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Netanyahu promises crackdown on Jewish extremists

Israeli officials say Ettinger lived in the settlement of Har Bracha near Nablus in the West Bank until nine or 10 months ago when he was barred from entering the occupied territories and Jerusalem.

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Israel’s Internal Security Agency (the Shabak or, as it’s more commonly known, by it’s initials Shin Bet) arrested Israel’s “most wanted Jewish terrorist” Meir Ettinger Monday night, Ha’aretz reported. Ettinger is also the grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist whose party was banned from Israel’s parliament for its racist views in 1988.

A mourner next to the body of the 18-month-old Palestinian baby who was killed after his family’s house was set on fire in Duma village (Reuters) Mr Ettinger’s remand was extended from Tuesday until Sunday by a judge in Nazareth District Court.

“There is a very clear context of growing violence, nationalism, racism in Israel mainly among the settlers, mainly among nationalist camps”, Levy told Al Jazeera.

“The Palestinian side is considering practical steps to reconsider economic, administrative and security agreements with the (Israeli) occupation as previously approved by the Palestinian Central Council”, he added.

“Their path is not the path of the State of Israel and is not the path of the Jewish people”.

According to Israeli media, the teenager joined the event in support of a gay friend and not because she herself followed the lifestyle.

Shira Banki was one of six people stabbed on Thursday, despite a large police presence, by an ultra-Orthodox man who had just finished serving 10 years in jail for stabbing marchers at the 2005 Jerusalem gay pride parade.

Friday’s torching of a Palestinian home killed a toddler and seriously hurt his parents and brother, causing an outcry overseas and vows by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to crack down on what he deemed “terrorism” by “criminals in our nation”.

On Friday, a Hamas leader’s vehicle was firebombed in a Palestinian Authority-governed area of the West Bank.

On his blog, Ettinger has in past days denied the existence of an underground Jewish organisation, but has defended attacks on “crimes” such as the existence of churches and mosques branded as “places of pagan worship”.

Investigators say that the attack was likely the work of an underground faction of settler youth who’ve become even more radical, seeking to destabilize the Israeli state and replace it with one based on religious law.

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Last week, Education Minister Naftali Bennett addressed protesters at a West Bank outpost where settlers clashed with police when authorities moved in to seize two buildings ruled illegal by the Israeli High Court.

Netanyahu promises crackdown on Jewish extremists