During the Vietnam War, many American soldiers were killed because they tried to help "helpless - hungry" children that had grenades strapped to their backs. These two soldiers from IDF should have never been brought to trial let alone convicted to a prison sentence. Shame on you - judges - sitting on your thrones, without an ounce of combat experience among you.

Why,s a young Palestinian boy of nine years old wandering early morning with heavy bags etc. and no adult super vision in sight ,now who,s being silly,stupid Palestinian ?

Poor answer for you Matty ! In your post # 19, you write, "I can find scant evidence of any other professional state army using this morally repugnant practice to the same degree of the IDF." Post # 23 is answering you by giving you examples. He/she is not changing the subject at all. You simply cant give a substantial reply.

that was the tip of the iceberg. lots of incidents have yet to come to the light of nations.

Once upon a time human shields meant deliberately hiding amongst civilians so that the enemy had a choice of either leaving you alone or killing those civilians as well as you. Now it has no meaning. Thats the aim of Matty and his ilk to reduce all human rights violations to meaningless platitudes.

What about the criminal acts the German military committed during the second world war? Probably the worst genocide in the history of the planet. How any German politician or German citizen can then try and teach other countries how to behave is beyond me

When Israelis including soldiers commit crimes against innocent people, including Arabs the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public does not support this,and does try to bring the perpertrators to justice. At least these soldiers are being punished as they should. The Palestinians have never brought any of the murderers of Israeli civilians,including planners of suicide bombings, or shooting attacks to justice because to many in Palestinian society their heroes. And you call the Israelis "cowards"? Funny how people like you who express outrage over human rights abuses against Arabs never seem to concerned about that. Of course,considering the country you are from why should anyone be surprised? Looks like your additude towards Jews is not much different than your grandaparents. Shame on you for coming to this website, and continually posting the garbage you do.

if the Givati elite soldiers were well-trained on how to detect highly suspicious bags contain bombs, then using a 9 YO kid only aggravates the charges against them. Unless, they had set off their intention detectors to disregard the 9 YO kid's intention. it is all about risking Jewish life or goyim life, no politics, no military involved except for IDF rabbis advocating kids' murder.

Anyone who thinks it is allright for soldiers to use a child as a human shield is defending war crimes. Your post was right on the mark, Max. And these soldiers, who think they are "victims of Goldstone" are moral cowards. They don't have the guts to take responsibility for their own actions! They had a choice: to use or not to use a child as a human shield. Nobody forced them! If they feel hard done by, they should take their grievances to the Israeli army command, which has tolerated the "neighbour procedure" for far too long. The use of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers as human shields has been going on for years. This is the first case, where soldiers have actually been convicted for using civilians as human shields. Tough luck!

Send an e mail to Hamas & ask them.They are sure to answer you.

Be proud of what you did, even if it sad, I prefer a Palestinian mother crying than a Jewish mother. They voted for Hamas, they pounced us with rockets, they got what they were looking for. FULL SUPPORT TO YOU BOYS NO QUESTION AND SHAME ON YOUR COMMANDERS maybe the same breed which left the israeli soldier bled to death at Joseph's tomb!

With all the atrocities comitted by the Germans, you should just shut it up big. Remember the Nazis were sending their heavy trained doberman on the poor 6 year old kid of the Warsaw guettho - so please and again shut it up BIG.

..to send my son to to serve in the IDF.

German crimes in WW II are well known and not disputed. However, they were committed more than 60 years ago and Germany certainly isn't the country with a well deserved massive reputation problem right now. Therefore your calls of "shut up" don't cut any ice, I'm sorry to tell you (quite risible when being raised by a Brit anyway). The claim of " others are even worse" is a pretty pathetic attempt to justify these actions anyway.

Sorry,but you're not fooling me, or anyone else here. You have come on this website many times to bash Israel and Israelis. You are hardly objective on this subject in any sense. I have yet to see you denounce the Arabs for their refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist as a "Jewish" nation,or Palestinian Arab violence against Israeli civilians. There are a lot of countries in the world where human rights abuses occur all the time against oppressed minorities. Do you ever visit the websites of these countries to constantly denounce them? And it doesn't matter if *60* years, or more have passed that doesn't change the fact that the Germans under Hitler committed probably the worst atrocities and war crimes in the history of the world,and nothing you say, or do can change that fact. There are many Holocaust survivors as well as their children and grandchildren who live in Israel. When you come in here, and make the kind of remarks you do it is like rubbing salt in a gaping wound. They really don't need any lectures from you, or other Germans, or even any Europeans on morality,or justice. Of course,if you had any sense of morality, or common decency you would know that.