Starting to do guard duty with border police officers was a shock, because it was a completely different approach in perceiving things. In no time, discussions between my platoon and the border police officers evolved into ‘what would you do if…’

What topics did you discuss? We talked a lot about, at what stage do you start using violence and what sort of violence. If, say, he pushes you a bit, what do you do.

A Palestinian? Yes. A Palestinian pushes you a bit, so what do you do. Their answer of course was to immediately pin him to the ground. And the answer that it shouldn’t be so automatic, really stunned them. Even verbal violence. If he curses your family, what do you do? "Immediately strike him with the butt of the weapon." [To me] it’s clear that if a Palestinian swears at me, I won’t care. I’m standing there and it isn’t… if he approaches me, that’s a different matter. I think guard duty there (in Hebron) simply wears you down. This routine of constantly preparing for an upcoming incident, kind of makes us want it to happen, to put the skills we’ve learned to use. I’ve heard this a lot there, too: “I really want to shoot the motherfucking terrorist who will try me, already.” You’re worn down by nothing happening, nothing happening, and you're also expecting something to happen. And I’m the guest [there] and he (the border police officer) spends a whole year at the same posts and knows all the people passing by, knows all the Palestinians who come to pray by name. I’m the guest and suddenly [I] harshly criticize the whole situation. But it’s their routine and I suddenly come and undermine his reality.

Did you feel as if you were harming his sense of righteousness, that the end justifies the means? That was actually what I was trying to harm for him. I didn’t want to harm his sense of security.

I’m sure he didn’t enjoy abusing Palestinians. But he was indifferent to it in some sense, relatively indifferent to the suffering of Palestinians. I think the service does that. He was more indifferent to that.

The question is if it comes from a place of indifference in him, or from the feeling that the end justifies the means. I don’t really think it’s that. It’s what I said before: on the one hand [there’s] the indifference, and on the other, the expectation to use the tools I’ve been given. A musician who practices so much and just wants to perform already, that’s the feeling. I also felt that in my platoon.