Before I arrived in Gush Etzion I didn’t know where it is on the map and I had no clue about the West Bank. The first time I arrived there I also didn’t have any awareness about the occupation, what goes on there and what’s happening in the [occupied] territories. The first time I encountered it was a few months after I arrived at the base. I was sitting with a friend in the office and we were kind of giggling and some soldier turned up, opened the door to the office or knocked on the door and we opened it for him, he was very serious and I didn’t understand why he was serious as all the soldiers used to like giggle a bit and flirt [with us]. And he asked in a very, very serious way where the toilet was and I didn’t understand this seriousness. When I walked out the door I suddenly saw that there's a kid with him, a young guy, blindfolded and cuffed, and I was really taken aback. I remember that as far as I was concerned it was as if I’d seen a person full of smallpox or burnt, but my reaction was, like, alarm. Suddenly you see someone in civilian clothes, a dirty kid, cuffed and blindfolded and I remember that it was really really frightening for me. And this is where I started to self-reflect about “what the hell is happening here.” Because I didn’t know it exists, I didn’t know this happens, I didn’t know people go around like this, I didn’t know it was happening where I was. It was a totally different reality. I really wanted to get to some base where I would experience the 'romantic army', where you go between the posts and get to know combatants, and to have a boyfriend who was a deputy company commander, and that was my idea of the army. And I didn’t have a clue.

Like the “Nahal in Sinai” (a well-known song from the '70s that paints a nostalgic image of arm life)

Exactly like The Band (a classic Israeli film about army life), to go there to the [Suez] Canal and play the guitar for them. I was sure that was it. I had no idea that this was what the army was doing there, this was what it was taking care of, as far as I was concerned they’re still fighting in the Golan [Heights], that’s the idea. It sounds naïve, but in my head, in my conscious awareness, that’s how I saw it. And suddenly the first time I saw that sight, which was again – alarming, that’s the best word I have to describe the fact that my heart jumped after it [happened] and I couldn’t understand what it was. Gradually these sights became part of the scenery, I got more used to them. Whether it was when we’re in morning roll call and we’re looking ahead and a truck just arrives and unloads them, these detainees, and sits them down in a certain formation while we’re in morning roll call raising the flag. And suddenly to see them (the detainees) at different points in the base. That was kind of the first time I really encountered it.