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Comment by gizmo | Hacker News Reader

If the United States wanted to bring this conflict to an end this would be the perfect pretext to use, because the AP is an American non-profit and it's easy to argue that Israel crossed a line with this completely unprovoked attack on a noble American institution.

Of course in truth blowing up a building isn't a big crime compared to the killing of innocent Palestinians, including children, the narrative is what really matters. And I hope this attack is used to put pressure on Israel to stop their attacks.

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That would be a fair request, if NATO hadn't engaged in similar actions in the past:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_the_Radio_Te...

But that's a local station of a Serbian broadcaster, and I think the GP's point relates to AP being American. RTS seems to have broadcast outright propaganda from the building which I doubt AP did. Though Al Jazeera also used the same building, and while Al Jazeera English tries to seem neutral its Arabic version is little more than a qatari state mouthpiece. But that's still not a reason for Israel to bomb it.

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.

I suspect that something else was co-located in the building and AP was just there. So the USA would also need to agree that the co-located thing was not a target.

You'd think, but Joe Biden is a self-proclaimed Zionist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2zto3UmNIE

There have been recent reports that Iran and Saudi Arabia are in talks. It's more likely that the U.S. wants the conflict to escalate to try and draw Iran into intervening and drive a wedge with SA.

They're not perfect but Israel is a lot more ethical than Hamas. They definitely don't deserve the label of "baby killers."

Look at this situation of the past week: Hamas is fires unguided rockets at Israel. Israel intercepts them with the Iron Dome. Israel retaliates with precision strikes after giving warnings to reduce casualties. In the case of the AP building, nobody died. How is Israel the baby killer here?

This conflict has been going on for 50 years. Both sides have killed plenty of babies. To ignore that is irresponsible.

Both ??? Only funny thing in this drama is that comment pal

> Look at this situation of the past week: Hamas is fires unguided rockets ...

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

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

Trevor's thesis is here: "Set aside motives and intentions, just look at technology, technology alone ... If you are in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how hard should you retaliate when they try to hurt you? ... When you have this much power, what is your responsibility?"

To arrive at this question, he judges the conflict in absolute numbers dead and injured on both sides, and concludes that because more Palestinians are harmed than Israelis, Israel should show more restraint.

I understand his point, but I don't know if I would want my government to show restraint if rockets were landing in my city. I would probably want the enemy thoroughly destroyed so that I could feel safe. "But don't kill too many of them!" would not be my first thought.

Similarly, if a much stronger enemy was raiding my villages and taking my land, I would probably want generations of insurgency to make them pay for the harm they've done. "Make sure those rockets only hit military targets!" would not be my first thought.

I think having a measured response to your home being attacked is too much to ask for humans.

The fact that Israel has killed more Palestinians is a consequence of the fact that they are winning. It is absolutely not their moral responsibility to make sure that every conflict they are involved in ends up with a 1:1 kill ratio. There was never any doubt that Israel will use its superior military to defend themselves from threats. The leaders of Hamas are also at fault for getting their own people killed by attacking a foe they cannot defeat.

I 100% agree that Israel has a responsibility to show more restraint than Hamas because they are more powerful. And I think that that's exactly what they do. Israel has a reputation for military professionalism. This incident is an example of that.

One little known fact it's that in Israeli army there is heavy involvement of lawyers in ongoing activities to make sure that things are as kosher as possible with regards to rules of engagement and international law. Ground units I believe have embedded video operators for same purpose.

Also there were long project (probably still ongoing) which tried to determine the "acceptable" amount of collateral damage (civilian casualties) under different operational scenarios, e.g. if there is somebody who about to shoot rockets into Israel or cross border to explode in a bus or go through underground tunnel to Israel just to shoot somebody how far is it acceptable to go to prevent it.

The bottom line, nobody in Israel interested in civilian casualties on Palestinian side, both because people are not a blood thirsty monsters and because every little incident will be in the news everywhere around the world and nobody really interested in it.

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