Good-bye to Jason Greenblatt, a not-so-special representative

Ahlam Tamimi

Jason Greenblatt, the outgoing US Special Representative for International Negotiations, praised Israel and Jordan for their peace treaty which is 25 years old this week.

“The efforts of our two allies - Israel and Jordan - to find common ground and work to build a more peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship for their people is important,” tweeted Greenblatt, who is being fondly farewelled these days.

Sorry but I'm going to be a party pooper: Jason Greenblatt doesn't deserve a warm send-off.

First, it is abhorrent for him to refer to Israel and Jordan both as "our two allies" as if they are equally important and loyal to the US. 

Jordan has, for three years, defied the demand of the US Department of Justice to extradite the confessed mass murderer, Hamas operative, Ahlam Tamimi.

Jordan's current regime has declared the extradition treaty which its previous king signed with the US in 1995, to be null and void. The US says it is perfectly valid.

In 2011, Jordan's dictator, a.k.a.King Abdullah II, gave a red carpet welcome to Tamimi, murderer of eight Jewish adults and eight children in the 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria bombing. He has since given her refuge and the unfettered freedom to thrive, travel and incite to terrorism.

It is appalling that Greenblatt swept all that under the carpet to commemorate the peace treaty between terror-abetting Jordan and Israel.

Lest anybody doubt that Greenblatt is aware of the above, please note: My husband and I tweeted Greenblatt not once, not twice but numerous times detailing Tamimi's crimes, the DOJ's futile attempts to bring her to justice and Jordan's stalwart refusal to extradite her. 

We shared with him, of course, that our fifteen year old daughter, Malki, perished in that attack.

Greenblatt has never deigned to respond to us in any manner or form.

It is particularly baffling that a man who professes to be G-d- and Torah-fearing would ignore a heartfelt plea for assistance in achieving justice.

Perhaps in his new role, devoid of honorifics, Mr. Greenblatt will see fit to acknowledge us and our fight.

Speaker Pelosi, please rectify this travesty of justice

Our heartache deepened as yet another US Congressional delegation flew to Amman, Jordan, this weekend to meet with and praise the terror-abetting King Abdullah II ["19-Oct-19: House Speaker Pelosi led an official visit today to the chief protector of our child's killer"]

Notwithstanding the demands of the impeachment inquiries, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi found the time to present the Jordanian dictator with the same adulation she lavished on him in March 2019 and then again in April 2019 in Washington DC.

US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Jordan's King Abdullah
make their way to a podium to deliver statements ahead of a meeting at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on March 13, 2019 (Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images [Source]

US leaders on both sides of the aisle persist in ignoring the fact that the object of their friendship steadfastly rejects the US Department of Justice's demand for the extradition of mass murderer, Ahlam Tamimi.

The blood of our daughter, Malki, a US citizen, and of the other 15 victims of Tamimi's terror bombing - of whom two more were Americans - cries out for justice.

The Jordan Times ["King meets with US Congress delegation"] reported Saturday night that yesterday's meeting

"also covered regional and international efforts to counter terrorism within a comprehensive approach. For their part, the US lawmakers commended Jordan’s efforts, led by His Majesty, in pursuit of peace and stability in the region, praising the King’s wisdom."

US media have remained mum about the encounter.

However we can probably trust the accuracy of the Jordanian report given that Ms. Pelosi is on record as stating at their March 2019 meeting:

"It is really a great honor, officially, personally, in every way, to welcome back to the Capitol His Majesty, King Abdullah II. With his leadership, America has a true partner: a partner for peace, a partner for progress."

And she is again on record as telling the King in April 2019:

"I had the privilege as my first act as Speaker - on my first invitation - to extend to a Head of State, to extend to His Majesty to be the first person to address a joint session of Congress when I became Speaker. So I think that says to you how important the relationship between our two countries is - between Jordan and the United States - how important the friendship is - that Members of Congress feel toward His Majesty - and how much we value his words of wisdom."

Is that any way to address a man who welcomed a confessed terrorist murderer with open arms and has, since 2011, given her a platform on TV and social media to incite millions of fans to commit fresh murders?

Instead of flattering him, Ms. Pelosi, use your clout to insist he abide by the extradition treaty his father signed and ratified in 1995.

