Remembering Malki's Birthday

My daughter Malki was a talented

classical flautist. This photo is from 2000.

I imagine that few shared our reaction to the Hamas invasion of October 7.

While most were shocked and blind-sided by the horrors and cruelty inflicted on Israelis that day, we were somewhat prepared, having been introduced to Hamas barbarism a little over 22 years ago. 

During the years of the Second Intifada, between 2000 and 2005, Hamas along with Fatah and Islamic Jihad waged a campaign of heinous murders against innocents. Some 1,083 civilian Israelis, among them 124 children, perished.

True, the attacks were often several days apart and the numbers of Hamas invaders never neared the thousands who attacked us at once on last month's Black Shabbat.

But the planning, cunning and bloodthirst were identical.

Our precious Malki, who would have celebrated her 38th birthday today, perished in the Sbarro bombing of August 9, 2001.

Hamas' first female operative, Ahlam Tamimi, orchestrated that attack meticulously. She later boasted of her several preparatory visits to Jerusalem's city center to scout for a suitable target. 

She found that on summer afternoons, the Sbarro pizzeria at the major intersection of Jaffa and King George Streets met those criteria. She chose it as her target because it was frequented by "religious Jews," she told an interviewer from the Center for Near East Policy Research.

Hamas provided her with a "weapon" - another Hamas operative, ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Masri, carrying a guitar case containing a 10 kg. bomb riddled with nails and screws to intensify the injuries.

She escorted him through Jerusalem's streets to that intersection where she parted from him. Her last instructions to Al-Masri were to wait 15 minutes before detonating to allow her ample time to make a safe getaway.

And so, our precious angel - a generous, artistic, musically gifted girl - left this world along with six other children and nine adults.

 
Tamimi boasts of her "success" to this day from her refuge in Amman, Jordan. She has been protected there by King Abdullah II since her release in the now infamous Shalit Deal - the same one that freed Hamas' current chief Yahya Sinwar. 

She says she has never regretted what she did and that if given another chance she would do the same again ["Tamimi: I have never regretted what I have done", Ammon News (Jordan) October 23, 2011]

Malki was a U.S. citizen, as were two other Sbarro victims. Hence Tamimi was indicted under seal by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2013 (and unsealed in 2017). Her extradition has been demanded under a valid 1995 treaty of extradition between Jordan and the United States signed, ratified and lauded by Abdullah's father King Hussein.

 
Abdullah has thumbed his nose at the U.S. demand for extradition. Despite our tireless efforts, no one with power or influence is at all interested in tackling this travesty of justice. In 2022, President Biden reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering support to Jordan as a key ally and a force for peace in the region. In fact Abdullah is still referred to by the U.S. as its partner in the fight against terrorism.

Today, as is our custom, my husband and I intend to visit Malki's grave. With a son-in-law now fighting in Gaza against the very same Hamas that murdered the sister-in-law he never met, our world looks bleak indeed.

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.

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".

Silver linings and slippery slopes

My murdered daughter Malki and the ruins of the Sbarro

pizzeria minutes after it was bombed by terrorists

Everyone grieves differently; naturally. Not surprisingly, families of the victims of terror are often alienated from each other by their varied ways of grappling with their tragedies.

But one particular approach to loss has become, I hesitate to brand it thus, trendy among the general public.

Increasingly, the media - whether social or mainstream - spotlights the parents of murdered children who emphasize the "silver lining" message. By that I mean the positives that their loss has provided them.

It might be the not-for-profit that they have founded in their child's memory. Or the new outlook on life they've embraced in the wake of their tragedy. Or the overwhelming support and love of their relatives and friends they've received. Or the conviction that the heavenly goodness in their child's murder exists but simply evades our limited comprehension.

Those are topics deemed acceptable and publishable.

But anger, doubt, confusion or the desire for justice and the imprisonment of the murderers are not. They have become taboo emotions nowadays.

