Israellycool

He Was Not a Terrorist, Just a Very Naughty Boy

Aussie Dave

The family of yesterday’s terrorist claims he could not have been a terrorist.

After all, some of his best friends were Jewish.

The 30-year-old east Jerusalem man who carried out Wednesday’s terrorist attack in the capital once lived with a Jewish woman, his relatives told The Jerusalem Post.

They identified him as Husam Taysir Dwayat, a father of two from the Sur Baher neighborhood in the city’s southeast.

According to the relatives, the fact that he had lived with a Jewish woman showed that Dwayat was not an extremist.

“[The Jewish woman] lived with him in Sur Baher,” said one relative. Although the woman’s family refused to have contact with him, “he was on good terms with many Jews with whom he used to work,” another relative said.

Residents expressed surprise at the identity of the terrorist.

Dwayat did not belong to any political faction, they said. “He was not a member of Hamas or Fatah,” said a man who knew him very well. “He was never part of any political framework.”

Incidentally, I wonder if the residents would have alerted authorities ahead of time had he been a visible member of a terror organization.

So if he was not a terrorist, why did he commit this heinous act?

It was the Jews’ fault of course!

A neighbor who asked not to be identified told the Post that Dwayat was known for his involvement in criminal, and not political, activities.

“In the past he got into trouble with the law,” he said. “I think his problems started while he was still with the Jewish wife. Some people say he was a drug addict.”

Shortly after the midday attack, police raided Dwayat’s home and arrested his father and one of his brothers.

Zuhier Hamdan, one of the mukhtars of Sur Bahir, also said he and most people in the neighborhood were surprised when they heard that Dwayat was behind the attack.

“He’s the last person you would think would do such a thing,” Hamdan told the Post. “He was an ordinary young man who was never involved in anti-Israel activities.”

Hamdan said he was convinced that the attack was a personal initiative and that Dwayat did not act on behalf of any Palestinian group.

As for the motive, Hamdan said he and Dwayat’s family did not rule out the possibility that haredi teenagers had assaulted him before the attack.

“There’s a rumor going on that some haredi students had thrown stones at him and cursed him at the construction site before the attack,” Hamdan said. “Perhaps he was so angry that he decided to go on a rampage.”

And we all know that rumors suggesting Jews were to blame must be true.

Updates (Israel time)

12:00PM: I wonder if this is a reference to the Jewish woman he lived with/Jewish “wife” mentioned above (hat tip: Shy Guy).

Many questions remain from Wednesday’s attack, such as why the police ultimately failed to stop the killer and how he was hired by the Municipality of Jerusalem despite having served two years in prison for the rape and attempted murder of a Jewish woman.

1:17PM: More “surprise” expressed from a member of the terrorist’s community.

“Residents here were appalled by the news. Even his family was surprised that such an honest man, who did not affiliated with any organization, was responsible for the attack. No one believes this man could have gone out and killed those people,” Sur Baher’s community center director, Tariq Awwad, told Ynet.

Yeah. A man so honest, he had a criminal record and spent time in prison for rape.

Either his family are stupid, or are lying. Methinks the second is more likely.

2:50PM: The terrorist’s family has been ordered to dismantle the mourning tent they erected in honor of the murderer despite explicit instructions from Jerusalem police chief Aharon Franco not to.

Not quite the act of a family ashamed of the killer’s actions.

4:00PM: Alternatively, he was not a bad man, just a bad driver.

Issam, the terrorist’s brother, said the Dawyyat family refused to believe that their son carried out a terror attack.

“My brother did not belong to any organization. He wasn’t even a religious person. After terror attacks he always used to say, ‘What is this nonsense? Why do we need this?’”

According to the brother, the incident may have been a road accident which had gone wrong. “Any person responsible for a road accident is alarmed and afraid. This can happen to anyone, and this could have been a road accident. It’s possible that my brother was scared when people started chasing him and shooting,” he told Ynet.

And just when you thought your intelligence had been insulted enough…

The lawyer representing the family of bulldozer driver Hossam Dawyyat of east Jerusalem, who murdered three people and injured dozens during a killing spree in Jerusalem on Wednesday, said Thursday that had the police cuffed the terrorist’s hands and legs and removed him from the vehicle, the incident would have ended at once and “life would have been spared.”

An Australian immigrant to Israel, Aussie Dave has been blogging since early 2003.