Sixteen years after two massacres

The Pentagon on 9/11 [Image Source]

Imagine if Khalid al-Mihdhar or Nawaf al-Hazmi, the first of the 9/11 attackers to arrive in the United States in January 2000 and two of the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77 which they crashed into the Pentagon as part of the September 11 attacks, had survived.

Now imagine they had somehow escaped to Jordan where they live well and triumphant today.

Now (in our imaginations) add to that scenario a string of indictments and extradition demands by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice against the government which lets them dwell in peace within its borders. They would also most certainly be added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.

Next, tack on a refusal by Jordan's supreme ruler, King Abdullah II, to abide by the extradition treaty his father and President Clinton signed in 1995. Because, it goes without saying, al-Midhar and al-Hazmi would be heroes in the eyes of the Jordanian people. So the King, betting that the US administration, a long-time ally, would acquiesce, might continue to grant those mass murderers refuge.

How, in your estimation, would the State Department react? Would it indeed back off and ignore the indictment of the Department of Justice which was eager to try those murderers? Would it accept the King's absurd excuses as to why he can't adhere to a treaty duly signed and ratified by Jordan?

You know the answers.

That fantasy scenario is reality for the mastermind of a massacre here in Israel, Ahlam Tamimi.

As she has confessed in court and boasted to the media, she murdered fifteen Israelis of whom two - including my teen-age daughter - were American citizens. (A sixteenth, also an American, also a woman, has languished in a vegetative state ever since.)

That number out of an Israeli population then totaling 6.4 million is the equivalent of 668 American victims out of the total US population of 2001.

Tamimi's reality is she is today free, married, a mother and a celebrity living in Amman.

The reactions of the State Department to King Abdullah's conduct towards mass murderer, Tamimi are bafflng and intolerable. (I am deliberately skipping some important details. My husband and I plan to reveal those soon.)

Why is King Abdullah persistently hailed as an ally of the U.S. in its fight against Islamist terrorism?For several frustrating months my husband and I have been pleading with several State Department officials for answers to specific questions. We have been ignored outright or given evasive answers.

It may be 16 years since our daughter Malki was taken from us but the urgent need for justice, for evil-doers to be punished according to law, never fades. It cries out for action as piercingly as it did on that awful, hot August day when our child innocently stepped in to Sbarro to have a slice of pizza.