...You are clearly living in an alternate reality. This is a sign of mental illness. How very sad.

Armies love giving medals, pins, citations. If you examine the US they give citations for everything--not such a big deal. Yet, your statement "Once upon a time, refraining from shooting at innocents was the norm"...gives pause for thought. Our IDF is the best in the world--I pray they stay that way.

Next, giving citations to soldiers who are letting themselves be killed instead of killing the enemy.

Geez you guys wrote the book on being saps. Funny coming from a country where being a frier is the cardinal sin. I guess your understanding of Judaism is so poor that you have confused being a sap with the concept of chesed. Go ahead tell yourselves what a wonderful sapfest you have become. In the real world IE,,Generals etc you are looked upon as a very misguided army and nation.

He's just another jerk doing backflips seeing one thing and reinterpreting it to mean just the opposite. There is no winning with these people so their opinion means nothing

So what? If the world is entiled to codemn our soldiers, can't we do the opposite? I believe it's a good thing to encourage others. It's a de facto proclamation of "Prity of Arms". Too bad, Aviad, if this upsets you.

i would love to know whether you have ever seen action while serving in the military!? Imagine going into a house to take a live captive, having no idea of what kind of opposition awaits you on the other side of the door. imagine the family running and screaming all over the house where you know there are loose weapons ready to fire. never the less you keep your cool and make the arrest without hurting anyone, More than once!!! YES, that deserves a medal. and btw, more hareidim than ever are joining the army and the city with the biggest draft dodging is Tel Aviv, so lay off the hardei bashing. you obviously have major hate issues with Israel so perhaps its better that you live elsewhere so that the Israeli public doesn't have to hear you psychotic raving.

The Israel-hating world media constantly portrays the IDF as monstrous and blood-thirsty. They always overplay all the bad things and accidents, yet never show the IDF's normal, humane face. If it weren't for these citations, no one in the world would be aware of the IDF's morality. Of course for us Israelis who are well aware of the IDF's morality, these citations may seem quite trivial. Yet for the outer world, it is important to give this "contra", to show a different picture than they perceive.

That soldiers are willing to risk getting killed in order to avoid harm to enemy civilians may be morally uplifting but it is a bad policy. Yes, soldiers should do all that is possible to save civilians, but not if it comes at the cost of Israeli civilians or of their fellow fighters. For that effort they do deserve a citation and Aviad is a low-life piece of crap for making fun of them.

innocence killers? not event a half citation each?

Proclaiming any military "moral" is a paradox - Israel is like any other place and so is it's military - There are bad apples among the ripe tree. The ripe apples should be rewarded and the bad apples tossed.

has to much hate for Israel, and giving him the oportunity to publish his hate is wrong from YNews net

The whole IDF deserves a citation for moral behaviour.

I don't think soldiers who acted in poor judgment have been rewarded. The only rewards they get is publicity from the Anti-Israel left who makes more of their atrocities than what they simply are - blunders during war time. Every military has soldiers with too jumpy of a trigger finger, but I'd love to see those who condemn the IDF be in the fighting themselves and see how hard fighting in Gaza is.

Israel is lucky to have such fine soldiers. Here is America which is in decline I only hope our soldiers will consider the same before they shoot Americans. What? you say. It has happen before and with so many laws on the books here it don't take much more for people to rise up again. We are taxed to death and forced to codes and in home inspections it makes one sick. Freedom. Our men fight in some foiegn country for our freedom? They are ready to set up martial law in this country using some of the same men from Iraq, why? because they see what is coming. We the people of the United States of America are loosing our rights. Peace be with Israel always.

