Laid to rest and under arrest

Nearly a week after a pair of violent incidents rattled the country, the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade stabbing and the torching of a Palestinian home by suspected Jewish terrorists remain at the top of the agenda in the press.

The big story in Tuesday’s papers is the funeral for Shira Banki, the 16-year-old girl who was stabbed at the parade in Jerusalem and succumbed to her wounds on Sunday. Thousands came to the ceremony at Kibbutz Nahshon to lay her to rest. Beforehand, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said in an interview that “there’s no doubt her murder could have been prevented,” Haaretz reports. That sentiment was echoed by Banki’s parents, who also said her murder could have been prevented.

“All of the innocence and good fell on the altar of hatred,” the parents said, and the quote is taken for a headline by Yedioth Ahronoth.

The tabloids opt to simply publish the eulogy read by Banki’s parents at her funeral, the key takeaway of which is that “we have no quarrel with people with kippot and beards, and we know much many sincere and emotional prayers were said in public and behind closed doors for her recovery. Our fight is with the lack of tolerance, the hatred and your holy mission at the expense of the pain of others.”

Both Yedioth Ahronoth and Israel Hayom report that the son of a former MK was arrested Friday after voicing support on the Internet for Yishai Schlissel, the man who arrested for the attack at the pride parade. After being put on house arrest, on Monday he expressed joy on WhatsApp at the death of Banki and was arrested once again.

Israel Hayom reports that a right wing activist, the grandson of assassinated ex-MK Meir Kahane, was arrested Monday by the Shin Bet for “involvement in activities of radical Jewish groups.” Kahane’s extreme right wing Kach party was banned from the Knesset for its radical stance before he was shot in 1990.

According to the paper, Meir Ettinger, 24, is considered one of the main targets of the Shin Bet’s Jewish division, and it previously sought to put him under administrative detention. He recently wrote on his blog before the Duma attack in which suspected Jewish terrorists torched a Palestinian home, killing a baby, that “the truth needs to be told — there is no [Jewish] terrorist organization, but what there is a lot, a lot of Jews, many more than what’s believed, whose hierarchy of values is completely different from that of the Supreme Court or Shin Bet, and that the laws to which they abide are not the laws of the state — the imbecilic and broken ones — but rather much more everlasting laws.”

Haaretz reports that Ettinger was arrested because of intel which pointed at him planning a series of attack on Palestinians with the ultimate aim of inciting Palestinian violence that would bring down the Israeli government. The paper reports that Ettinger was expected to be interrogated on his involvement in the scheme, and if he doesn’t play ball he will be arrested under administrative detention.

Last week the Shin Bet claimed Ettinger was the mastermind behind the attack in June on the Church of the Multiplication of Fishes and Loaves.

Yedioth Ahonoth leads off with the latest terrorist attack targeting Israelis, with the image of a car ablaze after being hit by a Molotov cocktail near Jerusalem. A 27-year-old woman was moderately injured in the attack with burns on a quarter of her body. Two others suffered minor injuries.

The incident took place next to the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Hanina of East Jerusalem. The paper points out — rather oddly — that it happened near an interchange named after the prime minister’s late father whose opening Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated just two years ago.

The Shin Bet, reports Haaretz, says that at this stage it doesn’t have enough evidence to support the outlawing of Lehava, a right wing group which opposes the intermixing of Jews and non-Jews, several of whose members were involved in the attack on a bilingual school in Jerusalem last year.

The investigation came at the request of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who asked the security service to check the possibility of investigating the group after 21 members, including its leader, were arrested and investigated on suspicion of incitement and calls to violence.