CNN, Hamas and the Queen of Jordan

Screen Capture via YouTube

Queen Rania - wife of Jordan's dictator - has become quite a fixture on CNN. Her apologetics for Hamas, while infuriating, ought to be heard by all.

It is important to realize that CNN is directly enabling Hamas in this war by repeatedly providing this woman with a platform. 

Couched in sacchariny words, a soft voice, a winning smile, Rania's hateful message sounds convincing. And it is clearly one that CNN's veteran presenter Becky Anderson and CNN itself welcome. They referred to it hours later and re-aired her choicest morsels. 

Just dismiss the facts as "insulting", "outrageous" and "audacious" and you're a star at CNN.

Here are just a few verbatim quotes I selected from her Hamas promo: "Hear what Queen Rania of Jordan said about Hamas and the 'root cause' of the conflict" [CNN, November 5, 2023]:

• "For the Israelis to claim that they are trying to protect citizens, citizens is, you know, honestly, it's an insult to one's intelligence. When 1.1 million people are asked to leave their homes or risk death, that is not a protection of civilians."
• "Of course, the use of human shields is criminal, but even if one side uses it, puts a civilian in harm's way, that civilian is still entitled to full protection under international humanitarian law... 
• "I find it really outrageous when Israeli officials audaciously dismiss Palestinian casualties as human shields."
• "If we want to make sure that we never have to be in this situation again, we have to ask ourselves how we got there."

How we got there? Needless to say, the barbaric atrocities of October 7 barely get a mention from Rania. For her, Israel alone is the culprit.

• "You know, I think the world is just screaming when how many more people have to die before our global conscience awakes? Or is it forever dormant when it comes to the Palestinians.."

Actually, the world is now screaming about the Palestinians. It's the Israeli victims who leave it unmoved.

So it should not surprise anyone that the kingdom headed by this royal couple is harboring an active Hamas operative, Ahlam Tamimi, who, in 2001 murdered 16 innocents in a Jerusalem pizzeria. The US Department of Justice unsealed charges against her in March 2017.

Our child, Malki, was one of the eight children among her victims. 

Jordan's refusal to extradite Tamimi under a valid 1995 extradition treaty with the U.S. is a clear indication of where its sympathies lie. Hamas could not ask for a more effective spokesperson than Rania.

Bear in mind that she, alongside her husband, rules a state that is considered a close ally of the U.S. and enjoys its largesse of more than a billion and a half dollars annually from American taxpayers.

Isn't now the time for the U.S. State Department to end this charade of "shared ideals" with Jordan - a blatant Hamas supporter?

Appeasement: Gaza, Jordan and my child's killer

Ahlam Tamimi has been an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist since March 2017

[A version of this post was published by Times of Israel under the title "Jordan, the Hamas terrorist it harbors – and Gaza" on November 2, 2023]

The red flags were everywhere. 

That is irrefutable. Journalists, starting with the intrepid Zvi Yechekieli and Ohad Chamu, now replay the chilling footage of and by Hamas which they disseminated on Israeli news stations prior to October 7. Sometimes many years before.

They are as stunned as we all are that those red flags were ignored.

The recent expose ["How Years of Israeli Failures on Hamas Led to a Devastating Attack", Ronen Bergman, Mark Mazzetti and Maria Abi-Habib, New York Times, October 29, 2023] cites myriad other unheeded alarm bells sounded for years by experts on Hamas.

Instead a policy of appeasement was pursued by our leaders.

Hamas was deemed both a weak movement and the lesser of any other evils liable to fill a void left by its eradication. 

Image Source: AP

So confident were Israel's leaders in our superior capabilities that one year ago we stopped eavesdropping on Hamas' internal phone  conversations. It was assessed to be a waste of time and resources.

Had that eavesdropping continued, October 7 would not have happened.

Even among Israel's masses, warnings about Hamas were sounded.  

My husband and I were among those who took up the cudgel after suffering from Hamas' blood-thirst two decades ago. [See for instance "In Israel, Swap Touches Old Wounds", Ethan Bronner in the New York Times, October 14, 2011] 

In the Sbarro massacre of August 9, 2001, Hamas robbed us of our child, Malki.

Eight children were among the 16 victims. That was, for Jerusalem, the equivalent of New York suffering 170 victims based on today's population figures. 

The Hamas operative who orchestrated that bombing, Ahlam Tamimi, selected her target after carefully scouting the Jerusalem city center. In her testimony to Israeli law enforcement officials, she explained that she chose a business and hour when the site would be laden with religious Jewish women and children. 

We pleaded with then-prime-minister Netanyahu not to release this particularly evil murderer in the Shalit Deal which he ultimately carried out at the urging of his wife, Sara (as he later revealed in a published interview with a German magazine.) 

The 12th anniversary of that infamous "deal" was marked two weeks ago and prompted a scathing piece by Nadav Shragai in the Hebrew daily Yisrael Hayom on October 19, 2023, summarizing its background and its consequences. See אם כל חטאת (ב'): המחיר הבלתי נסבל של עסקת שליט

Tamimi was freed along with 1,026 other terrorists, hundreds of whom were convicted murderers and most of whom were sent to the West Bank. Tamimi herself went to Jordan, where she was born, raised and educated. Most of her immediate family is from there.

Many of those let loose in the Shalit Deal are today central figures in Hamas' elite, with one, Yahya Sinwar at its helm. Another releasee, Ali Karachi, oversaw the October 7 horrors. Overall, more than half of those freed in the Shalit Deal returned to terrorism shortly afterwards.

Source: Yisrael Hayom

As Shragai details, caving in to the Israeli consensus and ignoring the warnings of experts was a catastrophic move by Netanyahu and his cabinet. (Out of 29, only 3 dissented.) 

It lay the groundwork for numerous subsequent Hamas terror attacks including the October 7 massacres and kidnappings.

