The whole reaching for the gun thing is a clear provocation, hell, the whole thing was a provocation on her part, she’s not an activist – she’s a propaganda tool.

Police or the army in the US would absolutely never disperse a crowd by shooting at them. They often become violent and use teargas, but they have strategies for breaking up potentially violent protests that they use before they start killing people.

Have you ever been shot with rubber bullets? Every “less-lethal” projectile used has caused deaths and serious injuries, especially when they don’t shoot them at the ground for dispersal of a crowd but fire them point-blank at people’s faces and heads.

it looks staged to me

You know, you’re right. If you look carefully at the soldier’s back pocket, you can clearly see his SAG card sticking out.

They may not be hellbent on murder, but if you think that the U.S. military — or hell, just the police — would generally tolerate this kind of thing, you’re mistaken. Which can be taken to show that the Israeli military has incredibly restraint — but recent actions and the actions in this video indicate absolutely otherwise, which makes me ask the question, again, of why she was allowed to “get away with it.”

Cara, you’re absolutely right, I am surprised they let her that close without opening fire on her, she is caring a camera bag(?) which makes her a possible threat. As for throwing rocks, if you are within range to throw a rock you are within range to throw an incendiary device.

If I were an incredibly bloody-minded IDF soldier or Border Guard with tons of chutzpah, I might have arrested her on camera for going for the gun, suicide-terrorist style. But I’m a civilian medic, and not on-site anyway.

As for the Israeli military having “incredibly restraint,” there’s a huge difference between the actions of the military as a whole and the actions of individual soldiers.