What is a Jewish riot? Do you remember any such story? It angers them (the settlers) when, say, you try to drive them back to their settlement, so that they’ll, like, stop throwing stones at Palestinians. Then suddenly stones are also thrown at border police. There was this story during the period of plowing [season]. The plowing period is just like the olive harvest when you have to guard Palestinians (from settlers) and it needs to be coordinated with all the areas in which there’s friction. One of the officers in the District Coordination Office (DCO) went up to Yitzhar on a Saturday morning. There was plowing on the route leading up to Yitzhar and settlers threw a stone at him. I know that as far as the senior ranks are concerned, that's one of the things that really got on their nerves.

That settlers threw a stone at an officer? Yes, it broke his car window and was a big deal. It's simply a vehicle that’s identified with the Civil Administration so… if you defend Palestinians – then you're not on our side.

How did that story end? He returned to the DCO, filed a complaint with the police, and that was it.

Throwing a stone on an IDF jeep is something that you encountered in the past year? By settlers? Yes, it happens a lot to border police jeeps. It simply bothered the DCO officer personally, [hurt] his ego. Somebody else would maybe simply… It's so arbitrary, these things. Maybe if the glass hadn't been smashed and it would’ve just hit the door then he would’ve taken it less seriously, he wouldn't have been as angry, it wouldn't have hurt his ego as much.

Is this the first time you encountered puncturing of the wheels of the brigade commander (the question addresses an incident in which the Samaria brigade commander's car was damaged while he was at a meeting in the settlement of Yitzhar)? Now it's the second time.

The second time this happened to the same brigade commander? Yes.

When was the first time? A few months ago. He parked, he was at a meeting with [the leaders] of the settlement, like, it was something formal. I don't know why nobody guarded his vehicle or something, and they came specifically to [damage] his car.

And this time? I think it was the same. He parked and was at a meeting with the settlement. The thing is that last time he didn't say anything about it, only the defense minister reacted and said it was a disgrace and all sorts of stuff. And he [the Samaria brigade commander] didn't issue a statement, as far as I saw. He continued meeting them, of course. He continued to have cordial relations and didn't want to create friction. I remember another time with a different commander in a unit that also had a stone thrown at them. A snowball of sorts with a stone inside. And it didn't hit them, so he didn't make a big deal out of it. If it had hit the target, it might’ve reached someone. And that's exactly the issue, it's so arbitrary. The commander decides if he'll report it or not, file a complaint with police or not.