Because our Malki, along with another Sbarro victim, was a US citizen, charges against Tamimi were unsealed and announced by the Justice Department of the United States in March 2017. (They had been sealed, meaning kept secret, since being signed off by a federal judge in July 2013.) 

A third American victim died years after the bombing, having never regained consciousness, on May 31, 2023.

King Abdullah II's regime has refused to comply with the US demand to extradite her. It has been intransigent in its non compliance despite a treaty signed and ratified by both countries in 1995 and recognized as valid by the US.

We have been beseeching the State Department to pressure Jordan to comply. But to no avail.

Not even American Jewish leaders have raised their voices to urge her extradition, despite our repeated pleas to them.

And we have learned from unnamed sources, that the Israeli government as well, has been opposed to pressuring Jordan to extradite her.

We are baffled.

Today, when Israel is risking the lives of its precious young soldiers to eradicate the existential threat of Hamas, one active operative, Tamimi, is free and safe in the arms of the US "ally", Jordan.

As a brazen vocal inciter to violence against Israel, Tamimi is as dangerous a terrorist as those Israel is fighting in Gaza. Yet she can be easily silenced without any loss of life. A mere unequivocal demand (threat?) to King Abdullah, and the deed is done.

Why, six years after her indictment, must we still wait?

BFF of the United States... and a terrorist's haven

Image source: Quds Press

Think of a place where a boastful mass murderer can galvanize a hall full of fans with no fear of interference from officials, law enforcement or political opponents.

Jordan might come to mind. 

That's where Ahlam Tamimi, who orchestrated the 2001 Sbarro terror atrocity in Jerusalem and who has been an FBI Most Wanted ("Conspiring to Use and Using a Weapon of Mass Destruction Against a United States National Outside the United States Resulting in Death and Aiding and Abetting and Causing an Act to be Done") since March 2017, played a key role as celebrity presenter at an Islamic Movement Festival earlier this month.

The festival is part of Jordan's commemoration of Palestine Cultural Week. 

The event took place in Al-Baqaa, Jordan's largest refugee camp, home to some 100,000 people designated by the UN as Palestinian refugees. The details (in Arabic) are here.

In her incitement-laden speech (not the only one she delivered in the same week of events), Jordan's celebrated bomber reportedly praised the unity of "a large number of young people [who] confront the danger facing the Palestinian cause through the Jenin Brigade and other forms of valiant resistance."

It's hard to think of any other treasured US ally that would allow such a thing to happen. But it's long been the case that in Jordan, the perpetrator of one of most horrific terror bombings in Middle East history gets to mount podiums as guest of honor. 

And the fact that this hideous woman managed to murder three American citizens - and calls the murders "a crown on my head" - doesn't change a thing.

Celeste Wallander, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, described the special relations this way in a well publicized speech some months ago:

“Jordan has always been, and remains, a strong partner. Jordanian cooperation is not only with our armed forces but also with many countries, regionally and internationally. Jordan is a partner you can rely on, as it thinks in a way that enables it to move forward. We are proud of this partnership.”

* * *

The updated 2023 edition of

the fugitive's Wanted poster 

Within the framework of that partnership-to-be-proud-of, Jordan's favorite daughter, Tamimi, did again what she has relished doing most since 2011: stoked her admirers' venomous hatred for Israel and Jews.

Her extradition to the US to stand trial for the murder of three US citizens, among them my child Malki, has been demanded by Washington's Department of Justice since 2017. This stems from the extradition treaty signed and ratified by both countries in 1995. 

While King Hussein lauded that treaty after signing it, his country now claims it is invalid for entirely technical reasons that Jordan could and can fix, assuming they are real. The United States view is that it has never stopped being valid, effective and binding and there is no invalidity. 

It continues to be listed in the authoritative State Department Treaties in Force document (at page 245).

Jordan relies on the self-made flaw to refuse the US extradition request in the Tamimi case (it has extradited multiple terrorists under the treaty before Tamimi). 

Despite this intransigence, Jordan's government remains buttressed by the US and generously funded with billions of dollars annually.

Demanding the prescution of this mass murderer has proven over the years since 2012 to be a lonely fight. My husband and I have learned that an evil woman, indicted more than a decade ago and termed the most wanted female fugitive in the world, can evade justice with relative ease.

* * *

But what has most galled and confounded us is the failure of the leadership of the American Jewish community.

With very few exceptions, America's Jewish organizations have either shrugged us off or insisted that they are already tirelessly fighting the good fight "for years". In some cases, they argue that the ways they do that cannot be divulged. Not even to us, the parents of one of the victims. Tamimi meanwhile stays free and very active, protected by the safe arms of Jordan.

Were they to actually act and pressure the State Department to pursue Tamimi's extradition as the law dictates, the goal would likely have been achieved by now.

During these gravest days in the Jewish calendar, the Ten Days of Repentance, my husband and I beseech those in power to finally look into their consciences and act.

My smiling Malki's photo stares at me every evening from a bookshelf in our living room, breaking my heart, prodding me to continue this struggle.

I simply cannot ignore her.

A travesty of justice and Netanyahu's role

March 20, 2017

Responding to this past Tuesday's murder of Meir Tamari, a young husband and father of two, in a terror shooting attack ["Victim of West Bank shooting attack named as 32-year-old father of two Meir Tamari"], Prime Minister Netanyahu, quoted on this Israel government site, offered predictable condolences and assurances. 

He concluded with this promise to arrest and punish the perpetrators:

"Our forces are now pursuing the terrorists in order to settle accounts with them - and they will be settled soon. As we have reached every terrorist and settled accounts with them until now - we will do the same this time."

Most Israelis probably accepted that as, at worst, a hackneyed statement. But certainly not an infuriating one.

But when parsed, as it ought to be, it is clear that Netanyahu was circulating a bald-faced lie. His boast "as we have... settled accounts with them until now - we will do the same this time" flies in the face of his past actions.

 
Here is why.

