What do you remember from Hazon David [an illegal outpost in Hebron, which was ordered evacuated and destroyed—more than thirty times]? Apart from the nights in Hazon David, they finished me . . .

The evacuations started during your time there . . . I remember I evacuated them a few times. Each time, we tried to trick them a different way, do you remember all that nonsense? To show them they were being evacuated? We tried all kinds of tricky things, they never worked.

Tell a story. There isn’t much of a story, Hazon David is still there.

How did the evacuations start? When? Why wasn’t it ever really evacuated—how did that play out? First of all, I don’t even remember how many times they told me to evacuate the Hazon David outpost, but I think at least a few. There’s a court ruling on it.

When was Hazon David first established? I don’t remember exactly. During my time there, end of 2002, beginning of 2003, something like that. It was clear why they put it up. They always had a dream to connect the western gate of Kiryat Arba to the Jewish settlement. They’d say it to you directly. It was clear why they were doing it. Hazon David is a bullshit story—every time the army went to evacuate it, an order was given by the minister of defense not to evacuate. Whenever they evacuated it, the outpost would reappear, and that was the story. I don’t know what the dirt there was. If I were serving the settlement’s interests I’d be able to tell you a story about it, but I wasn’t interested in that. I don’t know what happened there.

Were there times when you went to evacuate Hazon David and the minister of defense ordered you not to do it? The night we were supposed to evacuate it, they canceled the evacuation once, they canceled it a second time, and the third time we did evacuate it, but the outpost was put back up the next day. I don’t remember what happened there. I wasted so many nights on Hazon David.

Did you guys know from the beginning that the outpost was on private Palestinian land? Private property? That’s not relevant, I don’t remember, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know whose land it was, I don’t remember. But it doesn’t matter.

Why is Hazon David still not evacuated, do you have any idea? Because . . . listen, here’s what happened. In the middle of 2003 some Knesset members visited the Jewish settlement in Hebron, after Hazon David was established, you can check the papers. I escorted their tour. Tzachi Hanegbi was there, Ruby Rivlin [members of the government, from the right-wing Likud Party], and all kinds of people like that. And there was Hazon David, a fact on the ground. Listen, when you get verbal legitimization from a Knesset member . . .

Knesset members visited the settlers? They visited the whole Jewish settlement, they went on the tour, the western gate, they really did the whole tour.

They came to Hazon David and said . . . I remember Tzachi Hanegbi said that one of the goals was to connect the western gate and the Jewish settlement. He said it to the settlement leaders. Look in a newspaper, Ha’aretz, from that period, and you’ll see. Sometime in 2003.