sanitation & water.....That doesn't even include the people suffering from depression & mental illness.

"Individuals with very low levels of well-being—and in despair in particular—suffer not only poor outcomes on the health, longevity, and productivity fronts, but they also typically avoid civil society, live in loneliness and isolation, and are vulnerable to misinformation, conspiracy theories, and radicalization".

"A growing body of evidence suggests that the single most consequential component of subjective well-being is hope. It is critical to future outcomes for individuals and society. People usually think of hope as an emotion rather than something that can be measured and linked to behavioral, economic, and political outcomes. Economists who study hope define it slightly differently. Hope is not simply the belief or feeling that one’s circumstances will get better, that is optimism. Rather, hope is optimism combined with the belief that one has the agency to make things better".

https://www.brookings.edu/about-us/

My question is, if the world does not take action to make our countries more equal & evenly balanced, if we don't share land, wealth & resources, what will happen? My guess is that we will create a "monster" race. A race so disenchanted with the unfairness & inequality of many societies that they will be prepared to do anything to right the wrongs.

The difficulty I have is that I think the evidence for this is already there for everyone to see. All forms of extremism, religious of otherwise, are already clearly visible. The extreme right & extremely religious aren't able to listen. Populism is rampant. Self interest & power is all that matters to many. 

I would like you to think what you individually can do to force change. We have to hope that we have power to influence politicians because they are the only ones who can take effective action. At the moment I don't see much evidence of that.

 

Gifts & Politics

Christmas is on the horizon. My heart sinks every year. What to buy? Where to buy it? Will it be a good present or go straight to the present drawer or charity shop? It would help if I enjoyed shopping, but I just don't have the energy or inclination now.

MP's can accept gifts, it's not illegal so long as they follow the "Rules" & declare them. The Register of Financial Interests says the total value of gifts that Sir Keir Starmer has accepted since October 2023, (i.e. before becoming PM), is £74,905.80 - 11 football match tickets valued at thousands of pounds, as well as more than £24,000 in work clothes and accessories.There is also accommodation valued at £20,437.28 plus loans & gifts of clothing for his wife.

I can well understand that if "ordinary people" become very senior politicians there will be costs that their salaries don't meet. Sir Keir's net worth is said to be around £7.7 million, however, & it could rise to between £10m and £15m. That to me is wealthy. I would have thought he could afford his own clothes & specs. If HRH Katherine can patronise some hight street shops I would have thought Sir Keir & his wife could too.

I can also understand that actually having the time to go shopping must be extremely difficult. But then I imagine they have personal shoppers for that.

Then there is the football matches & events. I imagine that socialising at this level means that there would be a huge number of offers of free tickets. After all it does your event no end of good if the PM attends. There is a "quid pro quo". But is it a good image when real fans & supporters have to fork out vast amounts of money they probably can ill afford to follow their clubs? Given the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco, again are the optics of accepting those good?

The path is littered with elephant traps for politicians. In a way I don't want them to be spending their time worrying about minutiae like this. I would rather they ran the country effectively. But they do have well paid advisors & civil servants. I would expect them to be speaking truth to power about the advisibility of accepting gifts. 

I would also expect people who are at the top of government to have the common sense to understand that if it wouldn't look good in the headlines of the Daily Mirror or Daily Mail they probably shouldn't do it. Especially not when they are telling us on a daily basis that things will only get worse for all of us.

How Are You?

This has become such a meaningless, empty, phrase. I listen to Radio 4 a lot & am really fed up with interviewees saying that alongside "thank you for having me". Firstly, if you aren't really interested in the reponse to "How are you" then why are you asking? Secondly presumably the interviewee has been chosen because they have some expertise or experience to bring to a question & is possibly being paid for sharing it. The type of programmes I listen to aren't social occasions. I hope that all parties are polite, but phrases like this are grating & completely unnecessary. 

I do try not to rant too often on this Blog, but this is really p...... me off.

It's true on a personal level too. When someone says "How are you" generally the response is "I'm fine thanks, how are you". It tells the questioner nothing & they usually let it go, because it is generally accepted as just a convention. People rarely expect a genuine answer. 

However sometimes when you respond, the person you are speaking to then goes into lengthy detail about how they, or sometimes a member of their family, is. This has happened to me several times recently. While I'm happy to say that I'm possibly not having a good day, I really don't want to go into detail with most people, however genuine their enquiry. Similarly, unless it's a close friend or family, I really don't need to know the finer points of their medical condition or latest visit to the hospital. I especially don't want that level of detail about their relation, who I don't know.

It's all about appropriateness & balance. It is important to interact with people socially in a real & friendly way. We should be interested in eachother. But some people simply don't seem to have a filter. They don't seem to be able to judge what is & is not appropriate, genuine & interesting to someone else rather than "unloading". 

It isn't simply about saying the words. It's about listening & being able to pick up clues from facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, context clues, etc that tell you whether the conversation is appropriate to the person & the situation.

Maybe we are losing the ability to do that because we are communicating via our mobiles & computers too much. Real social interaction needs be face to face. Even touch is important. You can't do that over a phone, computer or radio.