03-Nov-19: In Washington, a step towards bringing the Sbarro bomber to justice

We posted this meme in August 2019.
Instagram closed down Tamimi's account a few days later.

We report here on an unexpected, modestly encouraging development in our efforts to bring to justice the fugitive Hamas savage who bombed a Jerusalem pizzeria filled with children.

First, a little background.

Our fifteen year old daughter Malki was one of many children killed in the bombing of a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem whose deaths were sadistically celebrated as a triumph in parts of the Arab world.

Over the years since the massacre, one of the hardest things for us to accept as bereaved parents has been the deplorable ongoing role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in all this. And the minor, essentially invisible, outrage it has aroused among people we think ought to be seriously enraged. This is not about politics after all but justice.

Ahlam Tamimi, a Jordanian woman who says she was Hamas' first female terrorist and who masterminded the bombing, has publicly confessed - on camera, for the record, multiple times - to the role she played. She has proudly called it "my operation" and has said she has no regrets about what she did.

Describing the shared-taxi ride that got her out of Jerusalem minutes after the explosion, she cheerfully shared the mood:

They said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn't. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding. They didn't even know that I was among them... We passed a Palestinian police checkpoint, and the policemen were laughing. One of them stuck his head in and said: 'Congratulations to us all.' Everybody was happy. [Source: MEMRI]

Her satanic handiwork in fact left behind 16 destroyed lives. Dozens more victims were horribly maimed but survived.

Tamimi, born in Jordan in 1980 to a Jordanian family, lived in Jordan until she started college studies at Birzeit University, near Ramallah in the area today controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Few of our readers will know that Beirzeit's Arabic-language Wikipedia page (archived here in case it, you know, gets lost) names her as one of its notable alumnae along with numerous other terrorists. The more widely-read English-language version cautiously leaves her and the others out.

Tamimi returned to Jordan after Israel conditionally commuted her sentence (to time served) in the extortionate 2011 transaction known as the Shalit Deal in which a sole Israeli hostage was freed by the terrorists of Hamas in exchange for 1,027 imprisoned terrorists ["19-Oct-11: Haaretz: Shalit prisoner swap marks 'colossal failure' for mother of Israeli bombing victim"]. Tamimi, serving 16 consecutive life sentences, was one of them.

Now married ["22-Jun-12: A wedding and what came before it"], a mother, a celebrity, an honored speaker at public eventts where she shares lecterns with senior figures from Jordan's highest ecehelon, she continues to live there today, free as a bird. It's a dream life.

It should never have turned out that way. A US Federal criminal complaint (roughly the same as an indictment) issued in 2013 but kept secret and under seal until March 2017 ["14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought"] makes her a fugitive from US law.

Not right away but nearly a year later, a substantial State Department reward was announced ["31-Jan-18: There's now a $5 million reward for bringing the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to justice"]. And most significantly there's an unsatisfied US request to its ally, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, to extradite her under their 1995 treaty ["21-Mar-17: Tamimi extradition: When it's claimed that something is illegal in Jordan..."]

Absolutely determined that she should face justice, we have written often and bitterly about Jordan's brazen flaunting of its treaty with the US. It is clear to us and to better-informed commentators (this 2017 journal article from National Security Law Brief is a good example) that Jordan's claims that the 1995 extradition treaty with the US is unconstitutional are baseless.

Jordan in fact asserts the treaty has never had any legal effect since the day it was signed. But in reality, the kingdom has extradited to the US every time it was asked to do so. Right up until the Tamimi case.

Note that neither the Jordanian government nor any of its diplomats, senior politicians or royal family members has claimed Jordan's constitution keeps Tamimi safe from extradition. That role has been taken exclusively by the judges of its Court of Cassation, in effect the kingdom's supreme court. Everyone else in Jordan's power system has stayed silent about Tamimi and extradition. And no reporter, as far as we know, has ever pressed Jordan's authorities to explain.

Parallel to that, there has been a striking absence of public statements on the matter by US government sources. Even as that has continued, we have watched, infuriated and offended, the steady parade of US officials paying visits to Amman and King Abdullah's palace and the frequent return visits by the king and his entourage to the US Congress, to the White House, to the welcoming US media.

