JERUSALEM (AP) — The reprimand of an Israeli soldier — who was caught on video cursing and pointing a cocked gun toward the head of a Palestinian teen — has triggered the biggest outpouring of frustration by Israeli soldiers in years about their service in the West Bank.

Thousands posted messages of support on social media for the infantry soldier after the army said he apparently violated norms of behavior during a shoving match in Hebron, where several hundred radical Israeli settlers guarded by soldiers live in daily friction with tens of thousands of Palestinians.

The protest campaign appeared largely aimed at the army's perceived failure to back the soldier, rather than any moral judgments about Israel's 47-year military occupation of the West Bank. Some critics said the video reflected daily realities there and it was hypocritical to portray the confrontation, and the soldier's behavior, as unusual.

The video, shot about a week ago, begins when one of the teens stands close to the soldier and dares him in broken Hebrew to call the Israeli police. The teen then moves even closer. The soldier says: "Listen, you better not do this again, do you understand?" He shoves the teen who says in Arabic, "Lower your hand." The soldier quickly raises and cocks his weapon a few inches from the Palestinian.

Another young Palestinian suddenly appears behind the soldier who spins around with his rifle and calls out, "Hey." The first Palestinian tries to lead the second away from the soldier, who kicks at them.

The soldier then curses and walks toward a Palestinian filming the scene. "Turn off the camera," he shouts as his weapon points half-way to the ground. "I'll put a bullet in your head." There's a break and the next scene shows the soldier walking away with the first Palestinian.

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In this image taken from video obtained from Youth Against Settlements, a group of Palestinian activ …

The footage was shot by Youth Against Settlements, a group of Palestinian activists, and aired last week on Israel's Channel 10 TV.

Issa Amro, the group's spokesman, said the incident took place outside Beit Hadassah, a settler enclave in the center of Hebron where the military heavily restricts Palestinian movement.

Amro, who was not present at the time, said that tensions flared before filming began. He said three Palestinians — including one who later appears in the video — were walking along the main thoroughfare outside Beit Hadassah when settlers yelled insults from a van and one of the Palestinians responded in kind. He said the trio was then detained for more than an hour by the soldier, who had been manning a nearby checkpoint.

A chief military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said that a review is underway but the army's initial position was that the behavior shown "did not seem to fall in line with what we expect from our soldiers, as far as conduct is concerned."

He said the second youth shown in the video was briefly detained on suspicion he had held a metal chain during the confrontation. Amro said the youth had held prayer beads. He also said Israeli forces repeatedly searched the offices of his group in recent days and made threats against the activists.

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In this image taken from video obtained from Youth Against Settlements, a group of Palestinian activ …

Lerner said the soldier faces 20 days in military jail for twice striking unit commanders, not for the incident on the video. Lerner said the scroll on Channel 10's initial report mistakenly said the soldier was being relieved of combat duty.

Still, the military's distancing itself from the soldier, identified only by his first name David, struck a nerve.

A Facebook page with the theme "I stand with David HaNahlawi" — slang for someone from the Nahal Infantry Brigade — scored almost 130,000 likes.

Boaz Golan, who runs a news website, said a Facebook page linked to his site received thousands of photos, many from soldiers. In some, groups posed with handwritten signs saying, "I stand with David HaNahlawi." In others, they arranged uniform insignia, combat boots or weapons next to such signs, not showing their faces.

Golan argued that soldiers must be allowed to use more force and be "given the ability to respond."

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In this image taken from video obtained from Youth Against Settlements, a group of Palestinian activ …

Many commentators said young conscripts sent to police the West Bank — war-won land the Palestinians claim for a state — face impossibly complex situations.

Yet there were sharp disagreements.

Some see the Hebron video as a reminder of the urgent need for a peace deal with the Palestinians, although peace talks broke down last month.

The soldier "is not the problem," said Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and military chief. "The real story is our inability to move forward in negotiations and get our soldiers out of there."

Yet activists said soldiers suspected of breaking rules of engagement are rarely prosecuted, suggesting regulations are easily broken. From 2009-2012, only 22 of 632 military investigations of violence by soldiers against Palestinians or their property ended in convictions, said the Israeli group B'Tselem.

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In this image taken from video obtained from Youth Against Settlements, a group of Palestinian activ …

Video footage of West Bank confrontations has become increasingly common, as Palestinian and Israeli activists use cameras to back up allegations of human rights violations by troops. But large-scale criticism of the army by soldiers remains rare in Israel, where service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women.

