Drugs and hope: An update

Haya in the hydro pool last week

I thought a med update for Haya would be appropriate, so here goes.

She has been entirely off Keppra for nearly one week. She had been receiving 1,500 mg of it twice/day for several years. 

Her neurologist's instructions were to reduce her dosage by 250 mg. every 2 weeks. She admitted the move was a shot in the dark - just "something to try". But since it's known that epileptics can become inured to drugs after taking them for long periods, I embraced it. 

One less med sounded appealing.

I adhered to the weaning regimen, more or less, at times extending the two weeks by a few days. But I weaned her off the last 250 mg much more slowly. 

First I removed the nighttime 250 mg. and then two weeks later, removed the morning 250 mg.

Whew. It was a huge relief to see no repercussions. 

The last med we weaned her off successfully was cannabis But about two years before that we made an attempt at removing Vimpat. It triggered status epilepticus and a hospitalization.

So for now, Haya is only two anti-epileptics: Fycompa and Vimpat. Quite an achievement!

The new med

Here she is (above, right) having her first hydro session minus Keppra:

And while I'm aware of that birthday promise I made to opt for realism over optimism, I can't help hoping that deleting Keppra will bring some minor improvement. Not fussy about that - any shred of heightened functioning would do us.

Alongside the Keppra weaning we've introduced the new drug that the neurologist recommended to treat her kidney stones. It's Urocit-K and she gets one pill 3 times/day.

If those stones were painful, and I understand they tend to be, then I hope Haya is enjoying some relief already.

We can only hope and guess.

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".

Love and realism

Today is my daughter Haya's 28th birthday. 

I found this post (above) on my Facebook feed and was struck by the resemblance of this photo to her. 

Oops, it is her. 

I had momentarily forgotten that I submitted her photo to the Families SCN2A Foundation Facebook group some months ago.

While I am aware that there is no improvement down the road for Haya, I wish her, at the very least, a year of stability free of crises and of hospitalizations. 

I'm opting for realism over optimism these days

We love you Haya.

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.

Kidney confusion

I'm sharing a couple of nice, fresh images of my daughter Haya performing two physical feats: assisted walking and floating on her back. 

This clip show Haya during a very recent hydrotherapy session:

And here she's doing her daily assisted walking;

What's confounding us is that the same week they were recorded, we received the results of her first-ever kidney ultrasound. Neither her neurologist or GP has so far responded to our request for feedback. But to our untrained minds the findings look worrying.

While her right kidney is in great shape, her left one sports the following pathologies:

• a 0.6 cm kidney stone
• several parapelvic cysts
• a compressed pelvis (אגן גדוש).

For now, we're distracted by the hectic preparations for Passover. But it would be nice to know whether any of the above requires intervention. 

Unlike our doctors, Google has been accessible and informed us that a stone of that size is deemed "large" and that those cysts, while probably not life-threatening, may or may not require treatment.

Hoping everyone has a פסח שמח! A truly joyous Passover to all who celebrate it.

On family, flutes and fairness

Some of my murdered daughter's flutes

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

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

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

And recent news from Jordan has intensified that. 

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

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

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

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

She wallows in self-pity:

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

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

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

She concludes with a direct demand of the King: 

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

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

 

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

She references the recent wave of attacks against Israelis:

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

and concludes: 

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

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

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

Please help our cause and publicize Tamimi's messages!

On my birthday, thoughts of justice

Tamimi in Jordan last week: proud and remorseless 

March 14th is my birthday. 

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

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

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

With time, I realized my reaction was utterly inappropriate. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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