Hamas is the locally elected government. Gaza not allowed to have any military to defend themselves? Isreal free to inflict as much collateral damage as they want upon anyone, but anyone else following the same rules is a terrorist?
While there remains some Arab support for informal, low-level violence directed towards Israel, ever since Black September etc. the Palestinians not being able to have a formal military to defend themselves is what all their neighbours can agree on, not just Israel.
I'm not going to participate in what is bound to be a flamewar on this topic, so I'll probably just contribute with this single comment.
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.
> Gaza not allowed to have any military to defend themselves?
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.
By the logic of that tweet, the CIA was hiding behind and deliberately using the civilians working in the WTC complex as human shields to hide from the Saudi 9/11 militants looking to remove US military bases from Saudi Arabia.
Geez, by that logic some collateral civilian damage is acceptable if it gives a nation grounds to attack someone they’ve always wanted to get rid of???
I must have put on my tinfoil hat this morning. Sorry!! :)
I really don't want to go down the endless list of comparisons but I don't think anyone warned the civilians in the world trade center just before it was hit. But in the case of the AP office:
"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....
I could give other examples, but if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 1993 WTC bombing was not enough of a warning that that complex was a target, I don't know what would be. Mohammed succeeded on his second try.
John P. O'Neill of the FBI headed that investigation and he left the FBI and was head of WTC security on the day of the attack. He told people he thought he expected another attempt.
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.
Now, sure, I know the reply will be that Hamas also violates the Geneva convention routinely. And then everyone will dive in to scream about how the other side did it first.
And nothing will get better, because the sad truth is that Hamas, the IDF and the right wing Israeli coalition are in effect allies in a coordinated struggle against moderates on both sides who'd (amazing, I know) prefer not blowing people up. Politics on the Paletstinian side are harder to analyze, but for sure Likud needs an active Hamas adversary to stay in power. They're barely hanging on every election.
Realistically there is no such thing as a war without the destruction of civilian assets. What do you suggest Israel should do if Hamas is firing rockets at them from within a city?
There are a lot of people who do want to blow each other up and that's just life
> There are a lot of people who do want to blow each other up and that's just life
Right, but the notable intersection with US policy for non-Israeli folks like me is that the responds then becomes: maybe we should stop buying them bombs to do it with.
As I mentioned, right now the people with the bombs on both sides of that border have a very clear built-in incentive to use them. Take the incentive away and let's see what happens.
No evidence was provided for that claim, and I don't think it's a coincidence they decided to blow up a building that had the offices of journalists critical of Israeli foreign policy.
This article and the linked article with more details don't mention the name: it was Jala Tower. It also had residential apartments in it, which this statement doesn't mention either.
They were still streaming live right after the building blew up... it doesn't take much equipment to do it nowadays... here for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-upyPouRrB8
They don’t mean because of material damage, it is due to the clear signal sent that Israel is willing to use military action against the media. obviously this is going to reduce the coverage as not all journalists are willing to risk their lives to cover a story.
They weren't the only media organization in the building, and I presume they do indeed have offices in cities where major news repeatedly breaks.
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.
Someone please educate me: What is the significance of this? Why would Israel bomb this building and tell people to evacuate? I'm not familiar. Is it normal for them to announce evacuation?
They have to pretend to have some humanitarian concerns. As for why they did it, the notice pretty much sums it up. To prevent media coverage. They also bomb schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings because a member of the locally elected government might have stopped by one time five years ago.
It is standard operating procedure for Hamas to operate communication, command and control centers inside tall residential buildings. For example to synchronize 100 rocket launches to overwhelm iron done protection.
Since 500+ missiles are still being launched daily at Israeli civilian cities, Israel is slowly but methodically destroying any means necessary to launch those missiles.
It's common for them to announce evacuation, yeah.
The government in Gaza has been firing rockets at Israel for the past few days; Israel says that this attack is a direct military response to the rockets, although (as you can see upthread) others dispute that story.
Terrorist organizations ("elected" or not) don't usually contain themselves to just their evil bases and well defined areas.
Given that Israel believes this is a legitimate target against Hammas (whether it contains intelligence, weapon caches or weapon manufacturing), the target itself are not the people occupying it. That's why, in order to minimize casualties while still operating a war effort, they notify and allow ample time to evacuate the building
APs vague "we were notified" and "narrowly evacuated" is an exaggeration, they were notified by the Israelis themselves and given time to evacuate (that's why they don't mention any casualties in that story, since they probably don't exist).
You could argue that no (primarily or not) civilian targets should be attacked ever but that's another subject
There is none. Just more noise in press than usual because AP was sitting in the building.
>Why would Israel bomb this building and tell people to evacuate?
Because Israel interested in taking out whatever Hamas physical assets there are in the building and not in killing civilians
> Is it normal for them to announce evacuation?
