Sometimes I think Ha'aretz, admittedly one of the less militaristic newspapers in Israel, sugarcoats its English edition. Consider this lovely incident:
In another instance, soldiers at roadblocks choked 10-year-old Palestinians with their bare hands until the children passed out. "Hebron is like the Wild West and the army is the law," a soldier said. "We would see who could go without breathing the longest."
But here's what the Hebrew version said - I translated the rest:
"We would see who could go without breathing the longest. How do you check? You choke them. You block the trachea, push on the Adam's Apple. It's unpleasant. You look at your watch meanwhile, check who takes the longest to faint."
The English version of article talks about another incident where "one of the soldiers is accused of exposing himself." The Hebrew version says that one of the soldiers "was documented waving his penis in front of the face of a Palestinian detainee."
Of course, those involved will be put on trial, but it's worth noting what these soldiers' task is: enforcing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Consider this incident:
"We'd go on a patrol," one soldier told Channel 2. "If even one kid looked at us the wrong way, he'd be slapped. Rocks were thrown at us during one patrol, and we caught one of the kids who knew the perpetrators. We beat the crap out of him until he told us who did it." The soldier said that he and other soldiers tracked down a boy said to be involved, aged 14, and placed the tips of their rifles in his mouth. "We said, 'You want to die? Just say when and where,'" the soldier recalled.
Now compare it to another incident involving the same unit, recounted by a peace activist who took a video you can apparently see on the website:
"It was around noon; we were accompanying shepherds from the village of Tuba to a nearby Wadi, because the settlers regularly hassle them and throw stones in our direction," he recounted.
"The settlers demanded that the shepherds evacuate the area, and IDF soldiers who arrived at the scene also attempted to clear the Palestinian shepherds from their grazing fields; then, in the middle of the argument and for no apparent reason, the soldiers pulled down their pants and exposed their rear ends to us."
These soldiers will all return to civilian life in Israel in a year or two.