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.

Politicians, justice and missing the point

Shai visits Aleh Jerusalem 2018

I was first introduced to Knesset member Dr Nachman Shai when Bizchut (“Promoting the rights of people who have disabilities in Israel”) paired me up with him to pay a joint surprise visit to a large, closed Jerusalem institution for children and adults with disabilities.

Across the country on that same day, other such facilities were similarly inspected. The reason for having activists accompanied by Knesset members was that the latter can legally insist on admittance to those institutions. Civilians, like me, are almost always denied entry.

I certainly was, anytime I previously tried.

After the tours, each Knesset member's impressions were recorded on video. Shai astounded me with his praise for the institution. He was well aware that Bizchut and other activists, some with disabilities themselves, were intent on replacing institutionalization with in-community living for everyone.

Nevertheless he emerged with this reaction: 

"I believe I am leaving with a good impression, a positive impression... We toured from top to bottom, the institution was open... We were not prevented from viewing anything, everything we requested we received and I leave as much as possible with a good feeling." (My translation of his Hebrew as recorded at the time.)

Shai had entirely missed the point.

People with disabilities are often locked up in “gilded prisons”.  Their human rights are denied, the love of family and home stolen from them. Funding which our government could and should channel to parents and children with disabilities is lavished on institution operators.

The rest of the Western world has, as a universally agreed matter of strategy, abandoned the institutionalization of people with disabilities over the past two decades. But Israel persists in supporting, funding and promoting it for its population with disabilities.

Standing outside that institution on the day of that visit, Shai briefly related to that "debate", as he called it, and said he intended to leave it at that.

On April 20, 2022, a demonstration will be held at Tel Aviv's Kikar Habima at 16:00. In the Passover spirit, it is being called "Our Exodus to Freedom - From Institutions into the Community".  

Nachman Shai just didn't get it.

Last week, he missed another crucial point again. And just as egregiously. 

Here is how he is quoted by Michael Freund in an opinion piece [source: The Jerusalem Post]:

In an interview on Army Radio on March 30, he asserted that “hungry people turn to terrorism. Without food and water, they will disrupt our lives... this contention simply does not stand up under further scrutiny. To begin with, consider the fact that according to the World Bank, there are approximately 700 million people on the planet living in what is described as “extreme poverty,” which is defined as earning less than $1.90 a day. That is nearly 10% of the world’s population...

If the simple equation that suggests that poverty directly gives rise to terrorism were true, one would expect to find millions of people, if not more, taking up arms worldwide and launching terrorist attacks. But that is clearly not the case.

Simply put, most hungry people are not violent nor are they terrorists. They might be desperate, embittered or dissatisfied, but that is a far cry from joining the ranks of terrorists...

Numerous academic studies over the years clearly demonstrate this to be the case. As MIT Prof. Alberto Abadie concluded in a groundbreaking 2006 study titled “Poverty, Political Freedom and the Roots of Terrorism,” published in American Economic Review, there is “no significant association between terrorism and economic variables, such as income, once the effect of other country characteristics is taken into account.”

The same holds true vis-à-vis Palestinian terrorism. Studies have repeatedly found that those who engage in it are generally better off economically than most Palestinians… The resulting evidence on the individual level suggests that both higher standards of living and higher levels of education are positively associated” with the likelihood of a Palestinian joining Hamas or Islamic Jihad, Hebrew University's Professor Berrebi wrote in 2003...

Indeed, Berrebi discovered that Palestinian suicide bombers “tend to be of higher economic status and higher educational attainment than their counterparts in the population.

My child's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, reinforces the above findings. Neither poor nor uneducated, she was a middle-class student of journalism working as a TV news anchor who thirsted for Jewish blood. Released in the tragically lopsided Shalit Deal in 2011 along with several hundred other convicted murderers, she maintains her previous comfortable standard of living today in her city of refuge, Amman.

She continues to boast of her "successful operation" in which fifteen Jews perished and urges others to emulate her.  

It may be ignorance that lies behind Dr Shai’s recent responses - or rather, non-responses - to me. As we parted after that visit to the Jerusalem institution, he handed me his card inviting me to contact him if I ever needed his help.