Yeap. Usually whoever occupies building get phone calls and SMSes hour or two upfront. This is usually followed by a "roof knocking" with specially developed munition that makes a lot of noise. Only after this bombing commences
>All accounts of phone calls I've seen indicate that they come just a few minutes before the attack
Probably warning time proportional to building size. Over last few days few 13 floors buildings went down with zero casualties and there were multiple recordings of it filmed from cameras positioned on tripods. It's not something that you can do with "few minutes warning before attack"
I've yet to see any evidence of the importance of the building other than the fact it housed the press. What does Israel gain from bombing the building other than suppressing and disrupting the media? What physical asset could have possibly been in that building that could not have been relocated in the preceding hour?!
It housed some hamas offices. Even if they took out some computers, disrupting operations (communication, etc) still achieves targets.
Given modern technology (satellite and mobile links), it's hardly possible to "suppress and disrupt the media" as everybody can see. If there is somebody who does suppression of media in gaza it will be hamas: wrong reporting and you are in best case expelled an in worst case dead.
What you said about disrupting operations in the building applies to the media organizations in the building, too. There is a gaping logical chasm between these two statements:
> Even if they took out some computers, disrupting operations (communication, etc) still achieves targets.
> Given modern technology (satellite and mobile links), it's hardly possible to "suppress and disrupt the media" as everybody can see.
Disrupting media operations by blowing up their facilities and equipment is clearly deleterious to their ability to report news. You claim that media organizations are largely unaffected but speculate that Hamas operations in the same building are affected. I find it difficult to wrap my head around the mental gymnastics required to believe those two things simultaneously.
It's like saying without evidence, "Verizon's operations in the World Trade Center were basically unaffected on 9/11, but Morgan Stanley's operations there were crippled."
There is a difference between media uploading media files and posting articles and for example intelligence/command center that have physical termination of multiple, physical secure lines of communications.
Media can take their laptops, get out and keep on uploading stuff 5 minutes later.
In case of intelligence/command center it will takes weeks to bring all the physical lines to new "secure" location in the city and to get/hookup whatever equipment is used to terminate them.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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'm pretty much aligned with the Israeli side on almost everything, and I 100% agree with Israel's right to defend itself. But this argument of "we announced the bombing of that building in advance" is utter bullshit. By the same logic, Hamas also warned before launching the rockets, does that make it any less wrong?
There is some difference between precision bombing of a single building after advance warning was given to those who reside inside and indiscriminate shooting of MLRS like systems into civilian area after saying "we will shoot rockets into Tel Aviv"
If the tech is purely defensive then I don't see exactly what the irony would be. You could even set up a third party to administer two-way defense systems in order to prevent anyone from reverse engineering the technology.
All the Isrealies need to do for lasting peace is stop forcing families out of thieir homes. Its unfortunate the world does not pressure them to do so.
I've read that there was a Supreme Court case on these properties and Jews held the land title since the Ottoman Empire days.
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".
Every time my attention is captured by a one-sided article like this about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, whether it favors one side or the other, I look online to see whether there's another side to the story. As always, there is[0][1][2].
If your goal was to clarify the dispute, I think you chose a poor article with which to do so. It is difficult to determine who is credible and who is not among many of these specialty publications and nonprofits, and they are rarely circumspect. I doubt that there is a clear legal history to how one family or sect owns land that another family or sect has lived on for half a century or more. It doesn't pass the smell test. In the US we would perhaps discuss prescriptive easement or adverse possession, but in Israel and Palestine most of the legal arguments seem like a smokescreen for strong-arm tactics.
Those articles are pretty much absent of any facts with regards to this dispute, while article that I posted presents details of legal cases over past 40 or 50 years and go back 140 years ago to time when land in question was purchased during days of Ottoman empire
In simple terms, this is a situation where you have two sides full of people willing to launch missiles at children. Until that dynamic changes, this is never getting resolved.
Imagine Nazis arguing during the Holocaust arguing that Jewish “terrorists” were also killing Nazis and that both sides were in the wrong, and nothing could really be done until the Jewish people stopped fighting their oppressors.
Israel is the only country in the world bought with money. so they don't know what it means to use disproportionate force. however, they have suffered the greatest pain in the world in the past. Most of all, they should understand how great pain and death hurt.
96 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] threadhttps://twitter.com/IDF/status/1393565656621137920?s=20
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.
By the logic of that tweet, the CIA was hiding behind and deliberately using the civilians working in the WTC complex as human shields to hide from the Saudi 9/11 militants looking to remove US military bases from Saudi Arabia.
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.
John P. O'Neill of the FBI headed that investigation and he left the FBI and was head of WTC security on the day of the attack. He told people he thought he expected another attempt.
- 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.
