INTERNATIONAL SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 2015 Jewish extremism crackdown draws in a familiar family JERUSALEM: His long beard, dangling attack at a Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem security agency labeled him the head of Hilltop Youths sidelocks and wide smile give him the look that wounded five people and killed a 16- an “ideological infrastructure” responsible A number of illegal Jewish outposts of a hippie from another era, but Meir year-old girl. The incidents were unrelated, for the arson. According to the Shin Bet, have sprung up in the mountains of the Ettinger has become the symbol of a crack- with the suspect in the Gay Pride stabbings the same “infrastructure” vandalized a West Bank on land Palestinians view as down on Jewish extremism. The young an ultra-Orthodox Jew carrying out a “lone monastery in 2014 and unsuccessfully part of a future state of their own. All Israeli man, whose grandfather headed a racist wolf”-type attack. The firebombing howev- sought to disrupt Pope Benedict’s visit settlements in the West Bank are consid- movement, was arrested on Monday, the er follows a pattern of such actions by sus- the same year. Ettinger’s family is no ered illegal under international law. Israel first alleged extremist to be taken into cus- pected Jewish extremists against stranger to controversy. His grandfather grants approvals for settlements, but tody in connection with Israeli Prime Palestinians, Christians and even the Israeli Meir Kahane founded Kach, a racist move- unauthorized outposts are also illegal Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge of military. Ettinger, 23 and from Jerusalem, is ment that wanted to chase Arabs from under its laws. Ettinger wandered from one “zero tolerance”. The push to crack down accused of being a key figure in an amor- Israel and which was banned in 1988. outpost to another, allegedly becoming on Jewish extremism follows the July 31 phous band of youths who have engaged Kahane was assassinated in New York in part of what is known as the “Hilltop firebombing of a Palestinian home in the in such violence. 1990. His father is a rabbi at two religious Youth,” a loose band of militants who left West Bank that killed an 18-month-old After the torching of part of a shrine in schools in Jerusalem. His parents disap- their schools and families to live in what child and critically wounded his parents northern Israel in June where Christians proved of his radical stance, and when he they see as “Judea and Samaria”-the name and four-year-old brother. believe Jesus performed the miracle of was 17, Ettinger left to live in the Israeli- given to the West Bank in reference to the It came only hours after a stabbing loaves and fishes, the Shin Bet internal occupied West Bank. ancient Biblical kingdoms.— AFP Jewish extremism: new fears over old problem Fears mount for Croatian JERUSALEM: A stabbing attack at a Gay Pride march in abducted by Islamic State Jerusalem and a firebombing that killed a Palestinian child in the West Bank last week have raised concerns over Jewish extrem- ism. Israeli authorities have arrested three alleged Jewish Egypt jihadists threaten to execute Salopek extremists-placing one in a controversial form of detention with- out trial-and pledged to use all means at their disposal to crack CAIRO: Fears mounted over the fate of a down on such activities. Here is a look at such extremism: Croatian abducted in Egypt by Islamic State group militants who threatened to execute Were the two attacks related? him yesterday. Croatian President Kolinda No. The suspect in the July 30 Gay Pride stabbings, which Grabar-Kitarovic said she would talk to her wounded five people and mortally wounded a 16-year-old girl, is Egyptian counterpart President Abdel Fattah an ultra-Orthodox Jew who has said homosexuality defiles the El-Sisi by telephone as the jihadist deadline name of God. On Wednesday, a judge ordered that he undergo a approached. “Be sure that we are really doing psychiatric evaluation. The July 31 firebombing of a Palestinian our best to solve this,” she was quoted as say- home in the West Bank village of Duma, which killed an 18- ing by the state-run HINA news agency. month-old boy and critically wounded his parents and four-year- The unprecedented abduction in the old brother, is believed to have been connected to “price tag” North African country has rattled foreigners incidents-nationalist-motivated hate crimes. Graffiti near the who flock to Egypt to work for multinational family’s home included a Star of David and the words “revenge” companies, while underscoring the jihadists’ and “long live the Messiah”. reach despite a massive military campaign against them. Although Egypt is fighting an What is ‘price tag? Islamic State group insurgency in the sparsely “Price tag” refers to the idea that there is a price to be paid for populated Sinai Peninsula, it had been largely activity