Settlers clash with Israeli police trying to enforce settlement freeze

(2 Dec 2009) SHOTLIST Near Yitzhar, West Bank - 2 December 2009 1. Wide of settlers on the road 2. Wide of settlers in bushes 3. Israeli soldiers running to stop settlers throwing stones 4. Soldiers escorting settlers away Efrat, West Bank - 2 December 2009 5. Wide of construction site 6. Settlers building 7. Close up of cement 8. More of construction 9. Pan from house in settlement to construction 10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Dani Dayan, Jewish settler leader: "We will do any effort to undermine this freeze and to keep building our country." 11. Settler pouring cement on ground 12. SOUNDBITE: (English) Shaul Goldstein, Jewish settler leader: "Concrete is forever. We're not going to leave Gush Etzion (settlement bloc), we're not going to leave Judea and Samaria all those illegal warrants of the government are going to be cancelled and we're going to take care of it. The will of the people will decide and not military warrants." 13. Tilt up from shovel cementing ground to settler 14. Tilt down from crane to construction site STORYLINE Settler leaders have vowed to defy a settlement freeze order declared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week which he says is meant as a confidence-building gesture to get peace efforts with the Palestinians back on track. Dani Dayan, leader of the West Bank settlers' council, said that activists would use only nonviolent means to defy the freeze. "We will do any effort to undermine this freeze and to keep building our country," Dayan said at a construction site in Efrat. Meanwhile near Yitzhar, also in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers chased and escorted a group of settlers who had reportedly been throwing stones at Palestinian cars. In a separate incident police arrested the mayor of another West Bank Jewish settlement after protesters blocked security forces from entering the community to enforce a construction freeze. The showdown was the most serious incident of settler unrest since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week announced the 10-month building freeze, which bars the construction of new homes in West Bank settlements. Confronting the settlers could help Netanyahu convince sceptical Palestinians and a wary Obama administration that he's serious about resuming talks. The Palestinians are refusing to talk peace with Netanyahu and say his settlement freeze is a sham because it excludes certain projects as well as east Jerusalem, the section of the holy city they claim as a capital. In Wednesday's unrest, Avi Naim, mayor of the Beit Arieh settlement in the central West Bank, was apprehended for allegedly disrupting a police officer in the line of duty, said settler spokesman Yishai Hollender. He said Naim and a group of settlers had blocked the entrance to the settlement when troops arrived to hand out orders to cease construction at the site. Inspection teams, joined by soldiers and police, have visited dozens of the roughly 120 Jewish settlements in the West Bank in recent days to enforce the order. The Israeli military said it has issued more than 60 orders to halt unauthorised construction and confiscated about a half-dozen pieces of heavy equipment. While there have been minor confrontations between settlers and security forces, there have been no reports of violence. The settlement freeze has put both Netanyahu and the settlers into delicate situations. Netanyahu, a traditional supporter of the settlers, is now under heavy international pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians. Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank, in addition to 180,000 Jewish Israelis living in east Jerusalem. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...