I was a course instructor for soldiers assigned to the Palestinian arena. As the course was being organised we would go to some storeroom full of “booty” and receive uniforms, weapon parts, exploded grenades, flags of Palestine, Fatah and Hamas. Personal family items like photos of children, watches, family photos, medals, football trophies, books, Qur’ans, jewellery – Palestinian “memorabilia”. I don’t know for sure, but I realised that all these things came from arrest missions, either from people’s homes or from people who were killed. It is all just piled up. We were taken to this storeroom and told to take whatever we pleased, signing the stuff out afterwards. I took some flags and uniforms. At the end of the course we didn’t even return them. I still have them signed out. We took all the stuff to the classrooms and hung it up on the walls for display. The idea was to “poison” the students. At the beginning of the course they have no idea to which arena they’ll be assigned. So on the morning when they receive their assignments they enter the class and we motivate them with the items hanging on the walls, among other things. We didn’t exactly explain what they were; we just said “booty”. There is not much talk about it. It arouses their curiosity and amuses them. Towards the end of the course one of the participants dressed as a Hamas fighter, in uniform, to entertain everyone. There is also something called a “demonstration”. Everyone puts on those uniforms and headbands, takes up the flags and stages a demonstration. It’s done in the auditorium for all the other course participants. It’s the entertainment event of the entire course. Everyone is seated and the class gets on stage and begins to shout all sorts of stuff. The highlight of the Palestinian-arena track was to put on a demonstration. When I was a course participant we yelled: “Enough with Palestine, we want to relocate to Australia!” When I was an instructor a talk show was staged, with characters, I don’t recall exactly. Along with the weekly quiz there is something called “bonus” – all sorts of funny stuff. Sometimes funny conversations are played that we heard by mistake and kept. These are unimportant things, useless intelligence-wise, but they are kept because they are funny, and held on to for years. For example “women talk”. These are women’s conversations, 99% private nonsense. Or all sorts of conversations about very private matters, including yelling, crying, fighting and cursing. As an instructor I gave a class called Morality and Intelligence, which I had also participated in as a student. The Lieutenant A affair was a major part of this class. As an instructor I had access to the army’s inquiry into this affair. In hindsight I discovered that it had been a fake inquiry. The report said the objective of that operation was to demolish a building empty of people, and that Lieutenant A’s job was to make sure the building was indeed empty – when in fact the contrary was true. The objective was to bomb a building containing innocent people, and the lieutenant was supposed to inform the unit when they were inside. We discussed this affair in class. Everyone said what they would have done in A’s stead. The conclusion was that he meant well but did not do the right thing. He should have clearly stated his fears. Now I know what really went on, and that in hindsight this whole discussion was ridiculous. Anyway, the only conclusion reached was that in this unit there is no such thing as an illegal order. It is not we who decide what is moral and what isn’t. Nowadays I realise that this is what the bombing pilot says too: “It’s not for me to say what is moral and what isn’t.” Everyone passes the responsibility on to others.