The sad passing on Wednesday of Chana Nachenberg, the 16th victim of the 2001 Sbarro Pizzeria bombing, should remind everyone of that lie. Yet it is my husband and I and only a handful of others who have noted it. 

Our daughter, Malki, 15 years old, was among the original fifteen Sbarro victims. Her absence relentlessly torments us to this day.

The chief orchestrator of that Hamas bombing, Ahlam Tamimi, was freed by Netanyahu in the 2011 Shalit Deal - at the urging of his wife Sara as he himself explained ["PM says wife convinced him to go ahead with Schalit prisoner deal" Israel Hayom] to the German news magazine BILD in 2012. 

It was Sara, says Bibi, who urged him to execute the Shalit deal and release 1,027 convicted and unrepentant terrorists. They included Tamimi whom Netanyahu handed her to Jordan's King Abdullah II under the guise of "exiling" her as he termed it in his address to his constituents. 

In truth, he was returning her to her family and to the home in which she was raised in Jordan's second-largest city, Zarqa. Some exile.

There - and in Amman where she has resided since 2011 - she has enjoyed a high-profile life replete with TV interviews, hosting gigs, award presentations and all the coverage a proud mass-murderer could wish for.

 
A minor kink in her glorious life has been her indictment by the U.S Department of Justice (at first under seal in 2013 and then unsealed in 2017) and the subsequent public American demand for her extradition by her protector, Jordan's Abdullah.

1995

The demand is based on a valid extradition treaty dating to 1995, signed and ratified by the U.S and by King Abdullah's father, King Hussein. The State Department has asserted numerous times [here for instance] that the treaty continues to be in force, valid and binding.

But not to worry, King Abdullah has navigated his way around all that, has ignored the demand, has declared the treaty "not ratified" and has won a cadre of supporters in the U.S. Congress on both sides of the aisle.

Abdullah's Jewish admirers, who are numerous and include influential individuals and large, prominent organizations,  have also assisted his rejection of the demand. Their continued regular, reverential meetings with him and their silence on the subject signal to him that they are fine with his evasion of justice.

 
Who cares whether the mass murderer whom he is shielding slaughtered Jewish children - eight of them?

Finally, King Abdullah's position regarding the extradition demand has been buttressed by none other than Netanyahu. Informed sources have quietly suggested to my husband and me that our prime minister, off the record, has urged Jewish leaders not to touch the Tamimi matter - and not to pressure the king to comply with the U.S. government's demand.

Is this a man determined to settle scores with terrorists? Actions speak louder than empty condolence messages.

Clearly, justice for murderers of Israelis is not on Netanyahu's list of priorities.

Where does Speaker McCarthy stand on US justice?

US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy
with Jordan's King Abdulla II and Crown Prince Hussein [Image Source]

As U.S. Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, addresses Israel's Knesset today, it would be apt to note whom he visited just prior to that event - King Abdullah of Jordan. 

As is obvious from the photo on the right, to call it a warm encounter is an understatement. It is also very disturbing.

Saturday's get-together came on the heels of a recent meeting the two had in Washington D.C. in January. At that tête-à-tête, McCarty lavished this praise on his buddy:

“From my perspective, our relationship, our friendship and your work to bring peace is just integral to where we go in the Middle East.”

Lest anyone imagine McCarthy challenged Abdullah on either occasion regarding any of his positions, the following press release by Jordan's monarchy left no doubt that did not happen:

McCarthy said, "Jordan is the very first country I chose to visit as Speaker. There’s a reason for that. They are a strategic ally in the Middle East and share America’s commitment to peace, prosperity — and most importantly — stability in the region." [Times of Israel, April 30, 2023]

Apparently McCarthy is not at all troubled by Jordan's harboring of a self-confessed Hamas terrorist who also happens to be a fugitive from the U.S. Dept of Justice. She is none other than Ahlam Tamimi, who murdered 15 men, women and children in the Jerusalem Sbarro bombing of 2001 which she orchestrated. Among the innocent victims was my child, Malki.

McCarthy's "love affair" with Abdullah is unfazed by that ruler's refusal to accede to the U.S. demand for her extradition and for justice to be done. It was made in 2017 under the 1995 treaty which Abdullah's father King Hussein enthusiastically signed, ratified and publicized.

Speaker McCarthy, tell us please: How does that reflect that Abdullah "share[s] America's commitment to peace, prosperity - and most importantly -stability in the region."

It is high time McCarthy made his devotion to Abdullah contingent on handing over Tamimi to the U.S. to stand trial for her murder of two U.S. citizens - one of them, Malki.

Because, really, justice absolutely ought to be "integral to where we go in the Middle East".

On family, flutes and fairness

Some of my murdered daughter's flutes

Perhaps it's our grandchildren's recent interest in her musical instruments - recorder, guitar, flute. 

Or perhaps it is this past Shabbat family reunion and the impending Pesach gatherings - all without her.

Whatever it is, Malki's absence from our lives has been particularly oppressive of late.

And recent news from Jordan has intensified that. 

Ahlam Tamimi, the arrogant, unrepentant and boastful murderer of the fifteen Sbarro innocents - including Malki - has just broken her year-long silence.

With Tamimi's husband exiled in 2020 to Qatar by Jordanian King Abdullah, and with the fear of arrest by US authorities preventing her from joining him there, she has decided that silence has failed her.

Last week, in an interview ["My media silence is at an end, she warns", March 16, 2023 hosted by Facebook] with a Hamas-aligned TV station, Al-Quds News Network, she expressed (in Arabic) her displeasure with the king's handling of her situation. 

She says she is through with "keeping silent" and "staying away from the media" as she has been since her husband's deportation. She complains that her "good faith initiative" has not borne fruit. In response to the question of why she doesn't leave for Qatar she says "I am wanted by the Americans in a case filed in Washington courts since 2013".

