Statement: AP 'horrified' by Israeli attack on its office

There's an undercurrent in your comment of blaming AP for having a presence in Gaza, yet this was not an accidental strike. AP says that Israel gave them advance warning of the attack.

https://apnews.com/article/media-israel-middle-east-business...

Time of reference is important! It significantly alters the perception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZ4yXyzUG0

Obviously the event you linked to is pretty abhorrent nonetheless. & the wiki page has a pretty interesting quote especially in light of what happened today:

>The American news agency, the Associated Press, wrote:

>The station blatantly spread Milosevic's nationalist propaganda, portraying Serbs as the victims of ethnic attacks in the former Yugoslavia, thus whipping up nationalism that led to wars. At the same time, the television accused the Serbian opposition of being foreign mercenaries and traitors who were working against the country's interests. The propaganda was so intense that it led to anti-government protests in March 1991 in the capital, during which two people were killed in what was the first popular uprising against Milosevic's rule. It also prompted Nato in 1999 to declare the state TV a legitimate target. The RTS building was bombed during the air war that the alliance launched to stop Milosevic's onslaught against Kosovo Albanian separatists. Sixteen RTS employees died in the bombing.[19]

I wouldn't say it's ironic, but it's still... weird to see the AP's tone here.

Fatah won elections in the West Bank in 2006, and has not allowed any elections since.

Hamas won the election in 2006, and no elections have been held since. While sort of democratically elected and likely still the majority party, Hamas has recently launched hundreds of rockets targeting the civilian population of Israel. This is unquestionably an act of government-run terrorism. It's not the first time - this is doctrine.

It's very hard to make sense of news reports on this conflict, as propaganda is bound to be rampant on both sides.

I've read plenty of news reports over the years stating that Hamas doctrine is to use civilian infrastructure for their operations. Meaning hospitals, civilian residences and most recently, press buildings. And also that Hamas intimidates journalists not to report such operations in any degree of detail. Israeli doctrine, on the other hand, is to give advance warning but systematically attack Hamas fighters that operate out of such locations.

It would be unsurprising if a military force uses lies and deception to achieve their objectives. It's impossible to be confident that reports are honest. Was this an attack on Hamas targets using a press building as a human shield, as the IDF states, or was it simply a pretext to destroy the press headquarters in Gaza? No journalists are reported to have been killed in the attack, as far as I can tell. I would wager that this was actually an attack on Hamas fighters or assets, but there's little evidence. I could be wrong.

Regardless, I would welcome a discussion that gives some serious thought to how to defend oneself against an adversary that operates like this. Meaning, deliberately attacking the civilian population and then using civilians and civilian infrastructure as human shields during the response.

They are absolutely allowed to have a military I think. Edit: At least for all intents and purposes they do have one when they can coordinate large rocket attacks and do have numerous anti tank teams.

They are however not using it to defend thenselves but to poke "pointed sticks" into their neighbor in the hope that te neighbor will do something that the media will make a story of.

And, since it is military the neighbor is also allowed to bomb it when they are fed up with having shot rockets at their civilians.

Edit2:

> Isreal free to inflict as much collateral damage as they want upon anyone, but anyone else following the same rules is a terrorist?

If Israeli military was hiding among civilians and Hamas precision strikes hurt civilians despite Hamas calling them up an hour in advance I wouldn't blame Hamas either.

That is some of the difference.

I must have put on my tinfoil hat this morning. Sorry!! :)

"We received a warning that the building would be hit. "

And I think civilian casualties was was intended goal of the World Trade Center attack....

It's a bad comparison IMO.

- warned everyone before blowing up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon so they’d have time to evacuate

- not hijacked civilian airliners and murdered the pilots

- not killed everyone on board the planes by deliberately crashing them

…then yes that would be a valid comparison. It would also cause me to have a much more nuanced opinion of al-qaeda.

If you're Israel you certainly might choose to level an 11 story building if it houses a meaningful share of or otherwise critical Hamas intelligence operations. That's direct targeting; Hamas had operations in the building and they intentionally, directly hit the building.

You don't fly jetliners into giant skyscrapers to hope to side-hit by luck a very miniscule portion of a massive target like the CIA. That would never be a consideration for the operation. The 9/11 hijackers as we know for a fact chose the WTC for the terror purposes of killing and scaring the civilian population. Your logic twists pretends we don't know what their intentions were.

There are a lot of people who do want to blow each other up and that's just life

Seems fishy.

Fact remains: both sides are willing to kill children in order to advance their cause.

Although the case was not as clear cut as what that sentence implies, it wasn't nearly "forcing families out of their homes". It was more (if we're to believe the reports) "forcing people out of homes that they didn't own, after they stopped paying rent which they agreed to pay".