Reaching out to people with disabilities in closed institutions

Image Source: Ministry website

It seems Israel's Ministry of Justice means business. 

I just read the questionnaire it has disseminated in simple language for the cognitively impaired. It is clear that the Ministry is now seriously pursuing abuse and neglect in institutions for people with disabilities - which, by the way, includes ALEH and ADI.

The questionnaire, which I mentioned in my last post [March of the ministers, January 9, 2021], asks pointed questions (which I have translated to English). 

Here are a few:

Do you feel safe in your residential framework?
Responses:
Yes

No

Don't know

When something happens in your framework that bothers/upsets/disturbs you, are you comfortable approaching someone in order to complain?
Responses:
Yes

No

Sometimes - there are times that I do and times that I don't.

If something in the framework upsets you, whom do you usually approach to complain? (Mark all the answers that are appropriate).
My family
The social worker in the framework
The director of the framework
The supervisor of the framework
Someone in the Ministry of Welfare
The social worker in the municipality
The parents committee of the residents in the framework
A social organization (for example Bizchut, Akim) or to a private lawyer
The Commission of Equal Rights for People with Disabilities
Someone else (write here to whom)

Has this happened to you?
My room was in bad shape/condition (for example, there was broken furniture).
Someone from the staff hit you (hurt you on your body)
Someone from the staff insulted you or cursed you
They tied you to a bed or they left you in locked room.
Someone on the staff took some of your personal things (for instance, your telephone)

Responses:
It happened to me and I complained
It happened to me and I didn't complain
It didn't happen to me

Has this happened to you?
They don't keep your apartment or framework clean
They don't keep you or your body clean
They don't include you in decisions about yourself
They didn't allow your family members to go into your room during visits (before Corona)

Responses:
It happened to me and I complained
It happened to me and I did complain
It didn't happen to me

Did you ever complain about something else? 

(Write here what you complained about. You don't have to answer.)

How much did the one who took care of your complaint listen to you?
Responses:
Listened closely
Didn't listen so much
Didn't listen at all

Did they solve the problem you complained about?
Yes
No

. . .

Here's hoping the existence of this questionnaire will serve as a deterrent to the staff of those institutions. But that would only be a step in the right direction.

We can't abandon the ultimate goal: putting these institutions in our rear view mirrors.

Perhaps, when scrutiny, transparency and enforcement of the law - of which this questionnaire is one example - spreads, the appeal of them evil will wane. And the rights of people with disabilities to remain with their families and in the community will be respected.

The king's quandary

The news on BBC Arabic devoted more than six minutes
on its October 8, 2020 bulletin to an extraordinarily sympathetic
re-telling of Tamimi's encounter with a Jordanian radio talk-show

The mystery surrounding the deportation of Ahlam Tamimi's husband, Nizar Tamimi, by the Jordanian authorities, remains unsolved.

It was a puzzling move which only made some sense as a tactic to lure Ahlam Tamimi out of Jordan.

She seems to have quickly morphed into a political hot potato in light of the US's intensified pressure on Jordan to extradite her. 

The speculation in the Arabic media has been that newly-appointed US Ambassador to Jordan Henry Wooster was flexing some muscle and threatening heavy monetary sanctions on Jordan for defying the demand of the US Department of Justice for Tamimi's extradition.

Hence, apparently, Nizar's deportation on October 1, 2020 to Qatar.

But since then Jordan's regime appears to have been paralyzed. Last week, a very public display of disdain for Tamimi on the Jordanian talk-radio program "We and You" galvanized public support for her "plight" on social media ["Report: Jordan deported Sbarro terrorist mastermind's husband to force her out", i24News.tv, October 2, 2020]

The host of that popular call-in radio program, who was video-taped mid-conversation signaling for caller Ahlam Tamimi to be disconnected, cited technical difficulties as the cause for the move. But he has now resigned and his show has been suspended indicating that was a fabrication.

Tamimi's fans who adore her for murdering fifteen innocent Jewish men, women and children (8 children!) are irate. The hashtags #WeAreAhlamTamimi and #AhlamTamimiYourVoiceIsHigh were near the top of Jordan's social-media trending lists.

 
Even BBC Arabic invited this monster to be interviewed - minus the "technical difficulties". 

Not once since the Sbarro massacre has the BBC deigned to cover the story. Only now, when Tamimi is pleading for pity, did it do so. And without the slightest reference to the massacre and its victims.

King Abdullah II is clearly caught between a rock and a hard place. Who can he afford to confront: his bloodthirsty constituents or his benefactor, the US?

While he mulls that choice, we sit with bated breath, hoping these latest developments will bring us the justice for which we have long pined.

How do I love thee?

Jordan, this past Sunday: American officials transfer $745M
to the kingdom

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. Adulation: As in the Washington Institute's Scholar-Statesman's Award bestowed on Jordan's King Abdullah II in November 2019 [link]
2. Friendship: As in (by my count) 35 meetings since March 2017 with various U.S. dignitaries - in the White House, Capitol Hill and in the King's Jordanian Palace.
3. Preferential treatment: As in ignoring the King's intransigent refusal to extradite mass murderer Ahlam Tamimi despite a valid extradition treaty with the U.S., despite the 2013 US indictment against her, despite the US Department of Justice demanding her extradition
4. Cash Handouts: As in Sunday's $745 million transfer to the kingdom by the United States.