She wallows in self-pity:

"We [she and husband] have spent many years in prison. It is our natural right to have family reunification by now... Nizar is a Jordanian husband... [he] did not violate any order or any legal and natural mechanism on Jordanian territory. He would always go and renew his residence every six months... Why is he an unwanted person?"

She even appears to single out Arnold and me as one of the 

"families of the two dead Americans [who] work systematically. They are members of the Zionist lobby in America who went to associations and went to AIPAC... They worked intensively and systematically to rearrest me. They formed pressure to periodically send the [U.S.] ambassador."

She concludes with a direct demand of the King: 

"I only need a decision from His Majesty the king to the concerned authorities in order to live a normal life with my husband, especially since when I was released in the "Wafaa al-Ahrar deal" [meaning the Gilad Shalit Deal]. I entered Jordan with the will and consent of my king."

A promo for last week's Quds interview with the fugitive

 

In another interview in the past few days, again with a Hamas-affiliated TV station - Al Aqsa - headquartered in Gaza [and also hosted by Facebook] her grumbling segues to blatant terrorist incitement.

She references the recent wave of attacks against Israelis:

"In light of the recent success of individual Palestinian heroes in carrying out heroic operations against the Zionist entity..." 

and concludes: 

"There should be a volcano and an earthquake in Palestine that is a popular uprising to confront... the enemy face to face. I call on the Palestinian people not only to hold pickets and not only to establish permanent points in order to support prisoners but to confront the enemy. The general Palestinian atmosphere is now calling for confrontation. The emotional and poetic situation now calls for confrontation."

Arnold and I hope that Tamimi's airing of her displeasure with Jordan's ruler along with her outright incitement to violence will lead to the scenario we have awaited for so long: her extradition by Jordan under its signed, ratified treaty with the US.

And my request to readers. Your forwarding of Tamimi's words will deepen the king's embarrassment. It may also prompt the White House to cease pandering to King Abdullah and to seriously pressure him to abide by the treaty his father signed and praised. 

Please help our cause and publicize Tamimi's messages!

On my birthday, thoughts of justice

Tamimi in Jordan last week: proud and remorseless 

March 14th is my birthday. 

Six years ago to the day, Arnold and I were invited to a meeting in Jerusalem with visiting officials from the United States Department of Justice in Washington - the DOJ. 

They informed us that the charges against Ahlam Tamimi, our child's murderer, would be unsealed in a matter of hours. 

We had no idea that she had been indicted by the US and the news reduced me to tears of joy. I felt I'd been handed a birthday present.

With time, I realized my reaction was utterly inappropriate. 

The DOJ's action would bear no fruit. The Jordanian ruler's refusal to extradite Tamimi to face trial in a US court would block the pursuit of justice. The murderer of our fifteen year old Malki, would evade punishment thanks to "the King's" rejection of the extradition treaty his own father signed and ratified.

Instead of justice, we have witnessed the brazen flouting of justice. 

We have watched the powerful, the influential and the self righteous of the world embrace and honor a ruler who persists in protecting a self-confessed mass murderer. 

Somehow, her public boasting and gloating of murdering fifteen innocent men, women and children does not move any of them.

Mysteriously, King Abdullah has won the hearts and minds of them all, be they Democrats, Republicans, Americans, Israelis, Jews or Gentiles.

It has left us suffering a pain that exacerbates the interminable grief of longing for Malki.

We intend to continue our efforts to convince the US government to stand firm. It is high time that the no-strings-attached friendship and financial aid lavished on Jordan be withheld until this king relinquishes Tamimi. 

We need a clear-headed re-assessment of Jordan's relationship with the U.S. The former is dependent on the latter and hence cannot dictate terms.

A reminder: The treaty that Abdullah is trashing is one which the U.S. officially deems valid to this day. It is also one with which Jordan has complied in the past. But that only happened when the victims of the crime were - no surprise - not Jewish.

 
Jewish American victims - which Malki was - also deserve justice.

Two thousand days

Click image to enlarge

Today is Day 2,000.

That's how long it has been since our Malki's murderer, Jordanian fugitive Ahlam Aref  Ahmad Al-Tamimi, was indicted by the United States Department of Justice on terror charges ["Individual Charged in Connection With 2001 Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem That Resulted in Death of Americans"].

But she remains free.

The consequent demand that Jordan - where she was born, raised and educated and to which she returned in October 2011 - extradite her to be tried in a US court has been refused by King Abdullah II's regime. 

Never mind that the valid US/Jordan extradition treaty cited by the DOJ was signed and ratified by both countries in 1995. And that Jordan breaches it, according to the State Department.

Never mind that Abdullah's own father, the widely respected King Hussein, formally ratified it, declaring via the use of the Royal "we": 

"We further pledge to carry out its provisions and abide by its Articles, and We, G-d willing, shall not allow its violation. 

Never mind that Tamimi is one of the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists with a $5 million reward for her capture. (But in reality it's hard to see why any reward is called for since her whereabouts in Jordan are public knowledge.)

It would be hard to find a more egregiously defiant reaction by a purported US ally - an ally that depends on generous, ongoing financial backing from its benefactor totaling close to US$2 billion annually.

Jordan's conduct has been variously ignored, excused or justified by nearly every politician and influencer that we have approached.

That stance crosses the aisle, religious lines and geographical boundaries.

It is shared by many respected Jewish organizations and leaders whom we plan to name at some suitable moment. I am certain many of you will be shocked to learn them.

For now, please... remember, condemn and rage with us against this travesty of justice.

Tail wags dog: How does Jordan keep getting away with it?

Via Twitter

While we note our Malki's departure from this world on the 20th day of the Hebrew month of Av which this year falls on Wednesday, August 17, 2022, we mark today - August 9 - as the secular anniversary of the Sbarro bombing in which she perished.

 
It has also become the day when Arnold and I note the injustice with which we are grappling: Ahlam Tamimi, the Hamas operative responsible for the Sbarro massacre that snuffed out 15 precious Jewish lives remains... free!