The military chief, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, said last week that Facebook does not replace clear communication between commanders and soldiers. He said the incident "raises (questions of) military ethics and we need to deal with them on all levels, and that's what we will do."

The Facebook campaign comes a decade after another protest by soldiers, including those who served in Hebron and formed a group called Breaking The Silence.

The group said it has since collected testimony from almost 1,000 soldiers to let Israelis know the moral price they pay when they send their sons and daughters to the West Bank as soldiers.

The two campaigns are different, with the current one apparently mainly seeking stronger army backing for soldiers, but share a message, said Yehuda Shaul of Breaking The Silence.

The current protest is essentially asking, "What do you want from him (the soldier)? That's how things work (in the West Bank)," said Shaul. The behavior shown in the video "is the price of occupation."

Video of West Bank clash triggers outcry

An Israeli soldier is reprimanded for pointing a gun at a Palestinian teen, but the incident raises larger questions.
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By Matt Robinson

DONETSK, Ukraine (Reuters) - His mistake was to run from the advancing mob, and that was enough for the men and women carrying clubs, knives and swords through Donetsk's Lenin district.

They set upon him. Beaten and bloodied, the unidentified man was saved, in a manner, by militiamen who dragged him through the crowd under metal shields, bundled him into the back of a car and drove him off at speed to an unknown fate.

No one could say what he'd done; he was a "provocateur", a term used by both sides of Ukraine's increasingly bitter divide to describe the other, but in the rebel-held east it means only one thing - a supporter of the "Fascist" government in Kiev.

It was a brutal picture of the mob-rule that has descended upon this city in eastern Ukraine, the biggest to fall to an armed uprising against a government in Kiev that wants to take the country west. Kiev blames Russia for fomenting the violence, a charged denied by Moscow.

Pro-Russian separatist leaders want a referendum on May 11 to declare Donetsk and the surrounding region an independent republic.

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Ukrainian National Guard soldiers guard a checkpoint outside of Slovyansk, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, …

Whatever the outcome, it won't be recognized by Kiev. The anger unleashed in the process will prove hard to rebottle, and points to a state descending into dangerous disorder, potentially civil war.

"We will not forgive Odessa!" the crowd chanted, a phrase that has quickly become the new rallying cry in towns across Ukraine's industrial east.

The deaths of more than 40 pro-Russian activists in a burning building during clashes in the Black Sea port on Friday have injected new venom into the fight for Ukraine.

Sixty-seven pro-Russian activists, detained by police during the unrest, were busted from prison on Sunday by a crowd that broke down the main gate.

The cry was first heard in Donetsk on Saturday, when a couple of hundred people smashed up the city's state security building as evening fell, then walked down the street and ransacked the business headquarters of the region's Kiev-backed governor, steel baron Serhiy Taruta.

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Pro-Ukrainian demonstrators march hold flares and make their way to the trade union building, in Ode …

'PEOPLE POWER'

They carried out chairs, crates of vodka and icons. Middle-aged women cheered young men in balaclavas, the new power in this city of one million people built on steel and coal.

"This was for yesterday! They're monsters, worse than monsters," said Tatiana Kamniva, who had joined the protest with her daughter. "This is just the beginning," she said.

On Sunday, the target was the military prosecutor's office, then the Lenin district council building, both of which were flying the Ukrainian flag.

Masked men in military fatigues and armed with automatic rifles made some attempt to marshal the crowd, which was blocked at the doors to the council building by other militiamen holding shields and clubs.

Ukraine Troops Move on Pro-Russian MilitantsPlay Video

The building belonged to the people and shouldn't be burned, a man said through a loud hailer. "Don't worry, we'll go west, and take Kiev," he said, trying to placate them.

A handful of policemen looked on, a helpless force in several eastern towns where armed gunmen walk the streets.

The head of the council turned up and opened the doors so the flag could be lowered and set alight. It burned weakly on the ground.

One woman, wielding a metal bar, lamented that she had wanted to smash something up, and yelled at the militiamen for taking away the man who had run from them.

There were similar scenes at the weekend in coastal Mariupol, south of Donetsk, where protesters torched a downtown branch of Privatbank, owned by an oligarch who backs the pro-European political forces in Kiev.

"In our town, the people are in power," said a 55-year-old former sailor who gave his name as Mikhail, surveying the damage.

His wife, Irina, said the arson was probably the work of more provocateurs trying to discredit the uprising. Nevertheless, Mikhail said, "They did right to burn it."

(Writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Janet McBride)

NEW YORK (AP) — The first openly gay Episcopal bishop, who became a symbol for gay rights far beyond the church while deeply dividing the world's Anglicans, plans to divorce his husband.

Bishop Gene Robinson has never been fully accepted within the more than 70 million-member Anglican Communion, which is rooted in the Church of England and represented in the United States by the Episcopal Church.

Robinson announced the end of his marriage to Mark Andrew in an email sent to the Diocese of New Hampshire, where he served for nine years before retiring in 2012.

Robinson would not disclose details about the end of their 25-year relationship but wrote Sunday in The Daily Beast he owed a debt to Andrew "for standing by me through the challenges of the last decade."

"It is at least a small comfort to me, as a gay rights and marriage equality advocate, to know that like any marriage, gay and lesbian couples are subject to the same complications and hardships that afflict marriages between heterosexual couples," Robinson wrote. "All of us sincerely intend, when we take our wedding vows, to live up to the ideal of 'til death do us part. But not all of us are able to see this through until death indeed parts us."

Robinson declined to comment further Sunday to The Associated Press.

The bishop endured death threats during his 2003 consecration and intense scrutiny of his personal life, and in 2006, he sought treatment for alcoholism. His election prompted some Episcopal dioceses and parishes to break away and establish the Anglican Church in North America with other theological conservatives overseas. Robinson was barred in 2008 by then-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams from the Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade global meeting of all Anglican bishops, as Williams struggled to find a way to keep Anglicans united.

But Robinson was also widely celebrated as a pioneer for gay rights, became an advocate for gay marriage and was the subject of several books and a documentary about Christianity, the Bible and same-sex relationships. He delivered the benediction at the opening 2009 inaugural event for President Barack Obama and, after retirement, became a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank with close ties to the White House.

Robinson, 66, had been married to a woman and had two children before he and his wife divorced. He and Andrew had been partners for more than a decade when Robinson was elected to lead the New Hampshire Diocese. The two men were joined in a 2008 civil union in New Hampshire, which became a legal marriage when the state recognized gay marriage two years later.

"My belief in marriage is undiminished by the reality of divorcing someone I have loved for a very long time, and will continue to love even as we separate," Robinson wrote. "Love can endure, even if a marriage cannot."

A spokeswoman for Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori referred requests for comment to the Diocese of New Hampshire. A spokeswoman for current New Hampshire Bishop Rob Hirschfeld cited an email he sent to local clergy and wardens urging prayer for Robinson and Andrew.

Robert Lundy, a spokesman for the American Anglican Council, a fellowship for theological conservatives, said the argument against gay marriage is based on the Bible and will not be helped or hurt by the dissolution of any one marriage.

"The teaching of the Bible and the Anglican Communion is very clear that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life," Lundy said in a phone interview.

The Rev. Susan Russell, an Episcopal gay rights leader in the Diocese of Los Angeles who preached at Robinson and Andrew's union, said the end of the men's marriage was tragic, but Robinson would remain an "icon of a faithful Christian man living out his vocation, not by his choice, but by his placement in history."

"Of course, he'll get some slings and arrows," Russell said in a phone interview. "But the paradigm has shifted so dramatically that people more and more get that our marriages are no different than anyone else's marriages, and that includes the reality that some of them fail, no matter our dreams and hopes."

By Oleksander Miliukov

ODESSA, Ukraine (Reuters) - Ukraine's Interior Minister said on Monday he had drafted a new special forces unit into the southern port city of Odessa after the "outrageous" failure of police to tackle pro-Russian separatists in a weekend of violence that killed dozens.

Fighting continued near the eastern city of Slaviansk where Ukrainian troops have been, somewhat tentatively, pressing a campaign to end pro-Russian rebellion. A Reuters correspondent said gunfire seemed to be coming closer to the city center.

The violence in Odessa, a southwestern port with a broad ethnic mix from Russians and Ukrainians to Georgians and Tatars, is seen as something as a turning point in Kiev; a warning of dangers if rebellion spreads beyond the Russian-speaking east.

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the new Odessa force was based on "civil activists who wanted to help the Black Sea city "in these difficult days". The entire leadership of the local police had been sacked and could face criminal action.

The Odessa violence was the deadliest since Moscow-oriented president Viktor Yanukovich fled to Russia in February and pro-Russian militants launched uprisings in the industrial east.

