Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Bulldozer Dude's Family Soon to be Homeless

In July of last year, Palestinian construction worker Hussam Duwiyat took the bulldozer from the construction site where he was working and took it on a rampage through Jerusalem streets, in what would be the first incident of its kind, to be followed by several other copycat construction workers. Duwiyat killed three people and indured dozens before he was shot and killed by an off-duty soldier, on camera.

[Link to my post about it.]

At the time, there was talk about demolishing his parent's home, as a method of collective punishment that had been discontinued but then reinstated several months previously. At various times, the Israeli government has decided that home demolition is not an effective deterrent for would-be terrorist and, alternately, that it should be done anyway. It seems they are out of ideas.

The debate about whether the Duwiyat home should be demolished was based on his family's argument that, firstly, he was not a terrorist, but rather, simply a disturbed individual and secondly, that he did not have rights to his parents' home anyway.

High Court Justice Edmond Levy ruled today that there were no grounds to reverse the decision made by defense officials to raze the family home, which is a multi-story dwelling housing Duwiyat's entire extended family.

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