The good news is that Meir Ettinger, grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, is expected to be released on Wednesday, June 1, following 10 months of solitary confinement in administrative detention, meaning he never committed any crime, but former Defense Minsiter Meir Ya’alon was convinced he was going to commit bad things if only he were allowed to roam free. And so, in the same vein, although Ettinger will presumably be allowed to leave jail, he won’t be doing a lot of roaming, Hakol Hayehudi reported Monday.
An administrative decree signed by OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Roni Numa bans Ettinger from Judea and Samaria for a period of one year. Another decree, signed by GOC Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick, bans Ettinger from Jerusalem and from the community of Yad Binyamin.
In addition, Ettinger must obey a night curfew for the next four months, and he has been banned from contacting a list of 92 acquaintances.
Ettinger is the second rightwing activist banned from contacting a long list of his friends — another young man was served last Friday with a decree running 87 names he is forbidden to contact.
Stay tuned for a solidarity with Meir Ettinger event his friends are organizing, which suggests that they’d be contacting him via YouTube.
Jewish activists Meir Ettinger and Evyatar Slonim were placed in administrative detention—an old British Mandate “temporary” regulation which is being employed by Israeli courts to incarcerate security risks whose alleged crimes cannot be proven—last August. They were then transferred to the security wing of Eshel prison near Be’er Sheva in early October.
Ettinger’s uncle, Binyamin Kahane, was killed with his wife Talya in a shooting attack near the settlement of Ofra in December 2000.
During his stay in isolation, his attorney, Sima Kochav, wrote: “They keep [Palestinian] security prisoners in this wing, which means the IPS is violating its mandate and risking the life of a prisoner needlessly. Not only have they damaged his conditions unreasonably, disproportionately and contrary to the ordinance, but they are, at this moment, risking his life in a tangible way. The [Arabs’] cells are adjacent to his cell.”
Kochav also pointed out that “while the prisoners exit to the yard, they knock on his cell doors, talk into his cell window, and threaten his life. Likewise during the outings, when the prisoners are in the yard, the detainee (Ettinger) is showered with curses, insults, and, worst of all, death threats. In addition, the prisoner in the cell next to Mr. Ettinger’s is banging on the walls throughout the night and shouting, in order to disturb and harm Mr. Ettinger.”