During the first intifada, 20 years later, he went to prison for refusing to do reserve duty on the West Bank. Asked whether he would do the same now, he replied: “I probably would go.” Why so? “It weakens the country, weakens its staying power and encourages the enemy when you have this phenomenon of refuseniks. Why should the Palestinians cease fire when they see that fire is bringing about the crumbling of Israeli society?” Some said the same in the last intifada, I reminded him. “The last intifada,” he argued, “was a struggle for liberation from occupation. They didn’t talk about the right of return, which is a formula for the destruction demographically of the Jewish state. They didn’t use atrocious terrorism. They threw stones at soldiers to end an occupation, and that was something I could sympathise with