My husband and I have been eager to take him up on that offer. Our quest for justice for our daughter is blocked by many, including Israeli politicians. The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Tamimi in 2017 and has asked Jordan to extradite her to Washington where she faces terrorism charges. But King Abdullah's regime has rejected those requests and she remains free, sheltered by the Hashemite kingdom.

The State Department has throughout all our years of effort been uncooperative. So have U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle. We have learned that the Israeli government has signaled American Jewish leaders know they would prefer our requests for their support to be ignored. 

We approached Dr Shai in the naïve hope that he would speak up in support of our quest for justice. But he has never responded to my emails and his spokesperson has repeatedly advised me to direct my pleas elsewhere.

Here’s how she framed the brush-off:

While I understand that this response is not satisfactory for you, I will keep you posted if something more concrete develops. I am deeply sorry that I cannot help you further at this moment in time… I will continue to explore how we can be of support - particularly through other diplomatic means."

It’s been months and the exploring is presumably still underway.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised. Public figures who don’t respond when the massive problems of institutionalization of the disabled are under discussion are probably not that tuned in to justice either.

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.

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. 

Fear Uncertainty and Doubt at the State Department

Malki z"l

Words cannot convey the enormity of a 20th anniversary of the massacre that took our child's life. 

Instead I'll take this opportunity to focus on the ongoing travesty of justice which we are endeavoring to correct. And rather than restate it in detail, I'll home in on the U.S. State Department's current stance.

That Department has concocted its very own, as yet unheard-of, definition of "prioritize". In its curt official response to our email enquiring whether Secretary of State Blinken mentioned Ahlam Tamimi to King Abdullah last week, that verb popped up repeatedly.

Secretary Blinken met privately with King Abdullah of Jordan following President Biden's tete-a-tete with Jordan's unelected ruler. My husband and I wondered whether Blinken raised the matter of Jordan's refusal to accede to the U.S. Department of Justice's demand that our child's murderer, Hamas operative Tamimi, be extradited to be tried in a U.S. Federal Court for the orchestration of of the 2001 Sbarro bombing - the terror attack in which 15 men, women and children perished - and a sixteenth has been in a coma ever since. 

Three of those victims, including our fifteen year old Malki, were U.S. citizens. (Malki and a young American tourist are the two dead American nationals. The third American is alive but has been in a vegetative coma all these years.) 

Moreover, in 1995 Jordan and the U.S. signed and ratified an extradition treaty.

Sec Blinken hosts Jordan's king - July 20, 2021 

So "prioritizing" the issue would have made a lot of sense. The official message below sent to us a few days ago as a private email would truly have been a welcome one: 

"I want to express the Department's sincere condolences on the tragic loss of your daughter, Malki, murdered in the heinous attack in Jerusalem in 2001. As the [exact job title deleted, at least for now] for Counterterrorism, I want to reiterate to you and your family that the Department of State continues to prioritize seeing Ahlam al-Tamimi face justice in the United States for her role in the terrorist attack that claimed the life of your daughter and 14 others. We continue to seek Tamimi's extradition to the United States at the most senior levels with the Government of Jordan."

It would indeed have been welcome had it been at all truthful. 

But clearly in the State Department lexicon, "prioritize" means something entirely different from what it does for you and me. 

Because this is how Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken actually handled the king's intransigence during his encounter with him...

Though he would presumably be considered an official at the "most senior levels" of his own department, it appears he simply did not raise it at all. 

Instead, like every other American official, politician or VIP who met with him during his July 19-23 Washington visit, he occupied himself with lavishing praise on King Abdullah.

