Hypocrisy reigns when Jordan's king visits

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King Abdullah II of Jordan is a welcome guest at the Trump White House. He is also a popular host of senior U.S. officials including Vice President Pence and Jared Kushner.

Tomorrow (Monday June 25, 2018), he will hobnob with the president at his second official visit to the Trump White House.

Topics of discussion according to an official U.S. announcement will be "issues of mutual concern, including terrorism, the threat from Iran and the crisis in Syria, and working towards a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians".

As usual, the hypocrisy of the king will be studiously ignored. The fact that he is harboring our Malki's killer, mass-murdering Hamas operative Ahlam Tamimi, will not be raised. Nobody from the Trump administration will challenge Abdullah's refusal to extradite Tamimi despite the Department of Justice's explicit demand that he do so after her indictment in March 2017. 

No mention will be made of the extradition treaty signed by Jordan and the U.S. in 1995 - a treaty implicitly recognized by Jordan when it extradited fugitives to U.S. custody on three separate occasions. One of them was convicted on terrorism charges just a few weeks ago.

My Malki and another of the fifteen victims of the Sbarro bombing executed by Tamimi in 2001 were citizens of the U.S. A third U.S. citizen has been comatose ever since the attack. 

Tamimi has confessed and boasted in gory detail on camera about the attack she planned and carried out. She was convicted in an Israeli court and sentenced to sixteen consecutive life terms. But in 2011 she was freed in a deal foisted on Israel by Hamas. 1,027 terrorists, including hundreds of convicted murderers, were handed by Israel to Hamas in order to retrieve a single kidnapped Israeli, Gilad Shalit.

During the seven years that Tamimi has been free and protected by King Abdullah, she has tirelessly incited Muslims to emulate her and commit fresh acts of terrorism. She has flown throughout the Arab world to address her fans and spread her evil message.

"Justice, justice pursue" is the Bible's exhortation that has driven (or "impelled") my husband and me. We have written, worked the phones, reasoned, argued and pleaded. But all for naught. Because King Abdullah, it appears, reigns not only in his kingdom. He reigns in the U.S. as well.

As long as King Abdullah is embraced by President Trump's administration, is hailed as an enemy of terrorism, is allowed to violate the extradition treaty he signed - only one clear message can be gleaned: my Malki's life does not matter. Putting her murderer behind bars does not matter. My own right as a U.S. citizen to justice does not matter. 

What does matter, it seems, is buttressing the Jordanian king and prolonging his reign.