It seemed like an odd game of capture the flag. On the bottom of the pastoral valley opposite the Palestinian hamlet of Beit Duku waited about 100 Palestinian demonstrators. Lining the terraced hill above them were about 40 soldiers, Border Police, and private security guards.
The flag in this case was the bulldozers slowly hacking away on the side of the hill, carving out a brown ribbon that will one day be the security fence.
Feigning a break from the chanting, about 20 Palestinian youths sauntered off and then scrambled up the hill, easily outstripping the soldiers behind them.
Using tear gas and a few stun grenades, the security forces kept the Palestinian youths from reaching the bulldozers. Coughing and covering their ears, the demonstrators slunk down the hill, and dispersed an hour later. On this day, no one was hurt.
Even one of the Palestinians' top organizers conceded that the fence is an immovable object countered by a much less than unstoppable force.
But the Palestinians in the eight villages northwest of Jerusalem, soon to be enclosed in the security fence, feel they have no other option but to agitate, they say.
In terms of order and capacity to change events on the ground, protests like these, note local leaders, are not nearly as successful as the legal battles being waged in the high court by their lawyer Muhammad Dahla.
Still, without the protests, and the resultant media attention, especially when Palestinians are injured or killed, the legal cases would be quickly forgotten, said Mahmud Ayash, deputy mayor of Bidu.
Ayash called the barrier going up northwest of Jerusalem the "most dangerous threat to peace." He considers the fence - he calls it a wall - public enemy No. 1. As a member of the Public Committee for the Struggle Against the Wall, Ayash has led a number of peaceful protests in area in recent weeks.
The Ministry of Defense is implementing a five-year emergency seizure order to take part of the land upon which the fence is built. Much of the rage directed towards the "wall" is fueled by a B'tselem map. The map generally follows the contours of the Defense Ministry map, but is outdated.
Sources in the Defense Ministry and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's advisers have said recently that the eastern spurs of the fence - effectively slicing the West Bank in half - will be omitted. As will the major "fingers" that streak eastward from the Green Line towards settlement blocks in the heart of the West Bank such as Ariel, Karnei Shomron, and Kedumim.
