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A Golani Brigade Sergeant said she attended a class to learn some Arabic, basic things like "open fire instructions (and) Stop! Stop or I shoot!" Five minutes "into class time, a guy stands up (and said to the instructor): "Listen, cutie, forget it....We don't talk. We shoot. Then maybe we talk." They see no one as innocent, so all Palestinians are fair game.
A Menashe Regional Brigade First Sergeant spoke of abused detainees brought in, soldiers guarding them, ordering them around, kicking them. "There were two detainees shackled, blindfolded, the works, surrounded by at least fifteen guys who were harassing them...It's fine, because they're Arabs so they're terrorists."
An Erez Crossing Sergeant said "It's terrible at the checkpoint....Palestinians came with bags of clothes, they'd be ripped....women are stripped" to their undergarments by female soldiers but not gently....they do this all the time." Some are entirely stripped. It's very degrading.
A Qalandiya Checkpoint Sergeant called her checkpoint duty "very shocking. I had a hard time....I felt uneasy from the first, found it difficult to think about."
A Hebron Sergeant said "one girl....slapped an Arab. He answered (her) rudely, so (she) gave him a slap in the face....the mere thought was just shocking. Other girls said they had done it and threatened them. One aimed her rifle at his face and coked it right there. I was shocked that they were my friends....guys do it often, cocking their rifles while threatening children, grownups, everyone."
A Gaza Lieutenant said that to cope you have to see humans as not quite human. "It means if you want to function, you have to protect yourself somehow. You mustn't feel too much. You have to be quite mechanical, quite detached. So I don't think (of Palestinians) as bad people or beasts" or our soldiers who abuse them. "I don't justify it for a second, but I think I would go crazy under such circumstances....I can imagine why a soldier might....beat up people, go home and beat up the whole world....because they've lost it much more than we have....They're constantly in this state of tremendous anger that is directed toward anything."
A Hebron Sergeant said a soldier on this post attacked an Arab boy and broke his leg. "I don't know who, and I don't know how it happened, but I do know that two of our guys got him into a Border Patrol jeep, and hardly two weeks later this kid was moving around with his two arms and two legs in plaster casts, in a wheelchair."
A Hebron Medical Corp Lieutenant described her experience as "Lots of blood. A nightmare....I only wanted to erase everything. Later, after a while, it began to pop up again." In the Territories, it's "a different world, different rules, different manners."
An Erez Crossing Sergeant said inspections are frustrating and scary. "I know the Border patrolmen take out their frustrations on the Palestinians. They are armed, it's the easiest way out. The slave with the scepter, kind of. I mean, you have the gun, the Palestinian doesn't. Usually he's holding stuff because he's been at the checkpoint since 2 in the morning, and he hasn't seen his wife for three months already and he can't even remember his kids' names." Still the Border patrolmen make fun of them behind their backs. And they humiliate them and tear their belongings. "I think it's horrible. I thought it was horrible then, too."
A Hebron Sergeant said "we were the good guys. The Border patrolmen were the bad guys. They would settle accounts in a big way. As for hitting - they were on jeeps the whole time, less on foot, so they would simply take people into their jeeps and beat them to a pulp. You'd see a jeep pass by and a person thrown out of it suddenly....thrown into the street.....They would check someone right next to me and do it brutally....They were about dominance."
A Seam Zone First Sergeant said another patrolwoman with her talked about women combatants being more violent than men. Some kids came along with bags, and she called them out to come over. "She opened their bags and found this kind of fly-swat inside. So she (told them to run) up and down the hill in ten seconds. They're scared....So they ran (but she) hit him with that fly-swat. The kid began to cry."
But she kept harassing them and threatened to beat them up. Finally she let them go. Guys did it, too, so she asked them "why are you beating up this kid....treat him like a human being so he won't want to blow himself up on you tomorrow. There were guys who did listen, not everyone wants to beat up Arabs. But there was definitely that atmosphere and it was totally routine.
An Erez Crossing Sergeant explained ways of harassing Palestinians, such as saying: "You want to pass tomorrow? Bring me a pack of cigarettes" or food or something else to take from them. "It was the norm."
"You go down to the checkpoint and your bullet-proof vests have "Death to Arabs" written on them. "Stuff like that." You do all sorts of things to humiliate them and brag "about all the loot" you bring back. "The Arabs are the enemy. The more you make them suffer, the better."
A Hebron Sergeant said "There was this one single time I harassed an Arab brutally....There were lots of soldiers punishing Arabs," making them do all sorts of things, including threatening them with pointed weapons or making them wait for hours.
A Jenin Sergeant said she was with her squadron-commander who shot a kid riding a bicycle near the Separation Wall. Other soldiers killed another boy when he got scared and ran away. She related other incidents of firing rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators. She herself was on standby and didn't shoot.