Tamimi has evaded the rule of law for long enough. You, as a lawmaker, can rectify this travesty of justice.

Deal with the devil

Image Source: Haaretz October 19, 2011

On the eighth anniversary (today - October 18, 2019) of the infamous Shalit Deal, remember its painful and outrageous repercussions.

That deal between Israel and Hamas freed 1,027 (1) terrorists including hundreds of convicted murderers, some of whom promptly resumed their evil ways and murdered yet more Jews.

Releasee Ahlam Tamimi, murderer of eight children (including our precious daughter, Malki) and seven adults - and currently on the run from the FBI and the US Department of Justice - has been brazenly urging her fans to emulate her.

We can only guess how many more innocent children have lost their lives due to her incitement.

On this sad day, help us convince Congress and American Jewish leaders to pressure Tamimi's protector, Jordan's King Abdullah II, to extradite her. 

Defying the request made public two and a half years ago by the US Department of Justice that he do just that - and despite an extradition treaty from 1995 - he continues to provide this confessed terrorist with a safe haven.

Let's see an end to the warm relations everybody fosters with this terror-abetting king until he seats Tamimi on a US-bound plane to face justice.

Welcome to my SCN2A world

From a 2017 overview about the current knowledge
of SCN2A disorders, presented by Dennis Lal
of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT [via YouTube]

After a hectic period laden with stressful but (thank G-d) joyous events, I can finally refocus on this blog. 

First, to recap.

We now have a pretty firm diagnosis for Haya's symptoms after a 24 year hunt. 

While it is a de novo mutation of the SCN2A gene i.e. not hereditary (yay!), it has been an otherwise distressing discovery. That's because there is simply no effective treatment for it. 

The mutation causes a particularly severe and refractory epilepsy: Epileptic Encephalopathy Early Onset 11. It's sometimes called Early Infantile Epileptic Encephalopathy Type 11, and sometimes EIEE11.

Available anti-epileptic drugs are almost invariably useless, something we'd already concluded on our own after Haya's 24 years of relentless seizing.

Nonetheless, last month we brought Haya to a pediatric neurologist whom our geneticist had recommended highly. (She's booked up for the next year).

At that visit, she assured us she would study Haya's EEG's and her history and would then suggest medication changes as a first step. True, after the years of the med failures we've had, any new ones have no more than a 3% chance of success - but that isn't zero, as the doctor noted. 

So we all agreed it's the wisest first step.

Next, if we find Haya to be in the 97% majority med-wise, this doctor recommended we re-try the Ketogenic Diet. We had Haya on that diet some twenty years ago with minimal success and dropped it after 10 months because of serious, uncontrollable vomiting. 

 
But, as the doctor noted, we had had no professional guidance in calibrating the diet. So giving it a second shot with good medical intervention this time sounds wise.

If that diet fails again, she recommends going with a second VNS implantation. 

That was also a failure back in 2000 and we were bereft of sound medical guidance then too. So while I'm reluctant to subject Haya to surgery but if there's no alternative, we'll try it.

I also set up a Google Alert for the SCN2A gene and Epileptic Encephalopathy Early Onset 11. Not one of the journal articles I've been sent so far are relevant or helpful. Most weren't even about that gene! Are you listening Dr. Google?

Now a request.

The new neurologist, when I asked her, said she has no other patients with this syndrome. Our Haya, I think, may well enjoy the distinction of being the only such person in Israel.

If you know of anybody afflicted with it, please let me know. I will give you my personal details if requested in a blog comment.

A secret scandal

My murdered daughter Malki z"l

About thirty leaders of prominent American Jewish organizations gathered last week ["29-Sep-19: As we prepare for the High Holy Day season"] to honor a world leader they clearly esteem.

They accepted the royal invitation to join the ruler in a swank New York City hotel. The leader undoubtedly valued their acceptance of his invitation because his tightly-controlled news services all accorded the event significant coverage.

Conversely, the Jewish organizations involved made no mention whatsoever of the event.

The leader involved is Jordan's King Abdullah II, the same dictator who refuses to accede to the US demand for extradition of mass murderer, Ahlam Tamimi.

She is the bloodthirsty terrorist who has boasted of killing my child, Malki, along with 7 other children and a total of 15 innocent Jews. 

