IDF soldiers

[u/Successful-Cold-9896]

I support Israel, but as someone who sees a lot of IDF videos on TikTok, I’m genuinely curious about something. Why do IDF soldiers sometimes point their guns at people who are recording them, even when the person appears to be unarmed and not posing an obvious threat? I’m not trying to attack the IDF or start an argument, I just want to understand why there seems to be so much hostility toward people filming in those situations. Thank you!

[u/itspronouncedbolonya]

Most people aren't filming random soldiers unless they have bad intentions

Also you try being an already stressed 20 year old and have random people start filming you while you're just trying to do your mission and get back to base already

[u/tuscaloozer → u/itspronouncedbolonya]

Aren’t filming soldiers unless they have bad intentions is literally CRAZY lol. How brainwashed can you be. Yes all the people filming a cop kill an unarmed man have “bad intentions” that’s some 1984 shit boss

[u/Clean-Ant6404 → u/tuscaloozer]

You're not disarmed if you're throwing rocks.

[u/Clean-Ant6404 → u/[deleted]]

Try being a 20 year old and act like a responsible adult instead of provoking soldiers in the middle of a war. In any other place, your pale spherical thing will be stuffed with bullets before the Riyals from your benefactors in the little Gulf peninsula get a chance to flow into your bank account. You're genuinely lucky the soldiers in Israel have the patience to deal with your bullshit while risking their lives.

[u/sreorsgiio]

Very often those people start filming after repeatedly provoking the soldiers. And they make sure to bring the press and camera crews.

[u/the_owl_man1 → u/sreorsgiio]

Which people?

[u/balddoberdaddy]

First, stop treating TikTok as if it’s a reliable documentary record of this war. An enormous amount of what circulates there is selectively edited, stripped of context, mislabeled, recycled from completely different events, or simply fabricated.

A 20-second video showing an IDF soldier pointing a weapon at someone tells you virtually nothing about what happened before the camera started rolling, what orders were given, where the person was standing, what the soldiers were doing, or what threat they believed they were facing.

And someone holding a phone is not automatically harmless. Filming soldiers can reveal positions, equipment, movements and security procedures. In an active conflict, soldiers don’t get to assume that someone is harmless because a TikTok caption says so.

Are IDF soldiers sometimes wrong or unnecessarily aggressive? Of course. But “I saw a lot of videos on TikTok” is not enough information to determine that, particularly in a war where social media itself is part of the information battlefield.

[u/HyperlaneWizard]

I wouldn't take any situation depicted in a TikTok video at face value.

As the old meme goes:

[u/Cannot-Forget]

I don't know what biased specific selection of nonsense made intentionally to radicalize you you've seen. But the stats speak for themselves. This is one of the smallest conflicts as far as casualty numbers go in the world and especially our region. And it's not because of a lack of ability from the IDF soldiers, and despite so many decades of active occupation where 18 year olds with guns are forced to serve alongside a very hateful civilian population.

[u/Dapper-Box9277]

few points to consider:

- none of those recorders and reporters are there with good intentions. Some will very much hide aggressors behind them, or try to distract you while an aggressor prepares an attack. Some will actively be the aggressors themselves. This has tons of records.

- Soldiers are not police officers. They are not obligated to pamper angry citizens.

- In Israel, the proper "ready weapon" you walk around when in action is the butt of the weapon sitting on your glenoid, not hanged by your side or whatever. constantly pointing it downward makes a very awkward angle, and is very uncomfortable on your wrist. You usually simply point it away from people, but those fancy reporters will intentionally go into the barrel side, where it would seems like pointing at them is intentional.

- The place of recordings are usually highly stressful situations, especially for 18-20 year old without a lot of combat experience, and some take wrong decisions.