And nobody is more innocent than “our soldiers”. Thus attacking soldiers is always viewed as most vile and terroristic, and kidnapping soldiers more vile than, say, raping prepubescent girls (who are also innocent, but not as innocent as soldiers, for example, they may dress provocatively). For example, the operation Pillar of Something (cloud, smoke?) was preceded with attacks on soldiers.

This makes it difficult to prosecute soldiers for anything other than disobedience of orders. And it automatically reduces the severity of any transgression.

Example 1: Dilawar, a taxi driver, died after being beaten and tormented for 5 days and nights in Bagram base. Quite a few soldiers of various ranks were involved, and a black sheep provided details to the press. Ensuing investigations did not manage to exonerate everybody, so one soldier was sentenced to 2 months of jail.

Example 2: an Azeri officer, while invited to the course of English organized by NATO in Budapest killed another participant, an Armenian officer, with an axe while the latter was asleep. Since he was tried in Hungary, he was not found innocent there (not “our soldier”) and got a life sentence. After 8 years he was transferred to Azerbaijan to serve the rest of his sentence. He promptly got presidential pardon, release from prison and promotion from captain to major, to the jubilant reaction of the public.

In my hope, the village creation protests are an attempt to wedge a different response from the Israeli State. So long as no plea is valid, soldiers will be mostly immune. The Court could change this by demanding redress for injuries, but without several large mistakes by the IDF I doubt such will occur. So the village protests keep offering an alternative form of engagement, unrecognized as of now.