Here are Blinken's words to the press prior to their private conversation. Don't be shocked at the hyperbolic royalty rigmarole - it is de rigeur when any U.S. official or journalist addresses that dictator:

"...Your Majesty, it is a real pleasure to welcome you to the State Department, the Crown Prince as well. We couldn’t be more pleased to have you here. .. I think it’s a reflection of the tremendous value that the United States places on its relationship with Jordan, a remarkable partnership over many years, many decades. Jordan is a powerful, powerful partner for peace, for stability in the region, dealing with ISIS and terrorism, a remarkably generous host to refugees. On so many levels, this partnership demonstrates its importance, its value to us... So, we’re so pleased to have you here... Lots to talk about, but mostly, welcome. Welcome to you, Crown Prince, welcome. It’s so good to have you as well." [Official remarks to the press according to the State Department record, July 20, 2021]

And in case that introduction left anyone in doubt, the exchange below between a journalist and a State Department spokesman at the subsequent press conference should put the matter to rest:

QUESTION: Yeah. Well, did it [the Tamimi extradition issue] come up?
MR PRICE: I’m not in a position to speak to the meeting, but we’ll have a readout...
QUESTION: Well, are you – I mean, are you – has this administration yet raised it with – raised the matter with Jordanian authorities, the King or not? Or is this something that would have just come up for the first time today?
MR PRICE: This issue has been raised with our Jordanian partners.

[Official State Department Press Briefing, July 20, 2021] 

I don't know about you but I would conclude that the spokesperson is really saying it wasn't raised but he prefers to not say that explicitly.

Stay tuned for my next post where I detail former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's dismissal of our entreaties. The State Department's adoration of Jordan's king is as bi-partisan as bi-partisan gets.

[Wondering what the term "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt" means? See this here.]

'Stuff' the ambassador forgot

Image Source: Israel Hayom

The hyperbole surrounding former US Ambassador to Israel David M. Friedman ["With ambassadors like this…"] and his tenure grows with every fresh interview he gives the media. 

And since reticent is not an adjective suited to the man, the interviews are accumulating. See for instance the recent items in the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post.

The latest one, in Israel Hayom ["'We left the Middle East in good shape'"], describes him as "the most influential US ambassador in the history of US-Israeli relations." It's unclear how that conclusion was reached. Perhaps Friedman himself contributed the assessment. He certainly seems enamored with his position and his accomplishments. As he said: "There are so many things that we've done that nobody really knows about." Adding, "I wish I could keep this job forever."

In fact, in his NY Times interview he revealed that he won't be making aliyah for four years, awaiting Trump's prospects in 2024. 

“I want to give myself every opportunity to return to government.”

In his Israel Hayom interview, he reiterates that hope. Asked whether there's any chance that Trump will run in 2024, Friedman responds: "I just don't know. It's too soon to be making predictions for 2024." 

And then segueing to self praise - his favorite mode: 

"During those four years, we had a lot to be proud of, we got a lot of stuff done." 

Well, there was one bit of "stuff" to which Mr. Friedman was entirely apathetic: Justice for the fifteen Jewish men, women and children who died in the Sbarro massacre of 2001. 

Image Source

My husband and I sought Mr. Friedman's attention throughout his tenure in that regard. We were, and still are, encountering silence from the State Department about Jordan's defiant refusal to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of that terror bombing, in which our child, Malki, was one of the eight children who perished. 

The US Department of Justice unsealed charges against Tamimi in 2017 and has since been demanding her extradition pursuant to the extradition treaty signed and ratified by the US and Jordan in 1995. The validity of that treaty was most recently affirmed as valid ("The United States regards the extradition treaty with Jordan as valid and in force") by the State Department in August 2020.

Given that Friedman was employed by the State Department, he was the logical address for assistance in the matter. Yet our numerous approaches to his office elicited no response from him. To this day, he has not commented on the matter in any shape or form. Mr. Friedman was obviously too pre-occupied with his other "stuff" to deign to communicate with us. 

I trust that interspersed with the hagiographies emanating from the Jewish public, in particular, the Orthodox sector, will be this truth: That justice doesn't rank on Mr. Friedman's list of significant goals. That he is unperturbed by the fact that Jordan's regime has been honoring, sheltering and celebrating a self-confessed, proud murderer of Jews since 2011. 

That he is unmoved by the fact that the administration he represented maintained a strong partnership with and channeled millions of dollars to the ruler responsible for this travesty of justice, King Abdullah II.