She publicly boasts of her guilt or, to quote her, of "my operation". She has been indicted by the United States Department of Justice. Her extradition from Jordan, her home and refuge, has been demanded by the US under a valid 1995 extradition treaty with Jordan. She is an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist and has a $5 million reward posted for her capture.

 
Yet despite the open-and-shut nature of this case, Arnold and I find it near impossible to win the support of influencers: neither Democrats nor Republicans, neither Jews nor non-Jews, neither Americans nor Israelis. 

All are caught in the thrall of Jordan's dictator, a.k.a. King Abdullah II, whose impoverished regime refuses to extradite this monster.

 
A minor player on the global geo-political stage, under constant internal threat, hanging on to power by his fingernails and by repression ("Jordan is unfree"), Abdullah enjoys massive cash support and unadulterated reverence from all.

 
Why? 

Why is this tail able to wag the dog incessantly? Why does everyone we encounter sing his praises?

Of course, there is no shortage of lame excuses fed to us for this travesty of justice. But the truth remains elusive.

So, on this anniversary of the Sbarro massacre please join us in our grief and fury and ponder what can be done to right this egregious wrong.

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.

.
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.

Five years and justice is as elusive as ever

Sbarro bomber Ahlam Tamimi continues to incite terror under Jordanian
protection [Image: Frimet and Arnold Roth’s blog, This Ongoing War]

Once again, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has cast his spell on yet another world leader. Whether it is his glibness, the impressive English, his seamless melding of East and West, it really hardly matters. He always gets what he is after.

Last week it was Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid who met with him. The public was told that the encounter was intended to reduce the likelihood of violence during the impending holiday season.

It was the second meeting the two had since the new Israeli government was formed last June. And since Jordan deigned to publicize this one – after keeping the first a secret – it was hailed by Israel’s media as a great success.

“We agreed that we must work together to calm tensions and promote understanding, particularly in the lead-up to the month of Ramadan and Passover,” Lapid said in a statement after the meeting at the Al Husseiniya Palace. “Our special relationship with the Kingdom of Jordan ensures a better future for our children, and the peace between us isn’t just good neighborliness but is also our moral responsibility to both our peoples.”

Mr. Lapid, I am both heartbroken and infuriated by your meeting last week with Jordan’s ruler. If moral responsibility is really your concern, why did you not mention to your “good neighbor” his immoral conduct towards my child’s murderer?

Why did you, and do you, consistently ignore how this leader with whom you boast of a “special relationship” refuses to abide by the kingdom’s extradition treaty with the US?

That he steadfastly rejects the U.S. demand to extradite the self-confessed mass-murderer who is one of the 25 most wanted terrorists in the world?

Our child’s blood, along with that of the fourteen other innocent victims of Tamimi’s treacherous attack on Israeli soil cries out for justice.

Lapid and Jordan's king this past weekend

[Image Source]

But you, Mr. Lapid, see fit to sing kumbaya with the one man who can hand Tamimi into the hands of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Five years ago today, on my birthday as it happens, officials of that same arm of the U.S. government met with my husband and me along with the parents of another U.S. citizen murdered by Tamimi to disclose that criminal charges against her were about to be unsealed.

They came to share this with us before the public announcement at a press conference scheduled for several hours later. I shed tears of relief then in the naive belief that the move signaled an end to Tamimi’s years of frolic since she was freed in the Shalit Deal five and a half years earlier: an end to Tamimi’s celebration of murder and to her incitement of others to emulate what she did.

The conduct of leaders both in the U.S. and Israel since that day has taught me that my belief in their sense of “moral responsibility”, to quote Mr. Lapid, was entirely unfounded. Realpolitik and personal advancement are what motivate them.

And so, my dear Malki, I am sorry but one more year has passed with your murderer still free, still protected, still unrestrained.

[A version of this post initially appeared in Times of Israel]

It's my murdered child's birthday

Today, November 27, my precious daughter Malki would have turned 36. 

If only she hadn't stopped with a friend at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria on her way to a summer camp counselors' meeting. 

If only the evil Ahlam Tamimi had been arrested on her way to that target to satisfy her bloodlust. 

If only Tamimi hadn't succeeded by bombing to death 15 innocent Jews. 

If only our worst nightmare hadn't eventuated. 

If only, if only...

But the reality is my angelic, generous, musical and loving daughter is gone while Tamimi is alive and free, enabled by the world's silence to boast publicly about her "accomplishment" and to urge others to emulate her.

She did just that some six weeks ago in a video address to Turkish children that has gone unreported in the news.

Among her words to them: 

"I participated in two jihad attacks which produced thank the lord, the deaths of 15 Zionists... These 2 jihad attacks are a crown on my head. Thank god, I entered history doing the best deeds."

This dangerous monster lives under the protection of Jordan's King Abdullah II who persists in defying the United States' demand for extradition. 

His widely revered father, the late King Hussein, signed an extradition treaty with the US in 1995. Jordan gave formal assurances to the US prior to it being put into effect that all Jordanian formalities had been satisfied. The US says today that the treaty is in full force and effect. Jordan makes no formal statement about this but conveys in a variety of ways that it views the treaty as invalid due to a decision of its highest court in 2017, twenty-two years after the treaty took effect. 

Despite his recalcitrance, Abdullah somehow still garners the adulation of powerbrokers across the globe while Jordan annually receives US aid amounting to billions of dollars.

And all the while, Tamimi, one of only two females listed among the FBI's 25 Most Wanted Terrorists, lives free and famous in Jordan.

When will this brazen injustice be rectified!

Pandora Papers: How has Jordan's Abdullah ridden out the storm?

Image Source: The Guardian UK

It is one month since the release of the Pandora Papers: "A Money Bomb with Political Ripples", the New York Times dubbed them at the time. Other major papers gave the revelations wide coverage.

Major political repercussions were predicted by the pundits. And despite my now deep-seated cynicism, I too entertained a smidgeon of hope for our mission, Justice For Malki. 