You may wonder what possessed those Jewish leaders when they chose to participate in King Abdullah's performance; how they could greet him without mentioning the protection and respect he has lavished on Tamimi for the past eight years.

From an Arab source, the Jews who breakfasted with the king

You may even be outraged, as my husband and I were, when one of those Jewish leaders told us he could not possibly divulge any details about the encounter because it was "off the record".

Obviously his and his colleagues commitments to King Abdullah outweigh any loyalty he owes the Jewish constituents he purports to serve.

On these days of awe when Jews the world over daily recite the prayer "Avinu Malkeinu" ["Our Father, Our King"], it is distressing to learn that the king these Jewish leaders actually revere is none other than the protector of the nefarious Tamimi, Jordan's King Abdullah II.

Institutions: The world goes one way, Israel and Aleh the other

The planned interior of the newly-announced rehab hospital at Aleh Negev

On September 12, 2019, Aleh released a promo of its much-touted rehabilitation hospital: see Times of Israel 

It will be erected beside the largest of its four institutions for people with disabilities, Aleh Negev Nahalat Eran. And it is heavily subsidized by the government of Israel and the Jewish Agency. Naturally, donations are also welcome.

The PR "smoke-in-our-eyes" piece glosses over the institutionalization aspect while homing in on the planned hospital's features.

I noticed two interesting details that I fear will likely be overlooked:

1. In mentioning the institution where some 140 children and young adults are locked away and isolated from society, it refers to them as "villagers". How quaint. Only they are not villagers in any sense of the word. A village is "a part of a world clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town, with a population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand." That's Wikipedia speaking.
2. In mentioning "Dr. Itzhak Siev-Ner, head of the Rehabilitation Department at the Health Ministry who is leading the new venture on behalf of the government" it omits that he is also Medical Director, ALEH Negev–Nahalat Eran Rehabilitation Hospital [source]. I'd wager that's a conflict of interest of the first order.

Bizchut protest outside Ministry of Welfare August 2019 in the wake
of the killing of Ephraim Ben Baruch

Below, for some contrast, is my translation of an article circulated by Bizchut activist Naama Lerner after the killing of Ephraim Ben Baruch in a Haifa institution two months ago:

Ephraim Ben Baruch lived for six years in the Ramat Haifa residential facility, intended for people with cognitive developmental disability. Throughout, he complained repeatedly to his family members. "He said it's bad for him, that he is being hit", says his mother, Racheli Ben Baruch. "When I visited the facility in order to complain they showed me photographs of him laughing and eating. That everything was fine. I believed them. I call on parents whose children live in hostels not to be complacent like me. If your child complains, start acting so that you will not face the situation that befell me." 

Ephraim died three weeks ago in the institution he lived in after he was allegedly beaten by his caregiver. 

A tragedy like this, that joins other cases of abuse by counselors and caregivers of their charges, highlights the need for a "house cleaning" (in Hebrew: בדק בית) of everything related to appropriate housing solutions for people with disabilities. 

Only two months ago, a young woman who worked in a hostel in Kfar Saba was accused of attacking a resident of the institution on several occasions. In January, the police arrested two women on suspicion of attacking a 50 year old resident of the hostel in Nahariya where they worked. 

According to 2014 findings, there are some 25,000 people with disabilities living in "out of home" residences (hostels, dormitories and protected residences) in Israel. The overwhelming majority are people with emotional disabilities and with cognitive developmental disabilities; a minority have physical and sensory disabilities.

Some 6,100 people with cognitive developmental disabilities live in 63 dormitories (96.8 residents per institution on average), nine of which are governmental with another small number operated by amutot (not-for-profit associations). The overwhelming majority are institutions owned by private companies that naturally see before their eyes the bottom line.

The Right to Your Own Toothbrush

The above atrocities were committed in institutions against a background of a revolution in global awareness that is hastening an end to the locking up and isolating of people with disabilities from the community. In Western countries, the trend is towards the closure of large institutions and transfer of residents to independent living within the community.

Scandinavian states were the first to close such residences for people with cognitive developmental disabilities, in the 1970's. Both New Zealand and Canada have since done the same. In the US, two thirds have already been shuttered and even in Bulgaria, a less western country, legislation has been passed mandating the closure of all such institutions by 2024 and the transfer of residents to in-community living with personal assistance. 