The Israel Hayom article about the ex-ambassador noted that Mr. Friedman's Jewish name is David Melech. And that he quipped at a Bnai Brith International ceremony shortly after his appointment to the Post: "If you were wondering about my middle name, Melech, it's not because my parents expected great things of me, but because my grandmother was named Malka [the feminine version of the name]" causing the audience to "double over with laughter".

I certainly didn't laugh to read that. 

Rather it was pathetic. Even the fact that our murdered child had the same name as his grandmother didn't spur him to respond to our entreaties. 

Admittedly, power and glory have been known to extinguish one's idealism. So Mr. Friedman has plenty of company.

With ambassadors like this…

Malki with me on the right; the US Embassy in Tel Aviv on the left

[My blog post below originally appeared in Times of Israel on January 15, 2021. This version includes some changes.] 

“Love him or hate him” began a recent New York Times farewell article ["Strong Views and ‘Close to the Boss’: How U.S. Envoy Reshaped a Conflict", January 10, 2021] about US ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman. 

And we are left in no doubt which is the NYT’s sentiment.

It’s also abundantly clear that Friedman himself is a huge fan of Friedman. He can’t stop tooting his own horn, to the point where the reader is left cringing.

“There’s no going back on what we’ve been able to do,” he says in the interview. “I’m frankly somewhere between addicted and intoxicated with what I’ve been able to do, and how much joy it gives me.”

And the adulation he has won from Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, no doubt enhanced that swelled ego:

He set a very ambitious agenda,” said Kushner. “Quite frankly, toward the end we were almost running out of things to accomplish, because David had gotten done so many things that were unthinkable.

In fact, Friedman is so high on the glorified role he has played in the Trump administration that he says he won’t be immigrating to Israel yet:

“I’m going to stay American-only for at least four years,” he said. “I want to give myself every opportunity to return to government.”

Of course, he said that before Trump’s impeachment and expected disqualification from running for the presidency in 2024.

Click the image to enlarge:
My husband I bought and placed this advertisement on the front

page of the Jerusalem Post on the day US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo ate breakfast in our city this past November. He never
troubled himself to respond: not then. not before, not since

With all those idealistic accomplishments, it is noteworthy that Mr. Friedman was utterly deaf to our many approaches to his office which spanned over two and a half years. These, of course, concerned our efforts to have the US press Jordan to extradite the terrorist charged with bombing the Sbarro pizzeria where our daughter Malki was one of the many victims.

His office staff repeatedly assured us that our emails had been received and would be dealt with. At times, the response was slightly more detailed: “We are looking into the points you raised and will respond to you when I have more information.”

In 30 months of efforts, it never progressed beyond that stage. We never heard from the ambassador; not directly, not indirectly. Silence.

My husband and I placed this ad on the Jerusalem Post’s front page so that Secretary of State Pompeo would see it at breakfast in his Jerusalem hotel on November 19, 2020. We never heard from him or his entourage.

We had hoped that Friedman would conduct himself as an ambassador should. That he would help clarify for us — the parents of a US national murdered in a terror attack — why the State Department which he represented here in Israel these past four years — was so mystifyingly unresponsive to our approaches.

Charges were unveiled against Ahlam Tamimi, a Jordanian bomber, in March 2017. She was added that month to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list.

That’s also when King Abdullah’s regime came out of the closet as her defender and protector, steadfastly shielding from US justice the accused mass murderer and admitted Hamas terrorist.

The 1995 extradition treaty between the two countries, and which the US insists is valid, has not fazed the king in the least. And luckily for him, little evident pressure is being exerted to elicit his compliance.

Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro massacre, the Hamas operative who selected the target – a bustling eatery crowded with women and children – and transported the bomb to its door, has emerged as an honored celebrity in her place of refuge, Amman, the capital of Jordan.

Fifteen men, women and children were murdered in that massacre of which Tamimi has boasted repeatedly to her huge fan base.

The US has not permitted any of that to affect its much-touted “partnership against terrorism” with Jordan. Nor its generous funding.

And even Mr. Friedman was unperturbed by that reality. The many emails we sent him, every one of which he ignored, detailed the travesty of justice we are fighting to correct.

