44 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS • Friday, May 18, 1984 I NEWS Gush Emunim rabbi jailed in terrorism investigation HAMILTON PLACE for • A -V ......... • • INITIATION Swim in our outdoor and indoor pools. Pla Tennis, Jog, enjoy Free Aero- bics, exercise on Nautilus and Universal equiprrient, dine in our Restaurant or Lounge, you name it. It's all at Southfield's most luxurious Health ..... and Social Club. All for just $75.00'.'• (*For a single mem- f!!!! -- be rs h p plus monthly dues, slightly higher for couples and family) Hurry now, and enjoy the summer. — .. - HAMILTON PLACE Athletic & Social Club 30333 Southfield Rd. (between 12 and 13 mile Rds.) CALL 646-8990 HURRY! OFFER ENDS FRIDAY MAY 25th ...... • -•• 44-41-1 Presented by Hall Real Estate Group. EMEE.711. : ::::::::: Jerusalem (JTA) — Rabbi Moshe Levinger of Hebron, a leader of one of the most militant groups of Jewish settlers on the West Bank, was arrested by Jerusalem police Sunday night and held 48 hours for question- ing. On Wednesday, a judge ordered Rabbi Levinger held for an additional eight days. Detention followed sev- eral days during which he was called to police head- quarters for interrogation about a suspected Jewish terrorist underground on the West Bank believed re- sponsible for the aborted at- tempt to sabotage Arab- owned buses in East Jerusalem last month and for other acts of violence against Arab civilians in re- cent years. Security agencies repor- tedly suspect that Levinger has important connections with the underground and may have had prior knowl- edge of some of its activities and participated in plan- ning them. Yediot Achronot reported that Levinger may have signed a confession related to those suspicions. His son-in-law was one of the first West Bank settlers ar- rested after security forces foiled the bus sabotage at- tempt on April 27. The 25 suspects now de- tained in separate prisons all over Israel are said to have been linked to the at- tack on the Islamic College in Hebron last July in which three Arab students were killed and 33 wounded. Se- curity agencieS are also try- ing to establish a link be- tween the underground and the June 1980 car bombings that maimed two West Bank Arab mayors. According to Yediot Ac- hronot, the police wanted to arrest Levinger last Thurs- day after his first interroga- tion. But Premier Yitzhak Shamir intervened, asking that no arrest be made until, there is absolutely no doubt of Levinger's connections with the underground. Shamir finally approved the arrest Sunday, Yediot Ac- chronot reported. Residents of Kiryat Arba, the religious Jewish stron- ghold adjacent to Hebron which Levinger helped es- tablish, were stunned when news of Levinger's arrest reached them shortly before midnight Sunday. The town council immediately went into emergency session to decide what the commu- nity's reaction would be. "We feel that we need spiritual support," Mayor Shalom Wach of Kiryat Arba said. Town residents expressed fear that other local leaders might be summoned by the police. Levinger, a leader of the Gush Emunim which bases Israel's claims to the occu- pied territories on Biblical injunction, was in the foref-. ront of the Jewish settle- ment movement since the territories were captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. He led the first group of Jewish squatters in Hebron in 1968 and later prevailed on the then Labor-led gov- ernment to build Kiryat Arba which has become the largest township on the West Bank. Levinger moved from Kiryat Arba several years ago to establish himself and a group of followers in the former Jewish quarter of Hebron. He recently re- turned from a visit to the U.S. to raise funds to restore the Jewish quarter. When the investigation of the bus sabotage attempt appeared to confirm the long-rumored exi s tence of a Jewish underground based on the West Bank, Levinger spoke out against vigilan- tism. At the same time, however, he appeared to ex- cuse it as a necessary re- sponse to the government's ineptness. He charged that the government was lax in protecting Jewish settlers from the Arab terrorist acts. Meanwhile, Haaretz re- ported that one of the sus- pects in the bus sabotage at- tempt, an army officer with the rank of major, has been on a hunger strike for the two days to protest "the exaggerated action" of the security services against Jewish settlers. The investigation repor- tedly is now focussing on an alleged plot by Jewish ex- tremists to blow up the El Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, two major Is- lamic shrines on the Temple Mount in East Jerusalem. Some of the suspects were said to have confessed and to have re-enacted their plans for the police. There has been no official confirmation of any of these reports. The investigation remains under a news blackout. There was no indication if or when any of the suspects will be for- mally charged. Media observers in Israel have been speculating that Jewish terrorist activities were part of a long-term plot to cause deterioration in re- lations between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Some claim that this was a re- prisal against Arab ter- rorism and a means for forc- ing Arab emigration from Israel, leading to an earlier , coming of the Messiah. Science Minister Yuval Neeman, leader of the ultra-nationalist Tehiya Party, created a furor when he appeared to justify and condone the attack on the mayors although he decri the bus sabotage attem, Interviewed on Voice of Is- rael Radio, Neeman said that while he did not justify taking the law into one's own hands, "one should dis- tinguish between attacking innocent people and the at- tack on the Arab mayors" whom he accused of inciting violence on the West Bank. According to Neeman, the attacks on the mayors had "a positive impact" in the long run. The mayors, Bassan Shaka of Nablus and Karin Khallaf of Ramallah, were subsequently deposed by the Israeli authorities for pro-PLO sympathies. Shaka lost both legs and Khallaf lost his left foot. remarks Neeman's triggered a demand by MK Mordechai Virshubsky of the opposition Shinui fac- tion for his immediate dis- missal from the Cabinet. Virshubsky declared that if Premier Yitzhak Shamir wants to root' out Jewish terrorism he cannot keep in this government a minister who sees "positive results" from terrorists acts. Further controversy de- veloped over alleged police leaks to the media about the ongoing investigation. The chief of the Shin Bet, Is- rael's secret service, who briefed the Cabinet on Sun- day, charged that media re- ports of the investigation have caused grave damage. On Monday, the Supreme Court accused the police of leaking information to the media. S. African U. hit by arson Johannesburg (JTA) — Police are investigating the possibility of arson in a fire that swept the Student's Union building at Wit- watersrand University early this week after week of clashes betw€ Moslem and Jewish stu- dents. The blaze, which gutted the second floor of the build- ing, is believed to have been started deliberately in the offices of the South African Union of Jewish Students (JAUJS). The trouble began on the campus when the Moslem Student association distributed anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist meterial in the course of an Islamic Week program. [