This sentiment is reminiscent of the one that reigned in Israel after Holocaust survivors settled here. The society those victims joined clearly signaled to them - and sometimes even told them explicitly - that mentioning their horrific experiences and unfathomable grief was not welcome.

Another spreading trend is to deny terrorist acts the label "terrorism". More and more global news services refer to them as "events in a cycle of violence" or "responses to the occupation" and so on. It is a phenomenon that both enrages the murdered victims' families and encourages fresh terrorism.

Recently, the global news source CNN crossed a red line in its reporting on the April 7, 2023 Jordan Valley shooting attack that resulted in the murder of the Dee family's wife/mother and two daughters. As reported by CAMERA on April 11, 2023, two CNN correspondents described that terror act with language never before used in that context.

Frederik Pleitgen said:

“But earlier in the West Bank, there was a shooting incident where a car received a bullet shot, or gunshots, with the family in it. It was a mother and her two daughters, and the two daughters were killed in that crash.”

CNN's Isa Soares adopted the same wording. 

Both journalists later reported the shooting of a Palestinian youth, aged 16, by Israeli forces during a military operation. The ages of the Dee daughters were never cited by Soares or Pleitgen, although one was 15 years old.

I shudder to imagine how they would have recounted the Sbarro bombing of August, 2001 which took our angel Malki from us forever. Perhaps

"The Sbarro pizzeria in central Jerusalem received a 10 kg explosive from which 15 men, women and children took shrapnel and died."

For some reason, nobody among Israel's journalists or politicians chose to weigh in on CNN's terrorism denial other than Israel National News which merely reprinted CAMERA's report.

This conduct sets a dangerous precedent that cries out for our protests.

Yet Israel's silence shouldn't surprise us. My husband and I have encountered the same indifference in our quest for justice for our Malki.

Her self confessed murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, sentenced in Israel to sixteen life terms, enjoys utter safety and freedom in Jordan. She is protected by its autocrat, King Abdullah II, who has, since 2013 ignored US demands for her extradition under a treaty signed and ratified in 1995 by his father, King Hussein.

The fact that Tamimi has engaged in public incitement to terrorism from widely-viewed TV and social media platforms does not interest Israel. Consecutive governments have nurtured their intimate friendship with Jordan since her release in the Shalit "Deal" of 2011. 

Meanwhile Israeli journalists - even so called "right wing" and religious ones - have ignored our pleas for their coverage of this travesty of justice.

Yom Hazikaron, Israel's Day of Remembrance, is an appropriate time to call attention to the current status of terrorism and its victims. We are on a slippery slope toward rampant terrorism denial. That will increasingly threaten Israel's security.

Israel's leaders, politicians and journalists must take a stand. Call out those - like CNN - who report about the terror attacks as "car crashes". Stop rewarding those - like Jordan - who shield fugitive terrorists and reject treaty-based demands for extradition.

The consequences of continued silence could be grave.

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!

Don't we deserve better than this lamentable leadership?

A Jordanian news report from 2017 includes this photo of

American Jewish leaders meeting with King Abdullah II.
The report quotes the king, but not the Jews.

Et tu Brute?

Those words are uttered at a dramatic juncture in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by the dying emperor at the moment he is assasssinated by his friend Marcus Junius Brutus.

They come to mind whenever I learn of a recent and deplorable Jewish practice that directly impacts on me in personal and unspeakably painful ways.

Here's how Jewish Insider reported a Washington gathering on February 2, 2023:

King Abdullah II of Jordan met with Jewish leaders in Washington, D.C., yesterday. Those in attendance included Rabbi Marc Schneier, Ted Deutch, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Jonathan Greenblatt, Susie Gelman, Hadar Susskind, Dana Gershon, Betty Ehrenberg, Jason Isaacson, John Hannah and Harriet Schleifer.

There's a Jordanian news report [here] as well. As usual, no Jews are named or quoted.

On February 3, 2023, Jordan's Royal Hashemite Court published
and disseminated this photo to illustrate its report under the headline
"King meets representatives of international,
US Jewish organisations"

It's become an annual tradition. Eexecutives of major Jewish organizations in the US solemnly file into a meeting room in some fancy hotel or embassy hall and pay their utmost respects to the visiting ruler of Jordan. he speaks, and his words are faithfully reported in Jordan's media. 