Still, blowing up civilian assets deliberately to get at nearby targets is supposed to be a war crime. There's like a whole treaty about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Geneva_Convention
Now, sure, I know the reply will be that Hamas also violates the Geneva convention routinely. And then everyone will dive in to scream about how the other side did it first.
And nothing will get better, because the sad truth is that Hamas, the IDF and the right wing Israeli coalition are in effect allies in a coordinated struggle against moderates on both sides who'd (amazing, I know) prefer not blowing people up. Politics on the Paletstinian side are harder to analyze, but for sure Likud needs an active Hamas adversary to stay in power. They're barely hanging on every election.
There are a lot of people who do want to blow each other up and that's just life
Right, but the notable intersection with US policy for non-Israeli folks like me is that the responds then becomes: maybe we should stop buying them bombs to do it with.
As I mentioned, right now the people with the bombs on both sides of that border have a very clear built-in incentive to use them. Take the incentive away and let's see what happens.
What are those treaties for?
https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1392197029355470848
> Our goal is only to strike terror.
That's part of the rationale for listening to journalists.
I get the impression this was part of the intention...
I think he did in that case, but of course it causes psychological damages among other things....
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...
Since 500+ missiles are still being launched daily at Israeli civilian cities, Israel is slowly but methodically destroying any means necessary to launch those missiles.
Seems fishy.
The government in Gaza has been firing rockets at Israel for the past few days; Israel says that this attack is a direct military response to the rockets, although (as you can see upthread) others dispute that story.
Terrorist organizations ("elected" or not) don't usually contain themselves to just their evil bases and well defined areas.
Given that Israel believes this is a legitimate target against Hammas (whether it contains intelligence, weapon caches or weapon manufacturing), the target itself are not the people occupying it. That's why, in order to minimize casualties while still operating a war effort, they notify and allow ample time to evacuate the building
APs vague "we were notified" and "narrowly evacuated" is an exaggeration, they were notified by the Israelis themselves and given time to evacuate (that's why they don't mention any casualties in that story, since they probably don't exist). You could argue that no (primarily or not) civilian targets should be attacked ever but that's another subject
There is none. Just more noise in press than usual because AP was sitting in the building.
>Why would Israel bomb this building and tell people to evacuate?
Because Israel interested in taking out whatever Hamas physical assets there are in the building and not in killing civilians
> Is it normal for them to announce evacuation?
Yeap. Usually whoever occupies building get phone calls and SMSes hour or two upfront. This is usually followed by a "roof knocking" with specially developed munition that makes a lot of noise. Only after this bombing commences
Probably warning time proportional to building size. Over last few days few 13 floors buildings went down with zero casualties and there were multiple recordings of it filmed from cameras positioned on tripods. It's not something that you can do with "few minutes warning before attack"
Given modern technology (satellite and mobile links), it's hardly possible to "suppress and disrupt the media" as everybody can see. If there is somebody who does suppression of media in gaza it will be hamas: wrong reporting and you are in best case expelled an in worst case dead.
> Even if they took out some computers, disrupting operations (communication, etc) still achieves targets.
> Given modern technology (satellite and mobile links), it's hardly possible to "suppress and disrupt the media" as everybody can see.
It's like saying without evidence, "Verizon's operations in the World Trade Center were basically unaffected on 9/11, but Morgan Stanley's operations there were crippled."
Media can take their laptops, get out and keep on uploading stuff 5 minutes later.
In case of intelligence/command center it will takes weeks to bring all the physical lines to new "secure" location in the city and to get/hookup whatever equipment is used to terminate them.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2zto3UmNIE
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?
Time of reference is important! It significantly alters the perception.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeZ4yXyzUG0
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.
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.
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.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_the_Radio_Te...
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.
They were still terrorists, regardless of if they phoned it in beforehand.
I don't remember anybody, for example, asking USA to provide taliban with stingers or c-ram for protection, "to even out playing field"
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".
If your goal was to clarify the dispute, I think you chose a poor article with which to do so. It is difficult to determine who is credible and who is not among many of these specialty publications and nonprofits, and they are rarely circumspect. I doubt that there is a clear legal history to how one family or sect owns land that another family or sect has lived on for half a century or more. It doesn't pass the smell test. In the US we would perhaps discuss prescriptive easement or adverse possession, but in Israel and Palestine most of the legal arguments seem like a smokescreen for strong-arm tactics.
[0] http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/israels-screen-of-le...
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/east-jerusalems-sh...
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/11/sheikh-jarrah-resid...
Imagine Nazis arguing during the Holocaust arguing that Jewish “terrorists” were also killing Nazis and that both sides were in the wrong, and nothing could really be done until the Jewish people stopped fighting their oppressors.
Fact remains: both sides are willing to kill children in order to advance their cause.