To the numerous friends and contacts who over the years have directed us to Friedman for support, confident that he would be an avid ally, I have this to say: Nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s hope that Mr. Friedman’s replacement will be blessed with a bit more modesty and a lot more morality.

Forgotten justice

Image Source: Amos Ben Gershom/GPO 

Israel just hosted "heavyweight" Trump administration official Jared Kushner, with PM Netanyahu lavishing fulsome praise on him: 

President Trump's Abraham peace initiative has already created a whole series of breakthroughs. Jared you've successfully reinforced American leadership in the Middle East and in Middle East peacemaking. I think you've greatly enhanced American standing in the region... I thank you Jared and I want to thank all of you for assisting this great effort. We will never forget it. Thank you all. [Link]

At this point I believe we can safely conclude that the "peace initiative", "the whole series of breakthroughs" and the "groundbreaking visit" of which our PM raved will certainly not lead to justice for our murdered child, Malki, during the Trump era.

Justice is not a "breakthrough" on the Trump Middle East team's agenda. And, make no mistake, it was a team comprised of individuals armed with the power, influence and, we would have presumed, the moral compass to propel them easily toward that goal. 

We certainly did our utmost during the past four years to galvanize them in that direction. We pleaded with them - via emails, personal messages, tweets and a front page newspaper ad - to demand that Jordan extradite mass murderer, Ahlam Tamimi.

Jordan has steadfastly refused to comply with the US Department of Justice's demand for her extradition. A determined Hamas operative, she murdered two US citizens in the 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro bombing in which a total of 15 men, women and children perished. She openly boasts of that achievement to this day. 

But neither the existence of a valid extradition treaty signed in 1995 by the US and Jordan, nor the formal US demand for her have moved King Abdullah II.

Trump administration officials could not care less. To wit, this week, David Schenker, the Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, U.S. Department of State, marked 20 years since the Free Trade Agreement between Jordan and the US in a commemorative ceremony.

He subsequently gushed this tweet

I have developed a deep appreciation for the friendship between our two countries and Jordan’s role as one of the United States government’s most important partners.” #FTA20Strong

Is this the sort of treatment that the US tolerates from its other "most important partners"? Defiance, rejection of an extradition treaty, the harboring of a murderer who is one of the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists? 

Undoubtedly not.

Jordan has enjoyed undeserved kid-gloves treatment from the US government for long enough. It is high time that justice and enforcement of lawful treaties were given the respect that is due them.

My birthday wish is justice

March 14 is my birthday. But since last year the day has gained secondary significance in our home.

On March 14, 2017, my husband and I along with the parents of Shoshana Hayman Greenbaum were invited to meet officials of the US Department of Justice and the FBI at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. 

Several of those representatives had periodically spoken to us, ever since PM Netanyahu decided in 2011 to free 1,027 convicted terrorists including our daughter's murderer. We had pleaded with him to exclude from that list Ahlam Tamimi, the chief orchestrator and a perpetrator of the 2001 Sbarro bombing. 

Tamimi had confessed to,  and been convicted of, the murders of 15 people, eight of them children. She had been sentenced to 16 life terms. But Mr. Netanyahu, in a move far more immoral than any of the offenses of which he is now being accused, ignored us. 

On October 18, 2011, at his instruction, Tamimi was released along with 1,026 other terrorists - more than half of whom were convicted of murder or attempted murder - in order to retrieve Gilad Shalit. 

Last year at that meeting in the King David Hotel, we received what I naively believed would be a wonderful birthday gift: the news that Ahlam Tamimi was being indicted by the US for the murders of two Americans in the Sbarro massacre. Those victims were the pregnant 31 year old only child of the Haymans. And our 15 year old child, Malki.

But within minutes, it emerged that the "gift" was a curse, a source of yet more heartache. We learned then that the US had demanded Tamimi's extradition from Jordan to stand trial on US soil only to be met with a flat refusal by King Abdullah's regime for various bogus reasons.

Jordan had signed an extradition treaty with the US in 1995 and subsequently released several Jordanians to US custody in accordance with that same agreement. In the case of Tamimi, a woman of near-iconic stature in that country, Jordan behaves as if none of that ever happened.

