Videos shot at last Friday's riots at Bil'in and Na'alin offer a glimpse into the challenge faced by IDF soldiers at these flashpoints.
Arab rioters, volunteers from far-left international groups and Israeli anarchists regularly use Bil'in and Na'alin, two adjacent villages in the Modi'in region, as staging grounds for attacks against the IDF. The first video shows the build-up to violence and the violence itself, as IDF and Border Police respond with riot dispersal gear. The Arabs are heard cursing the IDF soldiers.
The second video shows rioters coming near the IDF and refusing orders to step away from the separation barrier. In this video the Arabs are shouting out to the IDF soldiers that they are only carrying out a nonviolent demonstration and should therefore be allowed to continue. Here, too, the soldiers respond with riot dispersal gear.
Both videos were posted by The Blue Eye, a website which monitors varied Arab sources.
Observers often ascribe the IDF soldiers' hesitation to fire at Arab rioters to the tendency by the media, "human rights" groups as well as Arab and Jewish radical-left Knesset Members to fiercely denounce any use of force by the IDF and to the fact that IDF investigations of such instances often end in harsh punishment for the soldiers involved.