TerrorismIsrael appears ready to crack down on Jewish terrorists and their sympathizers

Published 5 August 2015

Until now, Israeli law enforcement used measures such as administrative detention — that is, jailing people for long periods without a trial — for Palestinian terrorists, and for many Palestinians who were not terrorists. Israel, in a historic move, is now applying such measures to Jewish terrorists as well. Yesterday, the Israeli security services said they had placed a Jewish extremist in an administrative detention for six months. The move is an indication that, for the first time since 1967, the Israeli police and security services may begin to deal with Jewish terrorists in a manner similar to the way Palestinian terrorists have been dealt with. It may also indicate that Israel may have finally decided to crack down on the militant hard core of about 25,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

Until now, Israeli law enforcement used measures such as administrative detention — that is, jailing people for long periods without a trial — for Palestinian terrorists, and for many Palestinians who were not terrorists. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the Palestinian territories in the Six Day War, Palestinians in the West Bank (and, until 2005, in the Gaza Strip), have lived under military occupation, and have thus not enjoyed the basic legal protections laws provide.

Israel, in a historic move, is now applying such measures to Jewish terrorists as well.

Yesterday, the Israeli security services said they had placed a Jewish extremist in an administrative detention for six months. The move is an indication that, for the first time since 1967, the Israeli police and security services may begin to deal with Jewish terrorists in a manner similar to the way Palestinian terrorists have been dealt with. It may also indicate that Israel may have finally decided to crack down on the militant hard core of about 25,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank (see “Israel mulls designating Jewish extremists as ‘terrorists,’” HSNW, 3 August 2015).

The application of the measure to a suspected Jewish terrorist was prompted by an attack last Friday by Jewish extremists on a Palestinian family in the Palestinian village of Duma. The Jewish settlers blocked the door to the family’s house from the outside, and then hurled Molotov cocktails into the house to burn the family alive. An 18-months toddler was killed, and his brother and the two parents are in critical condition in the burn unit of an Israeli hospital.

The Guardian reports that the Israeli defense minister, Moshe Ya’alon, signed an order on Tuesday to jail Mordechai Meyer, from the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

The defense minister’s office said Meyer, who Israeli media reported to be 18-years old, was being held in connection to “his involvement in violent activities and recent terror attacks.”

The defense ministry would not provide any details, but Israel news organizations report that Meyer was suspected of links to attacks against the historic Church of Loaves and Fish in northern Israel and another church in Jerusalem, as well as attacks on Palestinian property.

He has already been banned for periods of time from entering the West Bank and Jerusalem, Israeli media reported.

The fanatic core of Jewish settlers engage not only in killing Palestinians, destroying Palestinian property, and burning Mosques and churches – they have also attacked Israeli Arabs, and have now began to attack Jews who do not agree with them.

Last Thursday, an anti-gay ultra-Orthodox man stabbed six people at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade, and one of them, a 16-year-old high-school student, died of her wounds.

In the wake of the deadly attacks on the gay pride parade and Palestinian family, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has pledged a new policy of zero tolerance for Jewish terrorism. In a cabinet meeting on Sunday, the government has authorized a series of steps, including administrative detention, to help combat the rising violent extremism in Israel.

On Tuesday, the security services have also arrested Meir Ettinger, a blogger and high-profile religious activist who is suspected of being the leading force behind a new movement of extremist Jewish youths in West Bank settlements who have openly admitted they would use violence to achieve their goals. These goals include not only the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank and the destruction of Mosques and churches throughout Israel, but also the dismantling of Israeli democracy in order to turn Israel into a Taliban-like religious country – all this in the name of preserving the purity of the Holy Land.

The police note that Ettinger, 23, was not being held under administrative detention. Rather, he was arrested as would be a regular criminal for “involvement in an extremist Jewish organization.”

Ettinger’s grandfather was the racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, a New Yorker who founded the Jewish Defense League in 1968, but then moved to Israel and entered political life there. He was elected to the Knesset as the head of the extremist Kach (“This Way”) party, but the Israeli Supreme Court banned the party from participating in Israel’s public life because its platform and methods violated laws against racism.

Kahane was killed in New York in 1990 by an Egyptian-born American citizen.

Meyer’s lawyer, Adi Keidar, told Israeli Army Radio that there were “less drastic steps” Israel could take to pursue an investigation against his client. He said he opposed the measure, both for Israelis and Palestinians.

“Legally speaking, you can’t take a person and put him in jail, without having evidence against him,” Keidar said.