What gives with all this king worship?

New York City, November 21, 2019: The Washington Institute disturbingly
bestows an award on Jordan's king [Image Source: The king's own website]

Here I was, convinced that one of the basic tenets of American democracy is the rejection of monarchic rule. But it seems I erred.

These days, the Jordanian ruler, King Abdullah II, enjoys the fulsome adulation and praise one would expect for a selfless hero who has rescued a dozen children from a blazing building. 

He is feted repeatedly at the White House. Bi-partisan delegations from the US Congress fly to his Amman palace to honor him. Leaders of major Jewish organizations attend his conferences and breakfasts. Numerous international media outlets extol his virtue and wisdom. 

And last week, the esteemed US think tank the Washington Institute for Near Policy handed him its Scholar Statesman Award.

All of this, in itself, is puzzling. 

But what makes it infuriating is that the recipient of that adulation is a dictator - yes, that's what an unelected ruler is, king or not - who has defied the U.S. Department of Justice. 

He refuses to extradite one of the FBI's Most Wanted terrorists. 

He denies the validity of a treaty of extradition signed and ratified by his father, King Hussein, with the US - a treaty which the US State Department says unequivocally is in force.

Add to that mix the fact that the terrorist whom Abdullah is embracing is the mass murderer and Hamas operative, Ahlam Tamimi, who has boasted numerous times of her evil "achievement" to her admirers on TV broadcasts. 

The terror bombing she orchestrated slaughtered sixteen innocents, including eight  children. One of those, my precious Malki, was 15 years old when this monster took her from us. Malki was a citizen of the United States.

What we have here is a travesty of justice of the first order. 

Nevertheless, last week three of Israel's major news services - Haaretz, Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post - chose to report that award bestowed with great pomp and ceremony by the Washington Institute with not even a whisper about Abdullah's inexcusable conduct.

Instead, all three of them mindlessly followed the lead of all the other King Abdullah worshippers. The Times of Israel did so despite having published our op-ed just one day earlier [see "A tribute unfit for a king who harbors our child’s killer"] .

My husband and I, for whom Malki's murder remains the source of deep pain, are utterly baffled by this sweeping acceptance of King Abdullah's terror-abetting conduct.

But we will never cease our struggle to arouse national leaders and news industry magnates. After all, like every other murder victim, Malki deserves justice.