In Israel the Bizchut organization has been leading the demand for the closure of institutions, which has been ignored for many years. Only in 2011 did the Ministry of Welfare invite five international experts to draft a literature review of the transfer from dormitory residences to in-community living.

"Research findings demonstrate a clear picture: community services are more beneficial than institutional living for the totality of people with cognitive developmental disabilities", they stated.

The request for a literature review arrived four years after Israel signed the UN Treaty for the Rights of People with Disabilities, wherein paragraph 19 determines that "The State must ensure that people with disabilities will be able to choose where and with whom they live as any person is free to choose and that they will not be forced to live in a specific living arrangement."

In 2012, the State ratified the treaty. Thus so long as residential dormitories operate, the state is in fact in violation of the law.

"The mere fact of life in an institution constitutes the negation of rights", says Ronen Gil Massi, of the ASD community in Israel. "A person who lives in an institution cannot decide with whom he will share his room or whether. A person doesn't even have a place for his personal toothbrush. A person's individual freedom must not be denied just because his only "crime" is that he is a person with disabilities.

Three weeks ago, a man was murdered whose sole crime was that he was cognitively impaired. This must not be permitted to continue time after time, and each time for us to be told "We'll only shut down the problematic institutions." [Source]

Election day thoughts

Our child's murderer at her June 2012 wedding in Amman, Jordan 

(she's second from right). Her husband/cousin is in the middle. The girl
in the blue dress is Ahed Tamimi, a cousin to both bride and groom.

Many of you are surely in a quandary: to believe the flood of negative coverage of Netanyahu or to discard it as fake news. After all, many journalists just want him defeated so should we trust what they write?

For what it's worth, my husband and I - utterly apolitical citizens - can contribute some personal insight into Netanyahu's morality and mindset.

On the day our Malki was murdered in the Sbarro massacre of 2001, Netanyahu was a guest of the Melbourne Jewish community. Local reporters told him that one victim, our child, was an Australian citizen as well as an Israeli. He immediately responded: I will be paying the girl's family a condolence visit upon my return home.

Empty words...

Several years later, the public learned that a deal with the devil, Hamas, to retrieve IDF captive Gilad Shalit, was imminent. Our child's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, was being mentioned as one probable name on Israel's list of imprisoned terrorists to be "swapped" for Shalit. We fairly inundated the Prime Minister's office and the media with pleas for Tamimi's name to be deleted. Netanyahu's office didn't send even a monosyllabic response. 

And, of course, Tamimi, mastermind of the Sbarro bombing which took 16 innocent lives, (eight of them children) was freed. The convicting judges' warning never to include her in any possible future prisoner swaps was ignored.

Subsequently, Netanyahu speaking on television assured the public that he was sending all bereaved families who had been affected by the release a letter of explanation and apology. When we called his office regarding such a letter, an assistant of his assured us she had personally delivered hundreds of copies to the post office. 

I suppose liars hire liars. Because we never received such a letter, nor did any other of our terror victim friends.

Not long after her release, Tamimi publicized her hankering for another murderer who had been freed in the Shalit Deal - her cousin and fiance. She had been returned to her home in Amman. While he, under the Deal's conditions, was barred from leaving the West Bank. Not to worry. Netanyahu to the rescue. 

We lodged a petition with the High Court of Justice to enforce the Deal's conditions and bar Tamimi's fiance from crossing the Allenby Bridge into Jordan.

Some hours later, our lawyer was phoned by a Netanyahu government official who requested that we temporarily suspend those legal proceedings because all would be well. We need not be concerned.

We naively complied.

Next thing we knew, the Tamimi murderers were celebrating their reunion in Amman before rejoicing fans and media. [For some background: "A wedding and what came before it"]

Well, I suppose, we were actually to blame. Why hadn't we learned the obvious lesson? Never trust Netanyahu!

Now we suffer daily the double anguish of missing our precious child along with watching her murderer - sentenced to sixteen life terms but released after just eight years - enjoying her freedom and brazenly inciting Muslims to "follow in her footsteps and continue the fight".

Food for thought as you head to the polls.