All of this with no mention by any of them about how Jordan demeans its treaty with the US.

No US government official has said what we believe ought to have been said over and again: that Jordan disclaiming responsibility for extraditing the confessed bomber and mass murderer of children - and harboring her - is wrong and offensive. That it breaches Jordan's bilateral obligations. That the US, which lavishes financial, military and other support on the Hashemite Kingdom, won't stand for the rank injustice the Jordanians are getting away with.

Nothing. Till now.

What's just happpened? Since 1985, the US Secretary of State had to deliver to Congress (in accordance with Title 22, Section 2656(f) of the United States Code) an annual report on global terrorism and what countries around the world are doing to defeat it. Since 2005 when a name change was made, these have been published as "Country Report on Terrorism". Jordan is always listed.

Last year's report [here] introduces Jordan (at page 138) in the customary way:

Jordan remained a committed partner on counterterrorism and countering violent extremism in 2017. 

Tamimi

Then for the first time it mentions Jordan thwarting the US efforts to extradite Tamimi:

A U.S. criminal complaint was unsealed in March charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the United States resulting in death. The charge is related to her participation in an August 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two U.S. nationals. Four other U.S. nationals were among the approximately 122 others injured in the attack. Also unsealed was a warrant for Al-Tamimi’s arrest and an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint and arrest warrant. Jordan’s courts have ruled that their constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals.

And that's it. Evidently, whoever compiled it had nothing more to say.

To us, this was a disturbingly odd summing up. While it airs Jordan's anti-extradition viewpoint, it says nothing about what the US believes. It cannot be, we said to ourselves, that the US lacks a view about this scandal. That it has nothing at all to say to the Congress. Something's wrong. What are they hiding and why?

The 2018 edition came out yesterday [here].

It adopts essentially identical language to the paragraph above. But then at page 135 it adds this new conclusion:

In 2018, Jordan continued to cite a court ruling that its constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals. The United States regards the extradition treaty as valid.

And there it is.

For the first time, a simple, clear public statement by the US clarifying what we keep asserting: that when Jordan denies it has any obligation to extradite our child's killer, that's wrong. It's also unacceptable to the United States.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi with her Jordanian hosts in Amman
two weeks ago [Image Source]

But here's what happens in the real world.

Two weeks ago ["19-Oct-19: House Speaker Pelosi led an official visit today to the chief protector of our child's killer"], nine members of the US Congress, eight of them Democrats - all of them chairs or senior members of House of Representatives committees - made a flying visit to Amman, Jordan's capital, and the royal palace. There they sat down with the king and his son the crown prince.

The distinguished Congressional travelers' names:

Ranking Member Mac Thornberry, House Armed Services Committee; Chairman Eliot Engel, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Chairman Bennie Thompson, Homeland Security Committee; Chairman Adam Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Congressman Ron Kind, House Ways and Means Committee; Congresswoman Susan Davis, House Armed Services Committee; Congressman Stephen Lynch, Chairman, House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on National Security; Congresswoman Elaine Luria, House Armed Services Committee; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

(Strikingly, no one from the House Judiciary Committee took place. That's relevant because of what's in this recent news report: "Parents of US Girl Killed in 2001 Jerusalem Bombing Call for Congressional Investigation Into Fugitive Hamas Terrorist Living Freely in Jordan" [Ben Cohen in Algemeiner, July 17, 2019])

Had we been tipped off in advance about the delegation meeting with King Abdullah, we would have asked them to challenge their host's disregard of a quarter-century-old cornerstone agreement solemnly entered into with the Clinton Administrationn by his revered father, King Hussein. As senior lawmakers, they could have reminded him how annual US aid to Jordan has nearly quadrupled in historical terms over the last 15 years. An authoritative source [Congressional Research Service, April 2019] says roughly $20.4 billion had been given as at the end of Fiscal Year 2017. And a lot more since.

But their visit was unpublicized ahead of time. We had no idea.

