Israel places Jewish extremists in administrative detention for six months without charge
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, has been warning for a few years that treating the intensifying settlers’ violence with kids’ gloves would only lead to more – and more dangerous – violence, but politicians vying for the vote of the West Bank settlers and their supporters in Israel have blocked efforts to designate settlers’ violence against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs as terrorism, and without that designation the hands of the security services and the police in taking action against the extremists were tied.
All that changed on 31 July when extremist Jewish settlers threw a Molotov cocktail into the home of a family in the village of Duma in the West Bank. To make sure the family would burn alive, the extremists blocked the doors to the house from the outside, preventing the four family members, who were awakened by the fire, from escaping. An 18-month toddler and his father were killed. The toddler’s 4-year old brother and their mother are in critical condition in the burn unit of an Israeli hospital, fighting for their lives.
The New York Times reports that Israeli authorities described the arson attack on 31 July as an act of “Jewish terrorism,” and that Israel’s security cabinet approved the use of tough measures to tackle an increasing problem. Among the measures approved was administrative detention, which allows suspects to be held for lengthy periods without charge. Administrative detentions have mostly been used against Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorism, but rarely against Israelis.
Meir Ettinger, grandson of the late U.S.-born racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, and Eviatar Slonim, another Jewish extremist, were on Sunday placed under administrative detention for their suspected involvement in an extremist Jewish organization, Israel’s Defense Ministry said.
Another suspected Jewish extremist, Mordechai Meyer, was placed under six-month administrative detention last week.
Dvir Kariv, a former Shin Bet official, said that sometimes there was no choice but to use administrative detention, for example, “when there is intelligence that proves involvement of this or that person in a terror action, but use of this intelligence in a court will expose the source of the information.”
Administrative detention, however, “in this context is a Band-Aid, not an antibiotic,” Kariv told Israel Radio on Sunday. He called for harsher sentencing by the courts, and deeper engagement of educators and social welfare services.
About two dozen extremists from different West Bank settlements were taken into police stations and their finger prints, DNA, and other identifying markers collected before they were released. They are suspected of being part of the extremist movement, and if they take part in violent actions against Palestinians it would easier for forensic experts to determine whether or not they were on the scene.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service, has accused Ettinger of leading an extremist Jewish movement which encouraged attacks on Palestinian property and Christian holy sites, including an arson attack on 18 June on a church near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel that marks the site of a New Testament story about the miracle of the loaves and fish.
Four other young Israelis were arrested in connection with the arson attack, but only two are going to stand trial. The other three were released.
The extremist settlers view churches and Mosques – and the presence of Christians and Muslims – in Israel and the West Bank as violating the “purity” of the Holy Land.