Could it be that Jordan's king, star of those papers ["While foreign aid poured in, Jordan’s King Abdullah funnelled $100m through secret companies to buy luxury homes"], whose name opened nearly every article covering them, would actually lose some of his magic?

In its October 4, 2021 piece, the New York Times quoted Gary Kalman, director of the U.S office of Transparency International, an organization that monitors financial corruption around the world.

“I don’t think this is the end of Vladimir Putin — let’s not get carried away,” said Gary Kalman, director of the U.S. office of Transparency International, an organization that monitors financial corruption around the world. “But I do think the leaders of these countries, King Abdullah and others, do worry about their reputations,” Mr. Kalman said​ in a telephone interview.

Kalman went on:

For King Abdullah especially, he said, Jordanians now know “he has spent money on properties in Malibu and Georgetown, while in Jordan they don’t have enough money to provide basic services. That looks really bad.”

But not bad enough. A month down the road from Pandora's revelations, Jordan's dictator still has in his thrall powerbrokers of every persuasion imaginable: on both sides of the Congressional aisle, of all religions, and residing on several continents.

Arnold and I and our small circle of supporters are puzzled and perturbed by the global tolerance of Abdullah's documented corruption. 

The silence of the US government after Jordan's steadfast refusal to comply with its demand of Ahlam Tamimi's extradition is incomprehensible. 

The State Department's limp statement that the extradition treaty between Jordan and the U.S. - which Jordan declares void - is valid, is disappointing. 

The refusal of American Jewish and Israeli leaders to speak out and pressure Jordan to extradite her is beyond despicable. And the silence they toss us - or worse, their occasional empty, cliched words of sympathy - are offensive.

Our Malki, still so missed and loved, would have been 35 this month. It is a puzzle to me why so many callous people have managed to attain such influence and power and in so many spheres. And why those people choose warm relations with a dictator who shelters a mass murderer over fighting for justice.

Forgetting justice: On Jordan and my child's killer

September 15, 2021 in a NYC hotel: Jordan's king hosts some of America's

most prominent Jewish leaders in an off-the-record gathering - again [Image Source]

It is hard to select only one major recent headline that dovetailed with our ongoing pursuit of justice for our child, Malki. 

Specifically, we seek the extradition from Jordan of the confessed female bomber charged by the US Department of Justice as the terrorist behind the massacre. 

There have been just so many. While I was consumed with recent holiday cooking, doting on grandchildren and coping with the challenges of my daughter Haya, those incredible news breaks just piled up.

First came the annual "King-Worship Gala". This is when the presidents of major US Jewish organizations are invited to an event centering on a speech by King Abdullah II of Jordan in a New York City hotel banquet room. And which they never fail to attend. As is traditional in these encounters, the sycophantic participants were instructed by the host and the officials who run his Washington embassy to hold secret every word uttered at the event. And to keep the event itself confidential.

They dictate that the meeting is "off the record" but that's a royal euphemism. This year's gathering, held as usual during September in the week of the annual United Nations General Assembly opening, was promptly reported via a Royal Jordanian media release.

And reported in a very specific way. The Jordanian media promptly publicized his version of the conversations illustrated with photos of those leaders assiduously scribbling notes of his precious words.

The Jewish attendees, as always, were obedient guests, divulging (as my husband and know from experience) nothing. Not even a public acknowledgement of having been there. A sorry bunch of self deluding king worshippers they are.

Second, there was the extradition to the US of a terrorist from Syria - a Saudi-born Canadian citizen, Mohammed Khalifa. Now in FBI custody, he is charged with supplying material terrorism support via his English voice-overs of ISIS films and of being a combatant.

Meanwhile Ahlam Tamimi, self-confessed brutal mass-murderer of patrons in a bustling eatery - some of them Americans including our Malki - enjoys a life of celebrity and freedom. 

Tamimi's crimes undoubtedly eclipse those of Khalifa. She orchestrated the horrific terror bombing of Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria in 2001 by scouting for and then selecting that family-friendly site, transporting the 10 kg bomb, escorting her accomplice across the city to the entrance of the restaurant and instructing him on how and when to detonate the nail-enhanced device. Khalifa, on the other hand, worked for the media unit that publicized and exploited the killings of hostages.

When will the relevant authorities see to it that our child's murderer follow the same route as Mohammed Khalifa and stand trial as well?

The US State Department has acknowledged - but barely and very quietly - Jordan's refusal to extradite Tamimi in breach of a 1995 treaty that State itself says is valid. Senior officials assured us this past week - and as emphatically as always - that the unresolved extradition of Tamimi from her homeland, Jordan, remains as it has been for years a top priority.

When a matter enjoys that status for a decade with no progress whatever, it is clear either that the claim is bunk or that the "top priority" label just won't cut it.

Yesterday, in the week of the tenth anniversary of her release from Israeli prison in the lopsided Shalit Deal, an Arabic-language Facebook article showed a woman who looks somewhat like Tamimi being a guest of honor at a Jordanian girls school. The text that accompanies it mentions both Tamimi explicitly and the Shalit Deal in an adulatory way.  [I am checking whether it was Tamimi herself who appeared and spoke and will update here when I have a clearer picture.]

Last, but not at all least, was the gift that keeps giving: the headline that remains on center stage even a fortnight after the story broke. The Pandora Papers look primed to harm numerous leaders and celebrities but every article covering them highlights King Abdullah's shenanigans. 

"Jordan’s King Among Leaders Accused of Amassing Secret Property Empire" began the New York Times Pandora piece of October 3, 2021, before launching an account of luxury homes in Malibu, London and Washington.

It was inexpressibly satisfying to read that the darling of the American right and left, of Democrats and Republicans, of conservatives and progressives, of American and Israeli politicians, of liberal and religious Jews was, in fact, just another thief, albeit with a British accent.

