In Hebron, which of the roads are sterile?

David road. That’s a sterile road. In our area, David’s the only sterile one, I think.

What about the wholesale market?

That, too. But I think that’s the Tnuva road, too, no?

The wholesale market is in Avraham Avinu.

So okay, that, too, totally sterile.

The gate there?

Totally sterile.

Were there problems at the wholesale market?

There were break-ins, and once these two girls tried to set fire to something.

What do you mean, “break-ins”?

They tried to break in with crowbars. After all, everything there is abandoned. Once I remember these two girls set fire to something, I don’t remember what exactly. I thought: Two girls, what the fuck? What do they want? And there was this thing, we talked about it, where Jews walk through there, they don’t give a shit, even where they’re not supposed to be. So there was one time they walked through, I think, Jews weren’t allowed to go by foot from Shlomo post to David road toward the school and toward the Pharmacy junction, only by vehicle. I’m pretty sure. So once they just walked through. We tried to stop them, and in the end, we heard on the radio, “It’s okay, let them go.” What could we do? We tried to keep them back, it didn’t work.

Officially there’s no ban on them walking.

I don’t know. I have no idea. Could be.

Are there official prohibitions for Arabs?

Of course.

They tell you in the briefing?

If you see an Arab on David road, it’s the suspect-arrest procedure. Always.

You know that’s illegal?

Really? No. Why?

David road was open all the time, but in fact the army closed it.

Too bad no one told the soldiers. I didn’t know that. I don’t know, listen, so I broke the law. I didn’t know about that. I know that back then, when we were there, and I was deputy company sergeant major, the Supreme Court ruled that they could use the David road, the whole way. I remember it was a real mess, it made life really hard for the army. We didn’t understand the ruling, it was really pointless. Like I said, as soldiers all we wanted was no rioting, violence. And that just created violence. It’s not as if the Arabs couldn’t get to the cave. Again, obviously it messes up their lives, they’re stuck with it. But if you look at the scales and say, Okay, what would you prefer? That they have to walk another five minutes, or have riots?

You’re sure there would have been clashes?

Positive. Sure thing. You know ——, the sergeant? I remember he once told me that in his time, there’d been the David road patrol. There was this market, on the Arab part of the road, that is. He was at post 38, he told me, everything there had been more . . . less of a mess. I simply couldn’t imagine it. I said, How can that be? Because now, any Arab who’d show up there, no way, it’s like they’ve got intelligence, the settlers would be all over him, immediately.

Did that happen?

Yeah, sure. Plenty of times, plenty, all that hitting. That’s what happens there, it’s very quiet in terms of activity, no stone throwing. Occasionally, but not . . . I’ve been in other areas where stone throwing goes on all the time, every day. Over there, there’s none of that, not too many serious outbursts. A few punches here and there, and then separate them, end of story. There’s a kind of status quo. But when there’s a real clash, it’s like you’re in a movie. Wow, it’s a mess. That’s what’s so amazing in Hebron. It’s not a posting where lots of stuff happens, not much in the way of terrorist activity and stuff like that, but you get really screwed up there mentally because you don’t know what you’re doing there. You simply don’t know why.