Since March 14, 2017, we have discovered another painful reality: the United States appears unwilling to risk jeopardizing its friendship with Jordan's King Abdullah. It has avoided pressuring the king to buttress with actions his incessant chirping about "fighting terrorism". 

From the FBI Most Wanted
Terrorists website

He is lauded by both the US and Israel for being a staunch enemy of terrorists while harboring Tamimi, a mass-murdering Hamas agent. 

Through her Al QudsTV talk show, which she hosted until shortly before her US indictment, she has been brazenly inciting Muslims to the murder of more Jews. In speeches she has delivered throughout the Arab world she has boasted of her "accomplishments" and urged her fans to emulate them.

So as on every birthday since Mr. Netanyahu's infamous Shalit Deal, I pray and wish for the day that my Malki's murder will receive the just end it demands - Ahlam Tamimi behind US prison bars for life.

[A version of this piece was originally published in Times of Israel on March 14, 2018.]

From many corners: Disdain for victims of terror

The sign is up: the bazaar is later today (Wednesday)

For the past fifteen years, we have been reminded that our Malki's yahrzeit (the Yiddish word for the anniversary of the day she was killed) is near when we see the sign announcing the Ezra charity bazaar in her and Michal's memory. It is strung over the street where the annual event is held several days prior to it.

(Ezra is the Religious Zionist youth group in which both girls were young group leaders. Michal was Malki’s closest friend, and was murdered together with her.)

But this year, the Ezra kids organizing the event notified us that the sign would not appear. Shortly after hanging it up, they were given word that a municipal inspector had ordered it removed, failing which they would have to pay a fine. Apparently some resident of Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood had complained. Technically, signs hung above roads are forbidden without prior authorization.

I was shaken up by that news. The knowledge that somebody in the neighborhood could be so grossly callous was incomprehensible. After all, we're talking about an innocuous cloth sign neither interfering with nor harming anybody.

Fortunately, the person who had printed the sign for Ezra is a neighbor and offered to solve the problem by contacting the local municipal representative who is a friend of hers. He granted official permission for the sign and it has been hanging lawfully for the last three days.

Prior to the permission being obtained, the Ezra kids had moved the sign to an alternative site in the neighborhood - not hung over a road but tied to a wall of stones. Shortly after placing it there, they found that the sign had been flipped over so it couldn't be read.

At the same time, we have been grappling with similar callousness towards victims of terror from American officials.

Malki ob"m, her very disabled little sister, and the terrorist who
destroyed our lives but still lives free as a bird in Jordan today

The gloating monster who murdered sixteen men, women and children at the Sbarro pizzeria, a woman called AhlamTamimi, is still free and safe in Amman, Jordan thanks to prime minister Netanyahu's 2011 Shalit Deal. King Abdullah II of Jordan, brazenly pretending for the world that he is a determined enemy of terrorism and defender of justice, refuses to extradite her despite the existence since 1995 of a signed extradition treaty between his country and the US.

Plainly, that treaty is not worth the paper it’s written on.

The king knows how his Palestinian Arab constituency would react to Tamimi's extradition to face justice in a US court. Nothing else matters to him - as long as the United States panders to him.

The US Department of Justice contends that it has done all it can. It has indicted Tamimi, it has demanded her extradition from Jordan and it has been refused. (See my earlier post “A lesson in the politics of extradition”, June 15, 2017.)

The ball is now in the court of the US State Department which has been egregiously unhelpful in the matter.

While we await their response regarding steps State could but isn't taking, more details can't be divulged. But stay tuned for them in coming days.

Meanwhile, our prime minister – who is the prime reason our child's murderer is enjoying her life - is busy appeasing the king. The two recent conflagrations - security measures at the Temple Mount and the incident at the Israeli consulate in Amman - dominate his interactions with Jordan. Certainly no pressure on the Tamimi front has featured in Netanyahu's relations with that neighbor. Nor is it likely to ever do so.

After all, the Shalit Deal [“19-Oct-11: Haaretz: Shalit prisoner swap marks 'colossal failure' for mother of Israeli bombing victim”] was Netanyahu's "baby", one that he proudly brandishes regardless of the grief it has spawned.