 
The question now dogging Arnold and me is this: Will the dictator's embezzlement of his poor constituents' cash tarnish his stellar image? To put numbers on that, within 3 months of the pandemic's outbreak, the poverty rate in Jordan leapt from 15% to 26%. Unemployment rose five points, reaching 24.7% by the end of 2020.

Will the exposé reduce the billions in financial aid his kingdom pockets every year from the United States. Tiny Jordan has for years been one of the world's largest recipients of such funds. It's currently ranked number two.

From Haaretz, October 19, 2011

I find myself hoping at this point that some, at least, of the above penetrates the hearts and minds of the powers that be (they know who they are) who refuse to help us win justice for Malki and in many cases actively block the process. 

As we near the anniversary of her murderer's release, let's remember what a fiasco the Shalit Deal was. For my views at the time, not so different today, see "Shalit Prisoner Swap Marks 'Colossal Failure' for Mother of Israeli Bombing Victim" in Haaretz, October 2011 .

One of the deal's outspoken proponents, Nehemia Shtrassler, who writes on economics at Haaretz, was forced to dredge up ridiculous defenses this past weekend ["Opinion | Israel Must Do Everything to Bring Soldiers Home"]. One is that past leaders who refused to release terrorists with blood on their hands had blood on their own hands - since they had waged wars! And another: that releasing dangerous terrorists isn't all that bad because there's an unlimited supply of them out there. So imprisoning the captured ones won't prevent terror attacks in any case! 

Of course applying that "logic" to its conclusion would mean emptying all our prisons. And just forgetting justice.

On making terrorists pay the price and other questions for the President

The Jordanian royals on the day they were hosted in the Oval Office

We're in the hours leading up to Rosh Hashana, the start of the High Holydays season in Jewish life and the start of a new year according to the lunar calendar of the Jewish people.

It's an appropriate time to mention what President Biden expressed in the wake of the August 26, 2021 atrocity carried out at Kabul's airport in Afghanistan. 

Speaking after what he called “a tough day”, he said the United States would uphold its “sacred obligation” to the families of the fallen. Quoted in the New York Times, President Biden sounded unequivocally determined:

“To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive,” the president said. “We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” ...He vowed the United States would respond with force at “a moment of our choosing,” echoing President Bush’s remarks days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

President Biden, here's what I am wondering. Why isn't the mass-murdering terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, the one whose bomb took the life of fifteen innocents inside a pizzeria including my sweet daughter Malki, being made to "pay the price". 

Seven men and women and eight children perished in Tamimi's 2001 attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria. Two of her victims were Americans including Malki who was just fifteen.

Bringing Tamimi to justice ought to be surprisingly straightforward. There is no need to "hunt her down" in your words; her whereabouts are known to all, or at least everyone who needs to know which includes the law enforcement agencies of the United States government. 

But here's the thing. Tamimi, who has never denied what she did, lives as a protected celebrity in Amman, Jordan's capital city. To judge from the number of media interviews she has given, her precise home address is a matter of public knowledge. 

And it gets even easier: there is an extradition treaty that was signed and ratified by the US and Jordan in 1995 and that is regarded as valid by the State Department. 

What's more, her extradition to stand trial in the US has already been demanded over and again by the Department of Justice, starting - according to well-placed sources - in 2013, more than eight years ago.

Eight years. 

So you and anyone reading this may ask why it is that Tamimi hasn't already been made to "pay the price"? Why is she still free, influential, a Jordanian icon?

And here too the answer is not complicated. It is because the White House and the State Department are afraid to upset Jordan's King Abdullah. They have accepted his refusal to comply with their extradition demand without the slightest whimper. 

King Abdullah, the unelected ruler of a small, impoverished country which has received billions of dollars in US aid for years, gets to dictate the rules: No extradition. 

And you, Mr President - who talks so tough to the Kabul airport terrorists - have no tough words for King Abdullah. Only reverence for "His Majesty". 

And, of course, more cash.

Pompeo, justice and betrayal

What we published last November

I promised to prove that our struggle is apolitical. 

My last post [Fear Uncertainty and Doubt at the State Department, August 9, 2021] lambasted the U.S. State Department, and especially Secretary Antony J. Blinken, for honoring - no, idolizing - Jordan's ruler King Abdullah II during his recent visit to DC and a full day at the State Department. 

It noted State's omission of Abdullah's refusal to extradite mass murderer Ahlam Tamimi despite the US Department of Justice's demand he do so. Our daughter Malki was murdered in the bombing she orchestrated and for which she has claimed credit for years.

Many readers have critiqued my husband Arnold Roth and me for "squandering" the "golden opportunity" that ex-President Trump's administration offered us. They insist that had we approached him and his team in some other, better way, Tamimi would now be in US custody.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is we made strong and repeated attempts to reach out to them right through the Trump years. All of this effort was in vain.

Here below is a summary of the pleas we directed specifically at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as it appeared in the blog we have produced together for the past fifteen years. The blog is called This Ongoing War and we published this post which was authored by Arnold, nine months ago. 

We published it at the time because we felt it important to let people know we had tried, and failed again totally for the last time, to get Pompeo's attention. From the reactions we're hearing now. it failed to be seen or understood widely enough.

19-Nov-20: Putting justice back on the agenda

We did something yesterday that we have never done before.

We ordered a display advertisement in a mainstream newspaper: today's (Thursday’s) Jerusalem Post. Our message appears on its front page.

The timing of our ad is intended to coincide with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Israel that began yesterday afternoon (Wednesday November 18). 

Our hope is that he will see it at breakfast. And that perhaps he will think about the images we included, as well as the scriptural quote at the top of the text: “Justice, justice thou shalt pursue”.

The words from Deuteronomy (the Biblical book called Devarim in Hebrew) will be recited in the Jewish world's annual cycle of Torah reading when we get to Parshat Shoftim, the weekly portion called “Judges”. 

That happens next in August 2021. By coincidence, the same week will include the twentieth anniversary of the Sbarro pizzeria massacre.

