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.

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.

Institutionalization Does Not = Inclusion. Ever.

Here we are at the mid-point of the 13th Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month (JDAIM). It is described as a "unified effort among Jewish organizations and communities worldwide to raise awareness and foster inclusion of people with disabilities and those who love them."

What better time than now to re-explain to supporters of ADI and Aleh (archived page) and their ilk how they deny people with disabilities their human rights.

For some of us, that may be as obvious as one plus one. Nevertheless, there are those, even some near and dear to me, who still ask "But don't we need those institutions? Aren't there many parents who don't want to raise children with disabilities? Where would those live?"

One of them recently pointed out: 

"Israel has a large ultra-Orthodox sector that eschews abortions. Doesn't that translate into an extremely high number of children with disabilities? And doesn't that mean that the alternatives implemented in other developed countries would not work here?"

In short: No. And here is why.

According to 2017 statistics, the number of children with disabilities in Israel does not surpass those of other Western countries. Some 8.5% or 242,412 of our children suffer from serious disabilities, chronic illness or some handicap that affects their daily functioning. 

An additional 4.5% have mild disabilities that don't have such an effect.

As of December 2019, there were some 373,000 Israelis below the age of 20 with disabilities of all kinds [Source: Government of Israel]. 

Those are not higher than the numbers for other major Western countries. In the United States, the percentage of children aged 3–17 years diagnosed with a developmental disability increased from 16.2% in 2009–2011 to 17.8% in 2015-2017 [Source: Centers for Disease Control]

In Great Britain, 8% of children are classified as disabled.

This is a perfect opportunity to return to the ethos of Lumos, the organization founded by J.K. Rowling to promote the rescue of children from institutions and their return to families and their communities.

"Residential institutions for children have many names around the world, including orphanage, children’s home and baby home. Regardless of name, size or location, institutional care is defined by certain characteristics:

‣ Unrelated children live in the care of paid adults. 

‣ Children are separated from their family and often their community. 

‣ In many cases, they do not have the opportunity to bond with a caregiver.

‣ Institutions run according to workplace routines, instead of responding to individual children’s needs.

Although some institutions are well-resourced with dedicated staff, they cannot replace a family. Eighty years of research has shown the negative impact of institutionalisation on children’s health, development and life chances, as well as a high risk of abuse." [Source: Lumos - Slide 2]

So please don't fall prey to the carefully premeditated tactics of ADI and Aleh. Especially insidious is their use of politically correct catch-words that disguise their true intentions. For instance, this sign brandished outside Aleh Gedera boasts the lie "This is Home, This is Heart".

ADI's latest fundraising campaign asserts that donations will "Enhance Care and Advance Inclusion." And it posts this boast on its Facebook page ad nauseum: 

Celebrate ABILITY, Promote DIVERSITY, Insist on Inclusion | These are our core values, and they are words to live by | Spread them during #JDAIM. Live them year round.

But if you don't believe me, Lumos or the child development experts, perhaps this victim of institutionalization, Tommy Berchenko, will sway you. 

The speech that follows is my translation from the Hebrew original of Tommy who is disabled and is operating a keyboard that vocalizes into speech what he writes:

Hello, I am Tommy. I live in Rosh Haayin and I am an activist for the human rights of people with Disabilities and active on behalf of dignified and appropriate housing for people with disabilities within the community. I have participated in demos against violence/abuse and neglect in institutions.

In my view, institutions do not advance people with Disabilities and they should be shut. I want to live independently in the community in my own home with the things that I love and to be and feel like every young adult despite my need for much assistance.

In 2012 the State of Israel committed to implement the treaty for equal rights for people with Disabilities and promised to advance the right to live within the community on behalf of people like me. [See below for Frimet's explanation of what Tommy means by this.]

Thousands of people with Disabilities live in institutions. The State does not provide the appropriate services in the community and therefore many young people are forced to live there. The institutional frameworks limit one's freedom of choice throughout his life even with the most basic things: what to eat, when to go to sleep, with whom to share a room.

In recent years, more and more incidences of abuse and neglect in institutions have been publicized. (Reported/come to light).

Today I am an activist for the rights of people with Disabilities and for the right to dignified in-community autonomous living. I intend to meet with the Minister of Welfare so that he will carry out the Treaty. The State does not believe that I can live independently. I will prove it!

The time has come for the State of Israel to recognize the right of every person with Disabilities to live in the community like everyone else. Open residential services in the community, shut down (תפרק) the institutions, and give people the personal assistance they need as it committed to do in the Treaty.

I, as a person with Disabilities say: Israel is violating the Treaty. And if it's complex/complicated, there are solutions.

Come speak to us and don't send us to a place where you would not want to live.

[Source: A Facebook video]

What follows is my explanation. 

The agreement Tommy refers to is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, adopted in 2006 and ratified by Israel in in 2012. Chapter 19 is entitled "Living Independently and Being Included in the Community" and includes this:

Parties to the present Convention recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community", including by ensuring that...
b) Persons with disabilities have access to a range of in-home, residential and other community support services, including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community, and to prevent isolation or segregation from the community.

A leading advocacy group for Israel's people with disabilities, Bizchut, says about this (my translation from their Hebrew) 

Nevertheless, 17,000 people with disabilities still live in institutions (hostels and remote from the community, wherein their right to autonomy and privacy are violated and where they repeatedly suffer severe neglect.

Why is our government deaf to the cries of people with disabilities like Tommy? Why do institutions retain their stranglehold on our politicians and their constituents?

We can only presume that the continued flourishing of this archaic system benefits them in some way.

One such personage, Israel's President, has still not troubled himself to respond to my letter to him criticizing his visit to, and praise of, ADI. Last week, a month after I wrote to him, his chief of staff responded that the data and information I cited in my letter "will be forwarded to President Rivlin for his consideration."

None of the other politicians to whom I wrote regarding their visits to ADI and Aleh bothered to respond at all.

'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.

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.

Is King Abdullah II a latter day President Diem?

I was watching an incredible documentary "The Vietnam War" last night. It's not my first time but it never fails to rivet, shock and infuriate.

At one point, the narrator says:

"Diem became widely popular because he seemed to embody the nationalist cause in the South. On October 26, 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem named himself the first President of the brand new Republic of Vietnam."

Leslie Gelb, the late foreign policy expert, then comments:

"He became our ally, or rather our master. Because the goal of preventing the Communists from taking over the South was so strong that we couldn't afford for him to lose. So Diem started to boss us around. And this was a typical relationship. You need any ally you believe to be the centerpiece of your foreign policy, they understand that right away. And the tail wags the dog.'"

Gelb also said:

"Everyone understood that in and of itself. Vietnam didn’t mean very much. But they believed, I believed, if we lost it, that the rest of Asia would tumble to communism."

The parallel between that fatally flawed presumption and the one that has entrenched itself in US leaders regarding Jordan and King Abdullah II and the thwarted extradition of Ahlam Tamimi is obvious. 

We have heard ad nauseum that Jordan's ruler is the linchpin of Middle Eastern stability and absolutely, positively must be bolstered. Nothing, not even a straightforward demand for justice, may be permitted to endanger his hold on power.

When you think about it, aren't we now seeing a Jordanian tail wagging the American dog?