Murdered Arab teen’s father: Not razing killers’ homes is double standard
Hussein Abu Khdeir, whose son was burnt alive by Jews, says ‘no justice at High Court,’ which rejected family’s petition
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
The father of an East Jerusalem teenager who was brutally murdered by Jewish extremists in 2014 said Wednesday that the High Court’s approval of a decision not to demolish the killers’ homes showed that there were separate rules for Palestinians and for Jews.
Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16, was abducted and killed in East Jerusalem on July 1, 2014, by three Jewish attackers. An autopsy found that the he had been beaten and then burned alive in a forest outside Jerusalem.
The murder was apparently in revenge for the killing of three Israeli teenagers by the Hamas terror group the month before.
The Jerusalem District Court handed down a life sentence, plus 20 years in jail, to Yosef Ben David, the ringleader of the group that murdered Abu Khdeir. The two other killers — both minors — were sentenced to life in prison and 21 years, respectively.
On Tuesday, the High Court of Justice, backing up a district court decision, rejected a petition from the victim’s parents seeking the demolition of the Jewish killers’ homes, a measure that Israel employs regularly against Palestinians who carry out attacks.
The ruling said that the deterrent power of such an act would not apply in the case of Abu Khdeir’s killers, given the long period of time that had elapsed between the attack and the submission of the parents’ petition in 2016.
The slain teenager’s father, Hussein Abu Khdeir, told Army Radio Wednesday, however, that the family had first demanded the demolitions just seven days after their son’s murder, but had been told by Israeli authorities that they had to wait until the suspects had been investigated and convicted.
In contrast, the homes of Palestinian attackers are generally demolished before a conviction is handed down, often in the days immediately following the attack. The controversial measure is officially employed in order to deter future would-be attackers.
Abu Khdeir, who marked the third anniversary of his son’s death two days ago, said in broken Hebrew that the family thought the High Court would treat Jews like they treat Arabs, but had been sorely disappointed.
“If an Arab does something, they destroy his home within a few days,” he said, charging that it would have been “no problem” to demolish the Jewish killers’ homes.
The parents’ petition was motivated by a Defense Ministry letter they received last year, which said there was no need to demolish the homes of Jewish terrorists at this stage, as such attacks were too infrequent to warrant deterrent action.
The family’s lawyer disputed that rationale, noting the firebombing of the Dawabshe family home, which left two parents and a baby dead; an arson attack at a Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem; and the shooting to death by Israeli soldier Elor Azaria of a Palestinian stabber who lay incapacitated on the ground in Hebron in March 2016.
“There’s apparently no justice at the High Court,” said Hussein Abu Khdeir.
The ruling against demolition would not deter other Jews from murdering Palestinians, when they should have done “something strong so that nobody would think of doing what they did to Muhammad Abu Khdeir,” he said.
Abu Khdeir said the family had attended more than 38 court sessions, sometimes sitting for eight hours in front of “the person who burned our child to death,” a “person who was laughing and looked content.”
On occasions when the court was hearing exactly how his son had been beaten and his body set on fire, he had had to leave the courtroom.
In its ruling, the court said that the anti-terror regulation that allows for home demolitions “applies equally to Arab terrorists and to Jewish terrorists, each case according to its circumstances.”
But it noted that the practice is only justified for its possible deterrent power, and so must be carried out in the immediate aftermath of a terror attack and have a reasonable chance of deterring future attacks.
Raoul Wootliff contributed to this report
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