Musar sur Les Nombres 31:5

וימסרו מאלפי ישראל . "Thousands of Israelites were handed over, etc." (31,5); Rashi comments that "the Torah here informs you how beloved Israel's leaders were by their charges. As long as Israel had not heard that their leader Moses was about to die, they themselves sometimes assumed such a threatening posture that Moses said to G–d: "They are close to stoning me!" (Exodus 17,4) Now that they had been told that Moses was to die after the punitive expedition against Midian, they refused to undertake that expedition and had to be forced." Why does Rashi include the former statement of Moses "they are about to stone me!," as part of the praise Israel is entitled to?