And thus the incomprehensible love-fest between US power brokers and Jordan's king/dictator Abdullah II endures.

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.

Has The Washington Institute lost its moral compass?

Source: Washington Institute website

It was difficult not to choke upon reading the announcement of this year's Washington Institute honoree ["17-Nov-19: Jordan's king to be honored for profound commitment to peace and moderation"]

Joining a list of truly distinguished and deserving past recipients of its Statesman-Scholar Award is a dictator and terror-abettor. A man who has given refuge to Ahlam Tamimi, confessed murderer of my precious daughter Malki, and of seven other children and eight adults.

The members of the esteemed Institute have selected as its 2019 recipient a man who has steadfastly refused to extradite Tamimi to stand trial in the US. Two of her victims, including Malki, were Americans. 

In doing so, King Abdullah is defying a 2013 indictment and demand for extradition by the US Department of Justice ["13-Nov-19: Thank you, Mr Foreign Minister"].

As the US State Department reiterated incontrovertably earlier this month in an annual report ["03-Nov-19: In Washington, a step towards bringing the Sbarro bomber to justice"], the US recognizes as valid and binding the extradititon treaty signed and ratified with Jordan in 1995. 

Jordan has in the past extradited several of its citizens to the US in accordance with that treaty. 

But now, Jordan - which as we know is an absolute monarchy - has declared that treaty void ["23-Mar-17: Looking for justice in Jordan, Jerusalem and Washington"]. That's a convenient excuse for protecting this evil woman who has boasted of her "achievement" repeatedly on TV. 

But we are not obliged to buy that excuse. In fact, as moral, rational humans, we are obliged to fight it because it is nothing short of a brazen travesty of justice.

Yet instead the moral, rational humans at the Washington Institute are rewarding that travesty and lauding the king for his "profound commitment to peace and moderation" and for opposing his region's "violence and extremism".

On the right, Malki at the center of my family at a celebration
just weeks before her life was stolen from us by the woman in the
State Department reward poster on the left

I would presume that masterminding a terror bombing in Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria when it is filled with mothers and children on a summer's afternoon qualifies as "extremism". And I also presume that refusing to allow the trial of that mastermind would not qualify as a "profound commitment to peace and moderation."

Which leaves me curious as to what rationalization the esteemed members of this institute can offer me for the infuriating decision to "celebrate as outstanding leader" this opponent of the most basic tenets of justice and morality.

My child was a kind, loving, generous talented girl who volunteered with children with disabilitites, played the classical flute, sang beautifully and was a loving daughter. She deserves for her murderer to be behind bars. Nothing more, nothing less.

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.

My words at the gravesides of Malki and Michal

What follows below is an English translation of what I said in Hebrew at the modest annual remembrance at Jerusalem's Har Tamir cemetry, standing beside the adjoining graves of my murdered daughter Malki and her closest friend Michal Raziel on August 1, 2018. This was the anniversary, according to the Hebrew (lunar) calendar of the massacre in which their lives ended.

Despite the passage of years and the fading of memories, our pain over the murders of Malki and Michal retains its intensity.

As I have done each year, I mustered up the courage this week to listen again to my daughter Malki's voice. Through her incredibly detailed diary from the last year of her short life, she continues to speak.

I happened upon the entry below. She wrote it two days after a pair of young Jewish women were  murdered en route to the funeral of another terror victim.

From Malki's diary

"In our home-room lesson, I couldn't concentrate. Everything that's happening with this "situation" (המצב - referring to the Second Intifada) really threw me into a deep depression and I was terribly sad. Avigail didn't come because she went to the two funerals and couldn't get out of it. In English lesson, I left in the middle with Shira F. and Miri and we spoke. Shira told us about yesterday's funeral. She spoke in a dreadful manner. She planned her own funeral with us. She says she told her mother that she doesn't want any reporters at the funeral and that she should organize buses with bullet-proof windows so that we can attend. We tried to silence her. It was very frightening."

Of course, it was chilling to read these words.

An additional layer was added to our torment in 2011 when our leaders released Malki's and Michal's murderer and it too has not abated.

Currently, both the US and Israeli governments ignore the fact that the King of Jordan protects that mass-murderer and refuses to extradite her in accordance with the US Justice Department's demands [announced in March 2017 and pursuant to a long-standing treaty between Jordan and the US.]

The two countries maintain friendly, even warm, relations with him despite his granting refuge to an evil villain who has repeatedly confessed and boasted of slaughtering fifteen Jews. Arnold and I have been  tirelessly pressuring the relevant authorities to transfer her to an American court for trial and ultimately back to prison.                       
Our struggle elucidates the Torah's exhortation in Devarim (Deuteronomy), 16:20:

"Justice, justice thou shalt pursue". 

It seems that the word "justice" is repeated because its attainment may often be an uphill battle, demanding perseverance and repetition of efforts over time.

We pray that we will eventually merit the attainment of justice for our precious Malki and Michal.