that offends the extremists. Some have speculated that spared the horrific kidnappings conducted by the firebombing was in response to a court-ordered demolition the Islamic State group in Syria, Iraq and Libya. of two illegal settlement buildings in the West Bank. The father of Tomislav Salopek, who works for the French geoscience company CGG, Who are the extremists? called on the kidnappers to release the 31- “Price-tag” assailants are seen less as members of a particular year-old father of two, as Croatian Foreign group and more as a loosely organized band. Some are known as Minister Vesna Pusic said she was leaving for the “Hilltop Youth,” militants from illegal outposts in the West Cairo to follow the case. “I am asking the peo- VRPOLJE: Photo shows the house of 31-year-old Tomislav Salopek in Vrpolje in Bank or those that sympathize with them. “It’s not an orderly ple who hold my son to let him return to his eastern Croatia. Egypt’s affiliate of the Islamic State group has threatened to organization with hierarchy, a head and a tail, and in the middle family, because his motive to go to your execute a Croatian kidnapped in Cairo last month within 48 hours if Muslim activists,” said Avi Dichter, a former head of Israel’s domestic homeland was exclusively to earn bread for women jailed in Egypt are not freed.— AFP security agency Shin Bet. “But there are people who simply do his children. Nothing else,” Zlatko Salopek told not accept anyone’s authority... They envision an entity based on AFP at the family’s home in the eastern Salopek had appeared in an Islamic State the group changed its name when it pledged Jewish law, where only God gives instructions.” There have also Croatian town of Vrpolje. video released on the internet on Wednesday, allegiance to IS in November. Last December, been more organized groups such as Lehava, which opposes kneeling next to a masked militant holding a the jihadists claimed they killed an American fraternization between Jews and gentiles. Lehava’s leader, Benzi knife. Reading from a paper, he said that his working for petroleum company Apache, also Gopstein, reportedly said this week that churches should be captors would execute him in 48 hours if the west of Cairo. That attack was at first treated torched. Another group, the anti-Arab movement Kach, was Egyptian government did not release female as a deadly carjacking by police. In July, IS said founded by Meir Kahane, a rabbi assassinated in 1990 in New prisoners, which has been a demand of it was behind a car bomb attack targeting the York. Kahane’s grandson, Meir Ettinger, 23, is one of the three Islamist militants over the past two years. Italian consulate in Cairo-the first such attack alleged extremists arrested since last week’s firebombing. None Thousands of people, most of them Islamists, against a foreign mission in Egypt since of the three have been directly accused of the firebombing. have been jailed since the army overthrew jihadists began their campaign following the Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 crackdown on Islamists. What drives the extremists? and unleashed a deadly crackdown on his fol- The video of Salopek was released the A range of motivations that sometimes overlap. Religion can lowers. day before a lavish ceremony at the Suez be a driving factor, as in June when extremists torched part of a Canal to celebrate an expansion of the shrine in northern Israel where Christians believe Jesus carried Kidnapped from car waterway, with a host of world leaders in out the miracle of loaves and fishes. Other incidents have been Salopek was abducted last month on a attendance. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, related to limits on settlement building in the West Bank. road running from the west of Cairo. His driver who as army chief toppled Morsi, pledged Mosques have been torched and attacks have even targeted was left unharmed and police say they have at the ceremony to “defeat” the militants. Israeli military property. questioned him. It was not clear where the The army says it has killed more than 1,000 “Many of them are disconnected, drop-outs from the educa- militants were holding Salopek in the vast and militants over the past few years, but the tional system,” said Mally Shechory-Bitton, a criminologist at An image grab shows Croatian mostly desert country. While the jihadists insurgency in Sinai appears unabated. The Ariel University. “They found their life’s goal in an extremist national Tomislav Salopek kneeling mostly operate in Sinai, in northeastern Egypt, jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers ideology and supposed religious values, which they think on the sand next to an IS flag, in front they have also conducted attacks in the coun- and policemen and even destroyed a navy they’re fulfilling but are actually a distortion of religion and its of a man, while holding a piece of try’s western desert over the past two years.