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Last Updated: Nov 10th, 2005 - 19:31:01 |
It doesn't look like residents of Sanur in the West Bank are planning to leave their homes any time soon -- even though they are supposed to move out this summer as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.
By Julie Stahl- CNSNews.com
Apr 22, 2005, 07:16
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Sanur, West Bank (CNSNews.com) - It doesn't look like residents of Sanur in the West Bank are planning to leave their homes any time soon -- even though they are supposed to move out this summer as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan.
This week, construction was continuing on the community's synagogue; and residents dedicated a plot of ground for a new neighborhood and planted 72 palm saplings there as a sign of their belief that they will not be leaving.
It takes more than 20 years for palm trees to bear fruit, one resident commented.
Sanur is one of four West Bank and 21 Gaza Strip Jewish communities set to be evacuated this summer.
Security officials said last week that resistance to the forced evacuation is more likely to happen in West Bank communities, particularly Sanur, than it is in the Gaza Strip.
Sanur residents said they don't plan to leave their homes, but at the same time, they said predictions of violence are offensive.
"We are going to stay here after July for many years," said Sanur resident and community spokesman Yossi Dagan. If they try to evacuate Sanur, many people will come to prevent it, he said.
Artist Colony
Founded in the late 1980s, Sanur (Hebrew for "raise up the flame") is primarily a secular community, as are the other three West Bank settlements included in the disengagement plan.
At the outset, it was a small artists' colony, attracting a handful of internationally famous artists -- immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
The bumpy, potholed road to Sanur winds uphill through Palestinian villages, including Silat A-Daher, where camels, donkeys and sheep share the road with pedestrians.
Over the last four-and-a-half years, Sanur has become increasingly isolated, with frequent shootings and bomb attacks along the road, prompting most of artists to leave, Dagan said.
But two-and-a-half years ago, three religious families and two single men joined the community. Dagan, a newlywed, was among them. Now there are 29 families living here and the artists are returning.
Amos Azaria, 23, and his wife Sygal are the community's newest residents. They moved to Sanur with their young son Elisha six months ago. Amos is a student and tutor at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and his wife is studying to be a nurse. They had never heard about Sanur until Sharon announced his disengagement plan.
"We heard about the place because of the evacuation plan [and] we wanted to move here," said Azaria. "We understood first that it's the Promised Land of Israel; and second that it's important for security."
They believe that God promised the West Bank (the biblical Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip to the Jewish people as an eternal inheritance.
Besides the biblical argument, many Israelis say that having a presence in areas like Sanur prevents the Palestinians from coordinating terror attacks.
"The Arabs saw this as the most strategic place," said Dagan. They tried to force the people to leave in order to bring it under their control. But the fact that there is an Israeli presence in the settlement enables the army to capture would-be suicide bombers in the villages in the surrounding areas, he said.
The settlement is inside a triangle formed by the West Bank cities of Nablus, Tulkarem and Jenin - an area that was given over to complete Palestinian Authority control as part of the Oslo Accords 10 years ago but recaptured by Israel during the last few years as part of its counter-terrorism operations.
Giving up Sanur and the other three West Bank communities would give the Palestinians a contiguous area within rocket range of Israeli cities such as Netanya, Afula, Beit Shean and Hadera, which has a power station, Dagan said.
People power
Asked about the possibility of armed resistance or the option of firing on the army, Dagan replied, "It's nonsense. It offends me that you ask. We are the army."
Dagan, a 24-year-old law student, just finished a round of reserve duty two weeks ago, he said.
According to Dagan, residents are hoping that 10,000 Israelis will flood Sanur just before the planned evacuation happens so the army will not be able to empty the settlement.
"Of course we're not leaving. We're staying here," Azaria said. Nevertheless, said Azaria, who also serves in the army reserves, the residents of Sanur won't need to resort to violence.
"Our point is being here with 10,000 people. We don't need to shoot," he said. "They can't kick out 10,000 people."
Some Sanur residents live in trailers, others in simple strip housing. There are nearly 60 children in the community of some 130 residents.
An old British garrison houses the community's art gallery, offices, pre-school and kindergarten.
The art gallery is newly reopened. Some 29,000 people have visited the settlement during the last year, Dagan said, and they are expecting 10,000 during the weeklong Passover holiday.
The artists say they don't remember a time when they had as many visitors as they do now, he added.
One artist, Yulia Segal, has a club here for the children working with play dough. The residents say it's probably the only place in the world where toddlers receive instruction from an internationally acclaimed artist, Segal said.
Mark Salman, 66, a sculptor from Moscow has lived in Sanur since he arrived in Israel 14 years ago. He is one 12 artists currently living in Sanur and one of only a handful who didn't leave during the last few years.
Salman's family died during World War II; on his first day in Israel he visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
"There they told me of a village where artists lived," Salman said. "I don't want another house. This is my home. Garden, trees, many children, this is our land... There is no paradise like here."
But Salman said there is no reason to resort to violence to hold onto the settlement.
"If I had a gun I wouldn't fire on our soldiers. I don't want a conflict with weapons. That would be an even bigger mistake," he said.
At the bottom of the short access road that leads from the main road to Sanur is an Arab gas station, car wash, and small shop. Nadel is the attendant there.
There is "no problem" with the people in the settlement, Nadel said in broken Hebrew.
"We are [like this]," he said, rubbing his two index fingers together to indicate a close relationship. "We have friends up there, Larissa, Vladimir. Sima left," he said. "Every morning the solders stop here and drink coffee. There is no problem."
© Copyright 5764, 5765 by author and Tsel Harim
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