Israel uses detention without trial on Jewish extremist

Israel has used a controversial decades-old form of detention without trial against an alleged Jewish extremist for the first time, following an outcry over the death of a Palestinian toddler in an arson attack.
The use of "administrative detention", which has previously been applied to Palestinians, came as authorities yesterday arrested another suspected Jewish extremist and extended the detention of the leader of a radical religious group.
None of the three were accused of direct involvement in last week's firebombing of a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank in which an 18-month-old boy was killed, sparking an international outcry over Israel's failure to get to grips with violence by hardline Jewish settlers.

But the moves appeared to be part of efforts by Israeli authorities to demonstrate their will to combat extremist Jewish groups.
Yesterday, Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon signed an administrative detention order against Mordechai Mayer, an Israeli settler arrested for "his involvement in violent activities and terrorist attacks in recent times", a defence ministry statement said.
Media reports had suggested the attorney general had given permission for the authorities to take such action against three suspected extremists.

Israel normally applies administrative detention, which dates from British-mandated Palestine, against Palestinians, allowing them to be held without trial for renewable six-month periods.
Currently, 379 of the 5,686 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jail are on administrative detention, according to official figures, and a long list of Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strike to protest against the policy.

But it can now be used for Jewish detainees in cases where there is insufficient evidence to go to trial or if the suspect refuses to testify.
On Monday, meanwhile, authorities detained Meir Ettinger, whose grandfather Meir Kahane founded the racist anti-Arab Kach group, and a court prolonged his detention until the weekend on suspicion of "nationalist crimes".
Ettinger was arrested "because of his activities in a Jewish extremist organisation", a spokesman for the Shin Bet domestic security agency said.
According to Israeli media, he was the brains behind a June 18 arson attack on a shrine in northern Israel where Christians believe Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Police said Ettinger, 23, was suspected of "nationalist crimes", but did not accuse him of direct involvement in the attack in which the toddler died.
The hearing was held in private.