There are two images in our Pompeo advertisement. One shows Malki. The other is of the devastated Sbarro pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem, minutes after a bomb placed by Ahlam Tamimi exploded inside. 

Tamimi, a Jordanian woman who arrived from her homeland alone, soon joined Fatah. And then, in June 2001 and aged 21, she switched to Hamas. She was evidently in search of something and found it that summer: the opportunity to kill Jews on a satisfyingly large scale. It was an opportunity she grabbed.

On the morning of July 27, 2001, a Friday, Tamimi carried a smallish made-by-Hamas bomb embedded inside a beer can and surreptitiously placed it on a shelf in what was then a Co-op Supermarket. This was located in the basement of a building on Jerusalem’s King George Street that locals knew as Hamashbir. It's an office building today with some shops at street level. She quickly left the scene.

The bomb fizzed with no serious damage except to the ambitious bomber’s pride. 

By her own account, she raged in fury at her Hamas handlers right afterwards and demanded something much larger. She got it ten days later: a diabolical exploding guitar case and a young religious fanatic eager to carry it on his back into whatever target Tamimi chose.

Tamimi scoured Jerusalem and chose Sbarro. The busy pizzeria with the good hashgacha (certificate of being kosher) was popular among religiously observant youngsters like Malki. Tamimi has for years wanted it to be known that her choice was based on the large number of Jewish children reliably inside at that hour. We don't know why this single fact does not lead every report ever published about this exceptionally cold-blooded murdering Islamist. It should.

Mostly behind the scenes, we have pressed the United States to insist Jordan extradites Tamimi since 2012. She has faced serious federal terror charges since they were unsealed by a team of senior department of Justice officials in a public event in March 2017. They had been issued secretly by a judge four years earlier.

This evidently was known to the senior members of Jordan’s political and royal power structure. That’s because secret – and entirely unsuccessful - efforts were made by high-level American officials for several years to persuade Jordan to hand Tamimi over to the FBI. They knew Tamimi was charged even before we (or even the US Congress) did. And to be clear about this central element: there's been an active and totally valid treaty between Jordan and the US since 1995 for the extradition of fugitives like Tamimi. The State Department said nothing for years about the way Jordan breaches that treaty in the Tamimi case (though not in other cases). It started being open and explicit about it late last year ["03-Nov-19: In Washington, a step towards bringing the Sbarro bomber to justice"]

Why should US charges and American justice even enter the Tamimi story? 

The simple answer: Because Malki had American citizenship via her New York-born mother. And there’s an American law that gives it the right and the obligation to go after terrorists who kill American nationals outside the territorial United States. Once taken into custody, the fugitive terrorist can be flown to the US and tried in a US court under US law. It’s what ought to have happened to Tamimi.

But first the FBI has to get its hands on the fugitive terrorist. 

The good news is the US and Jordan signed a treaty to facilitate extradition in both directions. That was in 1995, and in the years that followed extraditions were carried out on request just as the treaty stipulated. But something about the Tamimi case made it different for the Jordanians. They started refusing as soon as the requests arrived and have continued refusing right up until today [see "16-Nov-20: Justice, the Tamimi extradition and what Jordan tells Arabic media but not the world"]. The US has made clear its view that Jordan is wrong,

Tamimi not only lives in complete freedom under the patronage of the Jordanian government but has become a media celebrity there and in large parts of the Arab world. The details are chilling - almost beyond comprehension.

Our Jerusalem Post ad is a call to action to the Trump administration and specifically to its Secretary of State. There’s no political dimension to it - just a call to compel Jordan to abide by a bilateral treaty to which it is a party. And for pure and simple justice to be done.

We have made repeated efforts to recruit politicians to give our campaign some clout but they have borne no fruit. And it’s not that we’re on the wrong side of politics because we’re not on any side.

It’s also not that people actually refuse our request or argue with us or give us cogent reasons why Tamimi ought to be left alone. That’s of course not true about Jordan. There its media, some of its public officials and citizens enthusiastically stand with her.

What mostly happens is we’re ignored. Many of those we approach don’t return our calls or emails or look right through us if we happen to be speaking face to face.

How likely is it that this time will be different? Hard to know but it doesn’t matter to us. Tzedek tzedek tirdof, as the scripture says. Justice, justice though shalt pursue.

That’s our role.

We’re not alone. As our ad says, we have a petition (here - and it's not too late to sign if you haven't already). Thousands of people from everywhere – a not insignificant number of them from Arab countries and even from Jordan – have signed. Their support encourages and empowers us.

“Secretary Pompeo, it’s not too late to act” reads our banner headline. “We ask that you do what needs to be done so that Tamimi is at last brought to justice in Washington.”

Next week, after the American visitor leaves, we will go, just the two of us, to Malki’s grave. We do that every year on her birthday. This next time, we are going to have to deal with the reality that she would have become 35 years old that day - but instead she was ripped from our grasp and will not come back. 

We remember her precious life when we get together with our children and grandchildren. And we feel gratified and proud when we look at the exceptional work done daily by the Malki Foundation, the charitable organization that for the past nineteen years has served as a non-sectarian memorial to Malki's short but remarkably impactful life.

And at night when we dream that she is alive and hug her lovingly.

Secretaries of State come and go as do ambassadors and presidents, prime ministers and kings. What never goes away is the absolute need to keep justice at the center of our lives as families and as a society. Our advertisement comes to deliver that message to the breakfast table of movers and shakers as well as to the hearts of ordinary people everywhere.

UPDATE December 5, 2020: Not a word of media comment from any of the many reporters traveling with the Secretary of State. And no response from Secretary of State Pompeo or any of his spokespeople, advisers or assistants.

So, for the record: Label us apolitical. Or at least non-partisan.

Here below is our paid Jerusalem Post front page advertisement, the one that Pompeo's entire retinue and the Great Man himself have ignored totally from November 18, 2020 until right up to this morning.

Click to see it larger.