In Charish there was this famous story about Baq’a al Gharbiyya, actually in the two Baq’as where soldiers trashed stands and stole cell phones.

What that, trashing stands? Vegetable stands.

That’s a shop. Going into a shop and trashing it? Sometimes the stand is outdoors, like watermelons or something.

In town? Yes, in town, sometimes on the main street. That happened.

Why trash them? Because the owner employed an illegal (a Palestinian illegal working in Israel), to teach him a lesson. Or all kinds of goods when vehicles are inspected, so the goods are trashed. There’s a lot of goods and vegetables passed along, so that’s trashed. What would he do? Or just little humiliations, throwing his ID on the floor so he has to bend down and pick it up. There’s the ‘honor games,’ which could start little with throwing an ID on the ground and reach the point of trashing a whole stand. What could he do? He employed an illegal, I’ll trash his stand, he’ll complain about me, he’ll have to admit he employed an illegal.

People didn’t come back to the base with loot? Again, in our situations, especially out of those plastic bags. But still, it could be toys, or batteries in packs of 20, not bad. So yes, it’s looting, and for such a kid it’s a lot of money. “What a cool toy, I’ll bring it to my kid sister. Now, beat it!” At times, generosity was at its peak: “Wow, what a toy, you give it to me, I let you in.” You know this stuff, letting them into Israel in return for something you wanted from their stuff.

Did they offer straight away, those kids? Yes.

How did guys react to this? They went for it. They would make fun of these kids. The kids who offered were those who didn’t want the contents of their bag to be scattered on the ground. So ‘Come see what I got in here instead of throwing it all on the ground.’ Also, you throw everything on the ground, and “Come on, you got three seconds to gather it all up again. Okay, out with it, once more.”

What happened if they wouldn’t? What happened if they wouldn’t? They’d get slapped around or have their stuff thrown out again and they’d be forced to run off without it.

Leave their stuff and go? Yes. “What you manage to pick up, you take, and now off with you.”