The deception of a harsh sentence

Tamimi, my child's killer, presenting her made-in-Jordan

terror-promoting television show in 2016

Today Muhammad Mruh Kabha, the murderer of Esther Horgen HY"D, a 53 year old Israel mother of six, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The Times of Israel report quotes the startling words of the court in handing down its decision: “This is a case that shocks the soul... an inconceivable evil.”

I suppose many who learned of the outcome were satisfied that justice was done. 

Some critical voices noted the fortune that the convicted killer's family now stands to amass thanks to the Palestinian Authority's "Pay For Slay" program. 

The Horgen family's lawyer, Maurice Hirsch, is quoted saying

During the life of this vile killer in prison, he will earn over NIS 4 million from the Palestinian Authority. He will enjoy it, his family will enjoy these funds, the Palestinian Authority will rebuild his destroyed house. And the Israeli government is doing nothing. The court has gone a long way this morning... but it is not enough.”

But no mention was made of Israel's past - and ongoing - readiness to release convicted murderers in lopsided swaps like the 2011 Shalit Deal ["Ten lessons the Shalit deal taught us"]. 

There was also no mention of Israel's shameful embrace of rulers who actually protect the murderers of innocent Israelis who have walked free in the course of such despicable deals.

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I refer, of course, to the case of my child's murderer: Ahlam Tamimi, the main orchestrator of the infamous 2001 Sbarro terrorist bombing in which 15 adults and children perished. One of them, my daughter Malki, was 15.

The terrorist convicted today is probably as confident as Tamimi was back then that he will not die in prison. During Tamimi's own relatively brief imprisonment in Israel she declared in multiple interviews "I will be free!"

And so she was. 

In 2011, Tamimi, along with 1,026 other terrorists including several hundred murderers, indeed walked free. Many of them had been sentenced to life imprisonment. Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life terms. And to our horror walked free after just eight years.

Tamimi today remains free and active, shielded by Jordan's absolute ruler King Abdullah II who declines to submit to U.S. demands for her extradition  despite there being a valid 1995 treaty for that purpose signed and ratified by his own father, the late King Hussein, with the Bill Clinton administration.

 
The understanding my husband and I have, based on conversations with senior officials in two United States administrations, is that Israel is unwilling to see Jordan's king put at risk by handing Tamimi - one of only two women on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list (a total of 25 are currently on it) - over to U.S. justice and law enforcement. 

We have also seen signs that Israel has conveyed to the leaders of major American Jewish organizations that a Tamimi extradition to Washington is a topic they want to leave utterly unmentioned. Its best-buddies relationship with Abdullah is deemed too valuable to be undermined by such pressure for justice.

As we prepare for another seder without our precious Malki at the table, Arnold and I are confronted by a wall of shunning and silence from almost every leader we approach on the Tamimi issue: American, Israeli, right-wing, left-wing, Democrat, Republican, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Having already experienced "inconceivable evil" from our enemies, we have learned to our sorrow that even what our own leaders do can simply shock the soul.