Open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister's Office Kiriyah Jerusalem Dear Prime Minister, Detention of Meir Ettinger under Administrative Detention Orders After a period of six months in Administrative Detention the State of Israel has failed to level charges against Meir Ettinger. If the respective security apparatus is unable to have sufficient evidence of his potential guilt, then there can be no plausible reasons to keep him imprisoned. Two weeks ago he began a hunger strike to protest his innocence and about his imprisonment without reason. Yesterday it was reported that he had lost consciousness. This detention resembles that applied to his late grandfather, Rabbi Meir Kahne, in the late 1970's specifically to remove him from the limelight because he spoke out against the government's policy of the day. Accordingly Ettinger's detention contravenes Articles 9 of UN International Covenant on Civil and Political General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966 that came into force 23 March 1976. The legal basis for Israel's use of Administrative Detention is the British Mandate 1945 Defense (Emergency) Regulations . A complex of 147 regulations enacted by the British Mandate and was intended to provide the British High Commissioner in Palestine with additional powers to suppress Jewish resistance to British rule, it has remained largely intact during subsequent decades, except on those occasions when the Knesset decided to replace a few of its provisions with new legislation. This included amendments in 1979 to form the current Israeli Law on Authority in States of Emergency However, whilst Administrative Detention is applied to those of nationalist Zionist views it does not appear to be enforced with respect to those Israeli citizens on the far left who are opposed to the state, publically speak out against the government both here and abroad and side with our enemies who wish to destroy the country. Should they not also be in Administrative Detention and if not why not? Furthermore, cognizance should be taken of the effect on the younger generation of Israeli Jewish youth who have lived through the evacuation of Jewish homes in Gush Katif, Homesh, Migron etc., for nothing more than pie in the sky promises of a peace that has failed to materialize. Similarly with the release of Arab terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands. They are being daily alienated against the authorities as a result of seeing that the removal of Jewish homes has not brought peace and security but has resulted in the current violence and barbaric murder and maiming of Jews by both Arab Israeli citizens and those from PA/PLO areas, that the government is unable to control. One well recollects recently when an Arab prisoner who went on hunger strike and was reportedly close to death was subsequently released and never charged – don’t let Ettinger get to this point. It is time that Ettinger was released or charged. If after six months charges cannot be leveled against him despite all the efforts of the respective security agencies then there is no reason to hold him. He is innocent until proven guilty! I look forward to confirmation of you authorizing his immediate release.