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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

> US authorities...issued a warning to India’s government over concerns it was involved in the plot

I'm interested in how some of these diplomacy decisions actually play out. I'm hoping some insider writes a book later.

Compare, for example, the case with Shireen Abu Akleh. It seems very clear she was deliberately killed by the IDF. She was an American citizen, wearing full press gear. As far as I can tell, the US never even gave a "stern warning" to Israel.

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> the US never even gave a "stern warning" to Israel

Washington publicly demanded an independent investigation, in effect calling the Israeli investigation a sham. The FBI even got involved. That’s likely the reason Israel ever admitted that it was an Israeli bullet that killed her.

Also, as other mentioned, getting killed abroad is night and day from getting killed at home.

There's a pretty big difference between a soldier during the heat of a firefight shooting someone that (at a distance) they might genuinely perceive as a threat vs a targeted assassination of a political enemy while they eat dinner.

The Mossad is certainly capable of killing people in more low profile ways. There's no reason to believe this was ordered at a high level. Most likely, it was an individual soldier's fault.

And the fact that she had press gear on is really not the kind of guarantee one might hope.

Here's a video of a "medic" grabbing a downed Hamas fighter's AK47 to give it to another fighter so they can use it to try to kill IDF soldiers:

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/17rff07/west...

Even the IDF isn't trying to say anything like that. They say it was "accidental". Though there's lots of convincing analysis it was very deliberate. Where the shooter would have been shooting right at 2 people, nobody else in their sights, with blue vests/helmets and "PRESS" labels.

That's actually very much what I'm saying. It may have been accidental in the sense that it was not the deliberate plan of anyone, but happened during combat, due to a soldier's bad/unethical judgement call.

How about these? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinatio...

What about them? Almost all of those are examples of the IDF targeting enemy militants who are actively involved in military operations against Israel, many of which have murders innocent civilians.

And e.g. a few scientists, politicians and random civillians. And I'm not sure it's according to international law to assassin even "enemy" officers.

But who cares, right?

Seems pretty obvious that the theme among those killings is self-defense. And if a scientist is working on Iran's nuclear weapons program, that counts as self-defense in my book. If someone is a "politician" of an active terrorist organization, that's also fair game to my mind. Bin Laden could be deemed a "politician" by some, but he would be more honestly categorized as a terrorist leader.

If Israel's goal was to kill civilians, they could kill millions of civilians any time they want. They go through effort not to kill civilians.

But I'm in total agreement with people arguing that the IDF should go much further in preventing civilian deaths, even if it results in more IDF deaths, which it likely would.

So if some intelligence agency deems e.g. Ben-Gvir a "politician" of active terrorist organization, it's OK to assassinate him in Israel? How about scientists working on Israel's "possible" nuclear weapons program?

It was probably an individual decision rather than high-level but that's only because the Israeli leadership has normalized killing Palestinian civilians and the military personnel know there will be no repercussions unless it is so bad that they can't cover it up.

They used the normal playbook in this case (blame Palestinian terrorists) and when there was enough evidence to disprove that assertion they just threw up their hands and said "accident" and that was it.

Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. And if it was completely deliberate, with no mitigating circumstances, I'd be in favor of the responsible person being imprisoned for a very long time.

To be clear, I am saying it was probably deliberate but only the decision of the local forces rather than from up on high.

It seems a bit different. The claim is that she was in the area where the IDF was capturing terrorists. I don't know if the IDF intentionally targeted her like some claim, but there is at least some plausible deniability that Israel has that India doesn't.

A cursory search for Shireen Abu Akleh says she was killed by an Israeli soldisr in the west bank. American citizens dying in a foreign country is not a sovereignty threat

Yes, it's a somewhat different diplomacy issue. Surely, though, a citizen of your country being killed by an allied country's military, that you give billions of dollars to every year, is...an issue of some magnitude?

If this is indeed Indian government they are aware they are conducting an opp on US soil. I have hard time imagining IDF has a policy of deliberately targeting US Citizens.

>I have hard time imagining IDF has a policy of deliberately targeting US Citizens.

I agree with that, but I think it's fairly easy to assume they have a policy of deliberately targeting journalists, the citizenship probably didn't come into play in the decision.

Looking at the history even if such policy exists they are def. trying to avoid targeting western journalists. As sad as it sounds if she looked like a westerner she would prob be alive. On the other hand I have no clue clue if Hamas etc. have history of using vests and other press gear as cover in their ops.

> even if such policy exists

Compare the number of journalists killed in combat for any past entire year globally, and journalists killed in the last 5 weeks in Gaza, the West Bank, and southern Lebanon.

Edit: I did mean "globally". Not compared to some single conflict. Compare to all journalists killed in combat, everywhere, for 2022, 2021, etc. As opposed to 6 weeks in small defined regions.

I don't think there is an equivalent war zone to compare too. Say in Ukraine the front line is 1500 km long vs Gaza is tiny. If majority of journalists were killed from gun fire that would be fairly conclusive if they are killed from shelling or airstrikes it would be less clear.

Re:Edit the point is still the same if the cause is gun shot it's fairly conclusive if the cause is airstrike or shelling than it's more likely to be collateral damage.

More collateral damage to journalists than the sum total of what happened across an entire year across the entire globe. That doesn't raise an eyebrow?

This is most covered conflict playing out in very constrained area again if most deaths are from air strikes or shelling to me it would be indication that collateral damage is more likely explanation if most deaths are from targeted small arms fire it would be indication that journalists are being targeted.

The most recent journalists killed in Lebanon was an aerial strike that looks very targeted.[1] Much like a prior incident from October 13th.[2]

There was also a specific aerial bombing of a journalist's two story home that looks very targeted.[3]

Counting just face to face killings seems flawed. It really appears like they have some flow of intelligence to act on in many ways.

[1] https://news.sky.com/video/israeli-airstrike-on-south-lebano...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/reuters-videograph...

[3] https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-strike-kills-family-repo...

There are pretty few details for me to make a judgment to be honest. From me observing Ukraine war journalists at/or close to the front line are generally with mil. units at or near military positions. So how would you distinguish ? The links you provide have 0 details other than journalists being in an area where active fighting or fire exchange is happening. If journalists are in an open area not near military units assets or positions and get hit that would obviously indicate they were specifically targeted.

You do know for tens of millions of Americans rapture and eventual salvation is not possible until Jews are firmly settled in the holy land. Israel has the backing to kill as many as necessary. Who is Shireen Abu Akleh?

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