I did settlement security detail with soldiers in Eshkolot and in another settlement nearby, I don’t remember what the name was. But when we were there, there was the settlement and some village a kilometer or two away. They work their land in the area there, five hundred meters away in the valley below. The settlement sits on the hilltop, and the Palestinians work the land in the valley below. What I remember—it’s a little hazy—is that one time they were out there working. All of a sudden the settlers go out—this is past the settlement border, although it was exactly where the settlement expansion was . . . so we ran to where the expansion was, where it was under construction. The settlers just yelled at them . . . they didn’t shoot or anything, but they drove them out of there. I don’t know if they left.

Who expelled them?

The settlement security coordinator came, called us over, deployed us, some other soldier and me. He said, “They’re crossing the boundary, they’re scouting us out, they’re . . .” Like what do I know? In short, he yells at them, I don’t know if they left. But I remember he came and started yelling at them, “Get out of here, get out of here!” Later I go on patrol with him in the vehicle, and he sees a little girl playing near the entrance to the settlement. She was on the access road into the settlement, but still outside the settlement fence—it was totally not part of the settlement. He sees this girl, and I hear him yell something at her in Arabic, from the megaphone, something like “Rasak.” I didn’t understand. I go to him, “What did you yell at the girl?” So he goes, “If you come around here again I’ll break your head.” Something like that. The situation there is that your commander is actually the settlement security coordinator. He’s the one who tells you what’s allowed and what’s not, where they can be, where they can’t be—he gives you authorization to shoot in the air, although in principle I’m the senior army commander—as senior as that is, right?—in the field. He can tell soldiers to shoot, with discretion. But in principle, he fixes policy. It’s not some military authority, some company commander, or an officer in the area, it’s the settlement security coordinator who decides what’s allowed and what isn’t. It’s pretty ludicrous, when you think about it, where a civilian tells the army what its limitations are and what the laws are.