Army favors detention for Samaria rabbi

Senior army officers have lately recommended that one of the leading rabbis in the settlements of Samaria be put under administrative detention. The recommendation is meanwhile opposed by the Shin Bet, which says such a move would be an "earthquake" for the extremists, but the secret service has not ruled out administrative detention as the disengagement approaches.

Several high-ranking officers have been calling for administrative detention orders to be issued against leading activists on the extreme right, particularly in Samaria and in the Hebron Jewish enclave.

Last week, Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh of the Central Command, with the approval of the Shin Bet, signed an order confining Hebronite Kach leader Noam Federman to house arrest, but no other similar measures have so far been taken.

Worry about radicalization of the activists in Samaria is based on a series of incidents mostly concentrated in the settlements of Yitzhar, Itamar and Tapuah and the outposts around them.

Clashes with the army and police during evacuation of outposts and attempts by radicals to beef up the outposts with more mobile homes and trailers often end in violence and arrests.

Meanwhile, extremists like Avri Ran of Itamar, considered a leader of the "hilltop youth," often attack Palestinians. Ran is a fugitive, after violating a court order for him to remain under house arrest. Police are hunting for him.

Some of the senior army officers believe that there is a guiding hand behind the repeated rioting. They say that only a severe step, such as a number of administrative arrests - including one of the rabbis who they say is deeply involved in the agitation - would send the message to the extremists that the state is serious about its intentions to deal with them, as the evacuation approaches.

The army and police should not wait until a soldier or policeman has been killed in one of these clashes, say those officers.

However, the Jewish department in the Shin Bet, has reservations about the recommended administrative detention, saying the time is not yet ripe for such steps.

Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter said recently that there is no need yet for such detention orders, though they could possibly be issued closer to the evacuation.

The army has identified five concentrations of extremists in the West Bank: Yitzhar, Tapuah, and the "Gideonite" outposts near Itamar are all near Nablus and known as the "Iron Triangle." The Hebron Jewish enclave and the settlement of Bat Ayin are the main concentrations of extremists in the southern part of the West Bank.

The officers predict that the most violence will come from those five locations as the evacuation nears.

The IDF is also worried about the possibility that extremists might try to conduct massacres in Palestinian villages in the northern West Bank in a hope that the subsequent turmoil will stop the disengagement.

The main suspects and those convicted in the various Jewish terror groupings of 2000-2002, who murdered Palestinians in shooting incidents in the West Bank, and tried setting off bombs in Palestinian schools, came from the Samaria area, as well as Hebron and Bat Ayin.