IDF found only 3 examples (reportedly) where israeli soldiers avoiding women and children, but what for other thousands of soldiers who shooted the babies in their mother womb etc. Now they celebrate wearing shirts '1 Shot 2 Kills'

not doing national service and I hope the current government will set enforceable standards for this to occur. On the other hand, I think many Haredi would serve if their own requirements were also respected: Mainly this has to do with males serving under the supervision of women or serving with women in the same unit. These situations can easily be avoided by setting up units composed entirely of Haredim. I also realize that the Haredim are disliked by many seculars because they (Haredim) tend to keep to themselves and fail to relate to the rest of society. In addition, there are several sects which refuse to acknowledge the state of Israel and won't until the Messiah comes. This is a hard pill for the rest of us to swallow. They are also widely viewed as being parasites on society as a whole but, in fact, many do work in order to support their communities and most are the recipients of charitable donations from outside sources. The author of this article cannot contain his obvious disgust for the Haredi but his critiques are shallow and he shows no disposition to probe more deeply. I might add that neither are Palestinian Arabs required to complete national service but they do receive all the benefits of Israeli citizenship. I agree with Avigdor Lieberman regarding his formula: No national insurance without national service. This should apply to the Palestinians within Israel as well as to the Haredim. In addition, many sons and daughters of the elite and educated of Tel Aviv also avoid national service by utilizing private assessments from professional psychologists and psychiatrists. Tightening standards in this area with back-up assessments by professionals employed by the IDF would be in order in such cases. As to the citations being given to soldiers who strove to avoid hurting innocents in dramatic, perilous and tense situations, it's obvious that the author has never been faced with such a scenario and therefore has no clue how difficult it can be to function given the fact that any one of those socalled "innocents" is an unknown factor and may either act as a shield for the wanted suspect or else be an actual accomplice who remains a major threat to Israeli soldiers. All veteran policemen have also faced similar configurations and are witness to the inherent difficulties. Once again, the writer lacks knowledge, depth and empathy. I am surprised that YNet, a publication which I truly respect, has allowed this flimsy article into print.

from "Qardoba", disrespectful to islamize the spelling of this beautiful Andalusian city. The correct spelling is "Cordoba" as in Garcia Lorcas' haunting poem "... Cordoba, lejana y sola ..." but I suppose this is an example of what to expect as the cultures of Europe are taken over by Islam so maybe I should thank you for the warning. Incidentally, is your name really "Allen" or could it be, say, Mohammed"?

y u israelis smell Islam in anything against u? o wait...when one lacks logic, it criticizes non-relative attributes of others personallity like spelling of city and name etc

No Spaniard spells Cordoba "Qardoba" and you had every opportunity to correct yourself. What is relevant is your deceit as there is no way your real name is "Allen". What's worrispme is what Islamization will do to the beautiful cultures of Europe. Look what you did in Afghanistan to the magnificent Buddhist stone sculptures. You destroyed them because they didn't fit with your narrow fundamentalist definition of Islam. There were two flowering cultures developed by the Islamic populace: One in Andalucia in which multiculturalism abounded where the Moors spearheaded a unique cultural development along with the native Spanish, Gypsies and yes, Jews. Those days have been over, Allen, for about 700 years. The other great development in Islam was established in what was then known as "Persia" but tthis great culture with its magnificent architecture, poetry and textiles also ended about 700 years ago. Since then, Islam has been on a downward path and, in terms of culture, is really moribund. This is the problem, Allen, you cannot create a civilization by always blaming the other guy and by not reflecting on oneself. Islam today always blames the other for its lack of democracies, for its corruption, for its peoples' lack of education and for its deficit in terms of economic opportunities. That's why you must turn to the West. But when you do emigrate, you try to turn the new environment into an extended Islamic state with all its concommitant problems. Wherever Islam travels so too travels its "culture" of destruction and death. So back to my original concern, "Allen", you gave yourself away by spelling the name of the city of your supposed residence as "Qardoba". Implicit here is your refusal to show respect to the country which took you in. As I implied, Islam today has nothing to share and its only aim is to conquer. That's why nobody wants you as neighbours any more. Unfortunately for western Europe, the die is pretty well cast. The original populace all wish they hadn't let you in.

It's right. Well, "dear Aviad" admit to "Yet I have a problem" and I hope you beat the madness