Israel detains more radical extremists

JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities on Sunday continued their crackdown against the young Jewish zealots believed to be associated with the Revolt, a shadowy network described by its members as an anarchistic vision of redemption.

The extremists’ working plan calls for fomenting unrest to bring about the collapse of the State of Israel, with its democratic system of government and courts, and establish a Jewish kingdom based on the laws of the Torah. NonJews are to be expelled, the Third Temple is to be built and religious observance is to be enforced, initially in public spaces.

Six-month administrative detention orders were issued Sunday against two high-profile activists from the radical right, Meir Ettinger and Eviatar Slonim, both in their early 20s.

Ettinger is the grandson of Meir Kahane, the slain American-Israeli rabbi considered the father of far-right Jewish militancy. He and Slonim joined Mordechai Meyer, 18, also suspected of being a member of the extremist group, who was placed in administrative detention last week. Meyer had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in arson attacks against two churches, but was released without charges.

Israel has widely used administrative detention, which allows for imprisonment without charge or trial, against Palestinians under military law in the West Bank, but rarely against its Jewish citizens.

The Israeli authorities are acting under intense pressure to apprehend the perpetrators of a July 31 arson attack on a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Duma that killed an 18-month-old, Ali Dawabsheh, and his father, Saad. Israel’s leaders called the attack Jewish terrorism.

In addition to the detention orders, the police’s nationalist crimes unit raided several West Bank settlement outposts overnight and detained a number of suspects “in the wake of recent events in the West Bank,” according to a police statement.

It was not yet clear whether any of those detained have been linked with the Duma attack.