Authorities detain Jewish extremists

JERUSALEM — Israel has jailed a Jewish extremist for six months without charges or trial, expanding a crackdown against militant Jews and deploying a contentious measure typically used for Palestinians suspected of planning attacks.

It is the first time the measure, known as administrative detention, has been applied to an Israeli since the crackdown began following a pair of deadly attacks last week.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon signed an order late Tuesday that jailed Mordechai Meyer, an extremist from the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim, for six months.

A statement from Yaalon’s office said Meyer, 18, was being held in connection to “his involvement in violent activities and recent terror attacks.”

The ministry would not elaborate, but Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, said Meyer was among five people arrested after an arson attack against a wellknown church in northern Israel in June. Meyer, 18, was not indicted but two others were.

Meyer was also suspected of links to attacks against another church in Jerusalem, as well as attacks on Palestinian property.

The detention marks an intensification of a crackdown on Jewish militancy after the two deadly attacks last week.

On Friday, suspected Jewish extremists torched a West Bank home, an arson attack in which a Palestinian toddler was burned to death and his parents and four-year-old brother were seriously wounded. A day earlier, an anti-gay ultra-Orthodox man stabbed six people at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade, and one of them — a 16-year-old girl — later died of her wounds.

Jewish extremists have for years vandalized or set fire to Palestinian property, as well as mosques, churches, the offices of dovish Israeli groups and even military bases. The so-called “price tag” attacks seek to exact a cost for Israeli steps seen as favouring the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged “zero tolerance” for Jewish terrorism.

On Tuesday, authorities arrested Meir Ettinger, 23, a high-profile activist accused of leading a new movement of settler youths who embrace violence and reject the rule of law in the name of the purity of the Holy Land. Ettinger was arrested for “involvement in an extremist Jewish organization.”