On learning about it, we promptly did two things:

• We messaged each of the Congress people and asked them to engage with us. How many people, seeking justice for a murdered loved one, a child, a US citizen who never reached her sixteenth birthday, do these representatives ever hear from? Every one of these elected officials has a well-staffed office, people who are paid to deal with nudniks and the general public. Not one of them has so far responded to us or acknowledged our questions in any way.
• We asked the State Department if delegation members were briefed ahead of their Jordan visit, thinking that since there's so little media coverage of the Tamimi case, they could do with some help. We received a polite response. It says the Congressional delegation did indeed get a briefing before their Jordan visit but declined to say what matters the briefing covered - only that it "included a number of topics related to the bilateral relationship." 

So did the legislators ask King Abdullah II to extradite Tamimi so she can be put on trial for the terrorism charges she faces in Washington? We still don't know. And it's not for lack of trying. But at least we know now this isn't because Jordan is free of the obligation to hand her over. We know the State Department has an actual view on this. That view is the Jordanians surely are obliged and that justice demands it.

Jordan's government tracks what was published in yesterday's Country Report about Jordan and Ahlam Tamimi. We know because it's a front page item in today's Jordan Times, the English-language newspaper said to be controlled by the government (and which blocks us on Twitter):

The US Department of State has hailed Jordan as a “committed partner” in counterterrorism and countering violent extremism (CVE). In its Country Reports on Terrorism 2018, the Department of State commended Jordan’s “leading role” in the global coalition to defeat the Daesh terror group... 

Hailed and commended, yes. As for the State Department report saying the US regards the extradition treaty as valid, that part the authoritative Jordanian daily's editors simply ignore. They just choose not to report it. And for those laboring under the illusion of a free, liberal and fair-minded Hashemite Kingdom, you might want to glance at "20-Jan-18: Shutting down media critics in Jordan isn't quite the challenge it might seem to be". According to Freedom House, Jordan has one of the world's most unfree news industries, media and human rights environments.

Nonetheless, what's just happened amounts in our view to a welcome step in the direction of overdue justice. There haven't been many of those till now. So we're feeling fine with it.

19-Oct-19: House Speaker Pelosi led an official visit today to the chief protector of our child's killer

Ms Pelosi in conference today with Jordan's king
and his son the Crown Prince [Image Source]

The official media mouthpiece of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan reports this evening (Saturday) on US politicians visiting, and paying generous homage to, King Abdullah II. At this hour, there is no other media source for this.

But there's much, all of it relevant, that the Jordanian media don't say.

Jordan harbors Ahlam Tamimi, the confessed Jordanian bomber of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem whose 2013 indictment by the US Department of Justice was unveiled (after a long period of secrecy) more than two and a half years ago ["14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?"] But she remains free, living in Jordan's capital.

Without the smallest reference to Ahlam Tamimi, or to Jordan's flat-out refusal to comply with an extradition request from its US ally, and of course with no hint of how phenomenally popular Tamimi is in Jordan's public opinion (enough to persuade the king to block the US request), here's the mouthpiece's Saturday night report in full:

Amman, Oct.19 (Petra)-- His Majesty King Abdullah, accompanied by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II, met on Saturday with a delegation from the US Congress, headed by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The meeting, held as part of ongoing outreach with the US Congress’ Senate and House of Representatives, covered the cooperation and strategic partnership between Jordan and the United States, as well as regional developments.
Speaking at the meeting, attended by His Royal Highness Prince Feisal bin Al Hussein, King Abdullah expressed appreciation for the United States’ continuing support for Jordan in a number of fields, commending the US Congress’ position towards the Kingdom.
Discussing regional issues, foremost of which is the Palestinian cause, His Majesty stressed the need to reach just, lasting and comprehensive peace on the basis of the two-state solution, which guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Turning to the Syrian crisis, the King urged a political solution that safeguards Syria’s territorial integrity and the unity of its people, while guaranteeing the safe and voluntary return of refugees.
The meeting also covered regional and international efforts to counter terrorism within a comprehensive approach.
For their part, the US lawmakers commended Jordan’s efforts, led by His Majesty, in pursuit of peace and stability in the region, praising the King’s wisdom.
They expressed keenness to hear the King’s perspective on regional and global developments, adding that they are pleased to be present in Jordan as the Kingdom marks 20 years since His Majesty assumed his constitutional powers.
Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Adviser to His Majesty for Communication and Coordination Bisher Khasawneh, and Adviser to His Majesty for Policies and Media Kemal Al Nasser attended the meeting.