I don't personally know most of the people in the list. And since this hasn't been reported anywhere, I don't know what they said. Or whether they spoke at all.

I do however know something about what previous groups of Jewish leaders said and didn't say when they met the Jordanian. And what they have and have not said publicly to America's top political leaders. 

My husband and I [see This Ongoing War] have been outspoken for years about the abject failures of America's Jewish leadership in the Tamimi/Jordan/justice affair.

From a quick check on the web, I see all the distinguished Jewish people meeting King Abdullah this past Thursday hold leading positions in significant organizations (listed alphabetically) that include:

• Americans for Peace Now (educating Americans about "policies that will lead to comprehensive, durable, Israeli-Palestinian and Israeli-Arab peace")
• The American Jewish Committee ("the leading global Jewish advocacy organization")
• The Anti Defamation League
• The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
• The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding ("to build Muslim-Jewish relations globally")
• Israel Policy Forum ("mobilize support among American Jewish leaders and U.S. policymakers for the realization of a viable two-state solution")
• J Street ("we advocate for diplomacy-first American leadership and policies that advance justice")
• The Jewish Institute for National Security of America
  
• National Council of Jewish Women ("social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children, and families and by safeguarding individual rights and freedoms")
• World Jewish Congress ("to foster the unity and represent the interests of the Jewish people")

I know I should have grown used to it. But the pain these encounters inflict only intensifies with time.

My Malki's photos speak to me every day when I am in their presence in our living room. Her gentle eyes, sweet smile, modesty and love radiate from them. Since she was murdered in the Sbarro terror bombing in the summer of 2001, it's the only way she communicates with me.

As I peruse them tonight, I am reminded afresh that Jewish leaders promoting themselves in the Jewish media and mailed solicitations as staunch advocates of rights of the Jews evidently care not one bit about her or us.

Malki's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, indicted in Washington in 2013 (though this was kept secret until; 2017) is protected and shielded from justice by King Abdullah II of Jordan. And, whatever the leaders say, this clearly doesn't matter one iota to them.

The facts are so clear to me and, as far as I can tell, so irrelevant to them.

The fact that Jordan and the United States have had a valid and active extradition treaty since the days of the Clinton administration and the late King Hussein - the father of today's monarch. 

The fact that the U.S. Department of Justice has demanded that Jordan extradite her under it, and hand her over to the FBI's waiting arms so she can be brought to criminal trial in Washington.

The fact that King Abdullah has authorized the rejection of that demand since Tamimi's indictment. 

The fact whenever he calls, they come running, as they did last week.

It is an incomprehensible exhibition of sycophancy toward a man who is brazenly using them to buttress his position as a close ally of the U.S. And, most important, as the world's largest recipient of U.S. financial aid - now running at some $1.5 billion a year.

Jordan's disdain for Israel is apparently not a factor for Jewish leaders when deciding whether to accept the vaunted invitation of His Majesty (as they usually refer to him).

In meetings, letters and phone calls with many of those leaders we have pleaded since 2017 for their assistance in pressuring the United States to get Jordan to comply with its treaty obligation. All produced nothing more than demeaning, dismissive responses.

What a pathetic show of spinelessness.

Remember this when these organizations next solicit your donation.

On my murdered daughter's birthday, a request

Last week's terror bombings that took the life of Jerusalem teen Aryeh Schupak, and, a few days later, of Tadese Tashume Ben-Ma’ada, 50, father of six, who succumbed to his wounds on November 26, 2022, jolted the nation. 

They also stirred up the horror right beneath the surface of my soul. Horror that has lingered there since 2001, when my daughter Malki was murdered in the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria bombing on a hot, summer's afternoon. 

Like the twin bus-stop bombings of last week, the 10 kg bomb that destroyed Sbarro was also packed with nails to maximize the casualties it would inflict. And the Sbarro bomb's target was also a site that children, specifically, would be frequenting at that hour.

