It took the death of a baby to push the Israeli government to get tough on Jewish extremism. Eighteen-month-old Ali Dawabsheh was killed on July 31st in an arson attack carried out by Jewish vigilantes in the Palestinian village of Douma in the West Bank. Two days later the Israeli security cabinet approved "special measures" against Jewish terrorism suspects. These include the detention without trial of suspected extremists, a holdover from the pre-1948 British Mandate; three suspects were swiftly interned for six months. Government sources say that the security services have also been given the power to use a limited degree of physical coercion in interrogation, something permitted by Israeli courts in "ticking bomb" cases.
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