Troops face harder test in West Bank

Troops face harder test in West Bank

By Rafael D. Frankel, Special to the Tribune. Tribune foreign correspondent Christine Spolar contributed to this report from Jerusalem
Published August 22, 2005

SA-NUR, West Bank -- At the entrance to this town of 105 official residents and hundreds or thousands of protesters, a sign on the gate is posted: "No entrance allowed to the forces of expulsion." But it is not just them.

Visitors, journalists included, who have recently approached the entrance gate, which is locked with a thick iron chain, have been hastily chased away by residents and sometimes threatened with beatings if they don't immediately comply.

With the evacuation of Gaza nearly finished, the Israeli army is shifting to what is expected to be the most difficult part of the disengagement--four settlements in the West Bank, where isolation is not just a state of geography, but a state of mind.

The government "thinks we're the enemy," said Einat, 26, a Sa-Nur resident who refused to give her last name. "They don't understand that the Arabs are our enemy," she said, holding her 3-year-old boy and standing before a line of border patrol officers she confronted in the fields.

Though residents interviewed outside the walls of the settlement say they will not use violence, where they are drawing the line is unknown.

On Sunday, a teenager injured his shoulder when he was tackled along the road to Sa-Nur by four soldiers after he threw a punch at one of them. Other punches were thrown and two soldiers and two protesters wrestled each other to the ground.

The army has for some time been concerned about the possible threat Sa-Nur poses, especially if armed residents fire their weapons, Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman Sharon Feingold said.

Meanwhile in neighboring Chomesh, another settlement scheduled for evacuation, youths from across Israel were busy ringing the roof of the Yeshiva with two rows of barbed wire. They also brought up jerry cans of water and wooden beams for fending off anyone who tried to scale the Yeshiva wall.

The Chomesh youths also vowed not to use violence, but they said they did not want to go quietly.

"If we sat inside and studied, [the army] would have us out in half an hour," said Eitan Felsenstein, 19, an Israeli from another West Bank settlement whose parents are from West Rogers Park. "We're doing something serious here."

©2005 The Chicago Tribune