Israel Police surrounded and then raided a high-level meeting of right-wing Zionist Orthodox rabbis and community leaders today. At least four people who violated government orders to stay out of the West Bank have reportedly been arrested at the meeting – which was held in Nof Ayalon in central Israel – so far.
Police, Shin Bet Raid High Level Meeting Of Extreme Right Wing Jewish Settlers, Rabbis
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Israel Police surrounded and then raided a high-level meeting of right-wing Zionist Orthodox rabbis and community leaders today in what Arutz Sheva reported was a “highly unusual” move. At least four people who violated government orders to stay out of the West Bank have reportedly been arrested at the meeting – which was held in Nof Ayalon in central Israel – so far.
The meeting was held to develop a strategy to combat the use of administrative detention to hold suspected jewish terrorists without trial.
Among those participating in the meeting are extreme hard right-wing figures, including Hillel Weiss and Rabbi Yoel Schwartz, who are members of the new Sanhedrin which purports to be the High Court of the Jewish people, even though it is recognized by almost no one outside extremist circles.
Michael Ben Ari, an ex-Member of Knesset and supporter of the late extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, was at the meeting as was the leader of the racist Kahanist Lehava organization, Rabbi Bentzion “Bentzi” Gopstein, Kahanist Noam Federman, and Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir, a Kahane supporter who often serves as legal counsel to arrested hard right-wing activists and criminals.
Police reportedly erased cellphone videos of the raid because members of the Israel Security Agency (Shabak; the Shin Bet) were participating in the raid with police.
The head of th Kahanist legal aid organization Honenu (which bn-Gvir often works for), Shmuel “Zangi” Medad, was at the meeting and reportedly told Arutz Sheva the police have “gone crazy.”
“It seems that a conference against administrative detention orders is also something the police does not like,” Medad said. “I regret to say that the police is receiving orders to operate as if there are no limits to power and no limits to resources.”
Kahanist activist Baruch Marzel said Israel is a “police state.”
“This is a police state, a state whose policemen come to an open public conference, surround the building, take photos and scare the participants. This is exactly what the conference was about – that this is a police state,” the frequently-arrested Marzel said.
In the wake of a series of attacks against Arabs that culminated in the arson murders of an 18-month-old Arab baby and his father, over the past 18 days 14 administrative orders have been issued, three for full detention and the rest for travel and other restrictions only.
Administrative orders originated during the British Mandate and have been used since then almost exclusively against Arabs – something Honenu and the extreme right-wing of the West Bank Jewish settler movement never objected to. But in the tiny number of instances where the government has used administrative detention against Jews, the Honenu and the extreme right-wing has lashed out against state as “undemocratic.”