Bulldozer Monster

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What's the difference between a madman and a terrorist? I ask that after reporting yesterday's rampage when an Arab ran amok with a bulldozer on a busy Jerusalem, killing three people and wounding 45 others.

By all accounts, the killer Hosam Dawyyat didn't belong to a Palestinian terrorist group, wasn't ideologically motivated (quite the opposite; he was busted for drugs and also reportedly served time on a rape charge, police say). He was having lunch and joking around with his co-workers on a construction site, and then something snapped. He climbed into a 20-ton bulldozer and charged into the street, smashing everything in his path. He didn't stop to inquire if there were only Jews on the two buses that he smashed and flipped over, although there were undoubtedly Arabs on board, too.

We'll probably never know what made him snap. Was his barbaric act triggered by the rage and humiliation that many Arabs feel in this fragmented holy land? Was it something deeply personal, a depth charge that finally bumped into something in his psyche and blew up? Who knows?

If this had happened in a different country, in the U.S., perhaps, we wouldn't say he was a terrorist. We'd say he was crazy, and we'd add him to the long line of madmen who go on killing sprees in schools, post offices and churches.

But in Israel, because Dawyyat was an Arab, his bloody insanity was branded an act of terrorism, and politicians began talking about exacting punishment against Arabs living in East Jerusalem, bulldozing down some of their houses and exiling them to Gaza. Another option: walling off the Arab neighborhoods completely. Of course this won't happen. It was said in anger and outrage. And after all, Israel is a democracy, and there are plenty of clear minds out there that can distinguish between a single, terrible act of madness and calculated terrorism. Today, Jerusalemites were back on Jaffa Road , streaming up to the open-air market to buy food for the Sabbath. So much sorrow over the years has given Jerusalemites a tremendous resilience.

By Tim McGirk/Jerusalem