Russia urges U.S. to halt Kiev crackdownPlay Video

"The police in Odessa acted outrageously, possibly in a criminal fashion," Avakov said on his Facebook page. "The 'honor of the uniform' will offer no cover."

Ukrainian leaders have made it clear they see the police force across wide areas of the country as unreliable in the face of rebellion they say is backed by Moscow and led on the ground by Russian special forces. The units Avakov referred to emerged partly from the uprising against Yanukovich early this year.

That could fuel anger among the government's opponents, who accuse it of promoting "fascist" militant groups, such as Right Sector, which took part in the Kiev uprising over the winter.

Loss of control of Odessa would be a huge economic and political blow for Kiev, which accuses Moscow of scheming to dismember Ukraine, a country the size of France.

Odessa, a city of a million people, with a grand history as the cosmopolitan southern gateway for the tsars' empire, has two ports, including an oil terminal, and is a key transport hub.

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Pro-Russia protesters climb with a Donbass flag at the military prosecutor's office building in …

It would also heighten Western concern that Ukraine, already culturally divided between an industrial, Russian-speaking east and a more westward looking west, could disintegrate. As well as

humanitarian problems that could entail, neighboring NATO and EU countries would face a deep crisis in relations with Moscow, which supplies much of Western countries' energy via Ukraine.

Kiev's anger on Monday focused on the Odessa police decision to release 67 largely pro-Russian militants after supporters besieged and stormed a police station on Sunday.

The crowd of several hundred chanted "Odessa is a Russian city!" Russian is the first language of many of its residents.

DIPLOMACY

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A man (C), who is accused by pro-Russia protesters of being a "provokator", stands outside …

The militants had been arrested on Friday after hours of clashes, with the use of petrol bombs and small arms, on the streets of the Black Sea city. Pro-Russian supporters withdrew to a building that later burnt down with the loss of over 40 people - bloodshed that Moscow blames on Kiev's "provocations".

The exact circumstances of the blaze remain unclear but the deaths have become a cause célèbre for anti-Kiev activists across the south and east.

Avakov said other detainees had been transferred away from Odessa in the night to more central areas of Ukraine to prevent any premature release.

Germany's foreign minister said on Sunday he was pressing for a second international conference at Geneva to bring Russia and Ukraine together with the United States and European Union to settle the dispute. Moscow and Kiev accuse each other of wrecking a four-way accord to end the conflict signed at Geneva on April 17.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the Ukraine crisis in a telephone call and stressed the importance of "effective international action" to reduce tension, the Kremlin said on Sunday.

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A pro-Russia protester waves a Donbass flag from the top of the district council building in Donetsk …

A German government spokeswoman said they had also discussed a visit to Moscow on Wednesday by the head of the OSCE, the European security body which has been trying to mediate on the ground but saw some of its monitors held for a week by rebels.

Addressing hundreds of supporters of the Kiev authorities who gathered near the site of the blaze late on Sunday, newly appointed police chief Ivan Katerinchuk promised to bring those behind Friday's deaths to justice, whatever their allegiance.

"Glory to the Ukraine!" he said in a declaration redolent of the Kiev uprising against Yanukovich early this year.

"Like you, I want to restore law and order to Ukraine."

NATO commanders have said Russia might hope to control a swathe of southern and eastern Ukraine, including the annexed Crimea peninsula, all the way to the border with Transdniestria, the breakaway, pro-Moscow sliver of Moldova, just 50 km (30 miles) from Odessa, which is home to a Russian military base.

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Pro-Russia protesters wave a Donbass flag from the military prosecutor's office building in Done …

As well as crippling Ukraine, this would secure Russia additional warm water ports.

Kiev is organizing a presidential election for May 25.

However, as things stand, it would have trouble conducting the vote in many parts of the east, a circumstance that would allow Russia to declare any government emerging as bereft of legitimacy.

Russia denies ambitions to seize eastern Ukraine as it has annexed the Crimea peninsula but reserves the right to send troops to defend Russian-speakers if it deems necessary.

Separatists who have declared a "People's Republic of Donetsk" are planning a referendum on secession next Sunday.

The capital Kiev has remained quiet since the protests that forced Yanukovich to flee to Russia. But celebrations this week marking the anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War Two could be a source of tension.

(Additional reporting by Ralph Boulton, Natalia Zinets and Elizabeth Piper in Kiev, Maria Tsvetkova in Slaviansk and Matt Robinson in Donetsk; Writing by Ralph Boulton; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)