A Jerusalem bus stop, one of the two attacked on

November 23, 2022 [Image Source]

Now another innocent Jewish teen - kind, generous, earnest, industrious full of dreams and plans like our child - did not return to his parents.

When I say my heart goes out to his family, those are not just formulaic words. I really do know what they are enduring.

Malki would have celebrated her 37th birthday today, November 27, 2022, if not for that evil act of Hamas operative, Ahlam Tamimi. 

But unlike the terrorists who murdered Aryeh and Ben-Ma'ada, Ahlam Tamimi's whereabouts are known to all. She lives free and protected by Jordan's King Abdullah II. She was indicted by the United States Department of Justice in 2013. Her extradition from Jordan was subsequently demanded under a 1995 treaty signed and ratified by both countries. The U.S. has explicitly deemed that treaty valid despite Jordan's years-late insistence to the contrary.

But there the U.S.'s pursuit of justice for our Malki - a U.S. citizen - has come to a screeching halt.

The very same administration that declared on November 23, 2022, that "We condemn unequivocally the acts of terror overnight in Jerusalem. The United States has offered all appropriate assistance to the Government of Israel as it investigates the attack and works to bring the perpetrators to justice" is doing nothing, I repeat nothing, to bring the fugitive Sbarro perpetrator, Ahlam Tamimi, to justice. 

She has boasted of murdering fifteen men, women and children in the bombing she orchestrated at Sbarro but remains free as a lark.

My husband and I have been struggling since early-2012 to garner attention for our fight. The persistent silence and indifference that have met our pleas is not something we could have anticipated. It crosses all religious, political and geographic lines and is utterly confounding.

But without a doubt, the most disconcerting has been the silence and indifference of American Jewish activists, leaders, politicians and organization heads who claim to be concerned with causes precisely like ours: justice for Jewish victims. 

Many have close personal relationships with Jordan's ruler, Abdullah, often to the absurd point of adulation. His country's blatant anti-Semitism doesn't faze them.

Their hypocrisy has been a bitter pill for us to swallow.

If you too are incensed by this outrage, and are in a position to promote our cause, we are currently preparing a campaign where your help can be instrumental. Please contact us by email at thisongoingwar@gmail.com

Even if you feel you cannot take part, please do consider signing our petition addressed to the U.S. Secretary of State (you do not need to be an American to sign it): change.org/ExtraditeTamimi

Sara Netanyahu is no friend of mine

[A version (with certain changes) of my opinion piece below was published as a blog post on the Times Of Israel site on October 27, 2022 under the title "Sara Netanyahu and the strings she pulls".]

Freed in Israel a day earlier, my child's admitted killer arrives

to a hero's raucous reception in Jordan, October 18, 2011

Raviv Drucker is an Israeli investigative reporter who has been sparring with former prime minister of Israel Binyamin Netanyahu since 2016. That's when, as host of Hamakor ("The Source"), a TV current affairs program that ran on what was then known as Israel's Channel 10, he revealed (see a 2016 post on Drucker's blog) that Netanyahu, then serving as prime minister, was promoting the idea of Israel buying three German-made submarines for about $1.5 billion at the same time as his personal attorney David Shimron was the lawyer for the man representing the German company in Israel.

Last week, a new 3-installment expose aired on Israel's Channel 13 (which is where the now-defunct Channel 10 ended up after a merger) that has probably left thousands of viewers shocked and incensed. (Part 1, in Hebrew without subtitles, can be viewed online here.)

But I expect few will have felt the personal affront that my husband and I did from Sara Netanyahu who has a hefty presence in the program. The disdainful references she made, via recorded conversations, were to us despicable.

Now, after listening to her, the prospect of the Netanyahus returning to the Prime Minister's residence after November 1's elections, as most pundits are predicting, seems more ominous to me than before. 

And yes, her husband's re-election, if that's what happens, would clearly mean Sara's return to power via the invisible strings she so relishes pulling.

