Ethics Newsline®

GAZA CITY
Promising to make good on his anticorruption promises, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas last week sent a bulldozer to crush the homes of three senior officers who seized their seaside house lots illegally.

The bulldozer demolished the officers’ nearly finished beachside houses without resistance, turning the two-story homes into symbolic piles of rubble 300 feet from the Mediterranean Sea.

The officers — a major, a lieutenant colonel, and a colonel — were building on public land that they had illegally appropriated, reported the Associated Press.

“The Palestinian Authority policy is clear: No one is above the law, and we will work until we put an end to the lawlessness,” pledged Tawfik Abu Khoussa, a spokesman for the Palestinian Interior minister.

Abbas, who came to power promising to rout corruption from the government, authorized the demolition of illegally built shops, cafes, and kiosks in January, and has forced the retirement of senior officials in recent weeks, according to the AP.