What exactly did she say, you may wonder, about my husband and me?

Well, we are two of the terror victims she referred to dismissively in the context of the 2011 Shalit Deal over which her husband presided as prime minister at the time. [See "Shalit Prisoner Swap Marks 'Colossal Failure' for Mother of Israeli Bombing Victim", Haaretz, October 19, 2011] 

The Hamakor recordings expose the active role she had in it.

Since 2011, our Malki's murderer, Jordanian reporter Ahlam Tamimi ["27-Feb-22: The Jordanian woman who bombed Sbarro has earned another title"], has enjoyed freedom and fame, in part, because of the Netanyahu couple's determination to release her along with another 1,026 terrorists. 

More than a decade ago, Barak Ravid who was then a political commentator at Haaretz, wrote ["New Info on Shalit Deal Shows, Yet Again, That in the Mideast, Nothing Is as It Appears", Haaretz, July 24, 2012] that 

"at the time that Netanyahu made the decision to go ahead with the prisoner exchange, he regularly denied that his considerations were based on anything but security and diplomacy. Anyone who asserted otherwise was met with a furious response, at best, and a threatened libel suit, at worst. Only recently, several long months late, he agreed to admit – in an interview with the German newspaper BILD – that his wife Sara put pressure on him to approve the deal."

Yes, pressured by Sara. 

Interviewed for BILD, a German daily tabloid and Europe's best-selling newspaper, in June 2012, nine months after Malki's killer was let loose, Netanyahu said this:

 ...about his wife: “My wife gives me tremendous support and warmth. She is the cornerstone of our family, she raises our children, she always tells me you have to make time for the children.” When all of Israel was following the fate of abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, 25, it was Sara, says ‘Bibi’, who finally convinced him to free Shalit from his captors. “She was the one who told me, think of that boy Gilad Shalit”, says Benjamin Netanyahu. “Think of that boy in that dark dungeon, having no hope, no light. Think of him as if he were our son. Think of him, his mother, his father, and then make the decision.”

The Netanyahus - and some of the freed terrorists

I now understand why my articles and personal letters to the Prime Minister's Office pleading for Tamimi to be deleted from the list of prospective releasees was ignored. We never stood a chance of eliciting a response. [See "22-Jul-22: The loneliest battle of my life"] 

Hundreds of those 1,027 imprisoned Arab terrorists were, like Tamimi, convicted murderers. Yet Netanyahu willingly handed them to the extorting terror group, Hamas, in return for one hostage, Gilad Shalit. 

None of them had taken as many lives as Ahlam Tamimi, our child's murderer: 15 men, women and children. And none had been sentenced to anything near the 16 consecutive life sentences she was given. 

Many of those releasees returned to active terrorist duty. Some subsequently murdered innocent Israeli civilians. A significant part of the current Palestinian Arab terrorist leadership - both in Gaza and in Istanbul - would still be behind Israeli bars today were it not for them winning freedom in the Shalit Deal.

Ahlam Tamimi herself has actively incited to terror from her TV programs and social media platforms. [See "23-Feb-22: Weaponizing Turkish teenage girls: What the Sbarro bomber did next"]

But what precisely was Sara's contribution to this lopsided, ill-conceived and lethal exchange?

Nir Hefetz, for years a spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu and currently a state witness in the former prime minister’s ongoing corruption trial, has the central role in the three-part Channel 13 expose I mentioned above. 

Recorded conversations he had with Sarah Netanyahu shed more light on her interference in Israel's decision to do the Shalit Deal. They're especially important because - in my opinion - unlike Hefetz's own oral testimony to the court and what he says in his interviews with Raviv Drucker, the veracity of Sara's recordings is indisputable. 

The only retort her camp was able to offer right after they aired was that Drucker had paid Hefetz "hundreds of thousands of shekels" for them. (Mentioned here.)

To which I say: money well spent! The Israeli public is entitled to hear their contents and the dirty truths that have been swept under the carpet until now.

* * *

You can get a sense of what I mean from the following Hebrew-language exchanges between Sara Netanyahu and Nir Hefetz. The translation is mine and thus unofficial of course:

Nir Hefetz: We just sat, about an hour ago, with the families of the Organization of Terror Victims

Sara Netanyahu:  Yes.

Nir Hefetz: Then one of them said something about you; that you assessed something very correctly. Gave you, so to speak, a compliment.

Sara Netanyahu:  Yes.

Sara and Bibi: From a 2012 Vanity Fair profile

Nir Hefetz: Then your husband told them: "Listen, this may surprise you, but it doesn't surprise me at all. She is s-o-o-o smart. [We hear Sara chuckling in the background.] That's how he said it to them, in that same tone as I did to you now. Like that, narrowed his eyes, like this, he says to them: "She's so smart. She's so smart." It was simply... you know, they saw that he said it from the heart."

Sara Netanyahu:  By the way, who do you think asked him to have this meeting?

Nir Hefetz: Ah, really?

Sara Netanyahu:  Nu, who else? [In Hebrew ?אלא מה meaning "naturally!"].

Nir Hefetz: And you know, he is so glad that he did it because now there's a positive report in Ynet.

Sara Netanyahu:  I told him: "You must listen to them [the bereaved families]. It can't be that only after the decision you'll sit with them.

Nir Hefetz: He sat with them for an hour and a half.

Sara Netanyahu:  Nice, nice. And hour and a half is "fair enough" ["פייר אנאפ"]. It's nice.

* * *

She evidently felt she had given us a big enough lollipop to win our docility and compliance. 

But, for the record, these two terror victims, parents of a murdered child, will not be silenced that easily. Our fight to have Malki's murderer extradited by her current protector, Jordan's King Abdullah II, will continue until she is tried under US law in Washington DC. 

And, thereafter, once again behind bars - the only place she belongs.

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.

Beside my daughter's grave today

Malki and me, Jerusalem, 1993 

I spoke at the graveside Azkara ceremony today, the anniversary according to the Hebrew calendar of the day we lost our daughter Malki הי"ד to the monsters who bombed the Sbarro pizzeria. The text below is translated from the Hebrew in which I addressed the family and friends who attended.

* * *

For most, the terror attack that robbed us of our precious Malki and [her close friend] Michal is relegated to history.

But for their loved ones, it is as vivid and deeply painful as it was 21 years ago.

While at past azkarot [memorial services] we said we didn’t believe there will be any nechama [comfort, respite], this year we can declare that in fact there wasn't and isn't any.

I have been combing through old papers that were stashed away at the time of our move from another part of Jerusalem where we lived for the past thirty years to where we now live.

In the storage room, I found a collection of scores of notes that Malki had left to me, and to other members of our family, most of them tucked under the challah cover on Friday evenings.

I force myself to read a few. Each one is a fresh stab at my heart. 

Each one reminds me again of Malki's love, generosity, warmth and empathy.

Here is one from when she was little:

לאמא המקסימה!

אמא! תודה רבה על כל ההשקעה שהשקעת בי כל השנים הללו מכשהיית בהריון איתי ועעעעדדדד היום.

א - ותך אוהבת לעולמים

מ - ימך קיבלתי את כל הצרכים

א - מא אחרת לא מוצאים

אני אוהבת אותך ככה ------ הרבה.

מבתך,

מלכי

To my mag-nif-i-cent Mom!

Mommy! Thank you so much for all that you've invested in me all these years from when you were pregnant with me uuuuntil today.....

I - love you forever
F - rom you I have received all my needs
A - nother mother cannot be found!
I love you this ---- much 
From your daughter,
Malki

A couple of them remind me that she was a normal child with a full range of children's emotions including anger and resentment.

Tragically, I can't right those wrongs now. The only thing I can do for her is continue our fight to attain the elusive justice for which her blood cries out.

That travesty too is now deemed history by most others but for us it is fresh, painful and demanding of action .

Let's hope it will be rectified sooner than we anticipate.

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.