[Source: "King meets with US Congress delegation", PETRA (Jordan Government Media Office), October 19, 2019]

Side by side, Arabic and English versions of
Ahlam Tamimi's FBI Most Wanted poster [Image Source]

This latest high-level US visit comes on the heels of another Congressional delegation visit a mere eleven days earlier ["08-Oct-19: Again: Jordan's inscrutable US relationship"]. Our efforts to get the leader of that earlier delegation, Representative Jason Crow, to speak with us have been ignored by him and his staff.

Speaker Pelosi has had multiple meetings with the Jordanian king in the past year and a half including (at least) in April 2018 [here], March 2019 [here] and April 2019 [here]. Clearly, if she were so inclined, she's had plenty of opportunity to express concern about US justice thwarted.

Her silence is troubling.

We're going to make efforts to see what Ms Pelosi says she said to Jordan's absolute ruler today about why he demeans the extradition treaty his father King Hussein signed with the Clinton administration in 1995. Our track record in getting members of Congress to respond to questions like this is not very good but we're not giving up.

Meanwhile we're wondering:

• Do Congressional delegations to Jordan get briefed by the State Department before they take off? 
• Do the State Department or the Justice Department inform Amman-bound Cogressional visitors about the years-long pursuit of Tamimi, a jihadist in the service of Hamas who is astoundingly a free-as-a-bird celebrity living openly, not in hiding, in Jordan's capital, and the presenter for five years (starting February 2012) of a pro-terrorism TV show broadcast from Amman throughout the world?
• Does Ms Pelosi know who Malki Roth was, and what was done to her  by the Jordanian terrorist when she was 15 years old? 
• Does she know who Ahlam Tamimi is, what she stands for and where she lives? 
• Does she, and do the other members of her delegation, know why the FBI has her on its Most Wanted Terrorists list?
• Assuming the answer is no, will Attorney-General Barr and Ambassador Nathan Sales (the State Department's Counterterrorism Coordinator) please brief them now? And ensure future Congressional visitors to Jordan get the same briefing before they leave Washington?

And this.

Why are you learning about the Congressional visit from the blog of a pair of bereaved parents seeking justice for the on-the-run killer of their child, and not from the mainstream news?

UPDATE October 20, 2019 at 7:00 am

Along with broader news coverage (but not a single mention of Tamimi or how Jordan undermines Justice Department efforts to extradite her), Speaker Pelosi's website now names the Congress members in her delegation:

• Ranking Member Mac Thornberry, House Armed Services Committee
• Chairman Eliot Engel, House Foreign Affairs Committee
• Chairman Bennie Thompson, Homeland Security Committee
• Chairman Adam Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
• Congressman Ron Kind, House Ways and Means Committee
• Congresswoman Susan Davis, House Armed Services Committee
• Congressman Stephen Lynch, Chairman, House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on National Security
• Congresswoman Elaine Luria, House Armed Services Committee
• Speaker Nancy Pelosi

(Source: "Pelosi Leads High-Level Bipartisan Delegation to Jordan", October 19, 2019)

But no one from the House Judiciary Committee. That's relevant because of what's in this recent news report: "Parents of US Girl Killed in 2001 Jerusalem Bombing Call for Congressional Investigation Into Fugitive Hamas Terrorist Living Freely in Jordan" [Ben Cohen in Algemeiner, July 17, 2019]

UPDATE October 21, 2019 at 10:30 pm

We have just tweeted every one of the Congressional members of the Pelosi delegation to Jordan's king. We asked them these questions:

1. Did the subject of Jordan illicitly harboring one of America's most wanted fugitive jihadists, #AhlamTamimi, get mentioned by any @TeamPelosi delegation members on Saturday in Jordan?
2. Did the king raise it? 
3. Did he respond to questions about it?

We sent the same tweet to the US Embassy in Jordan's capital.

We're conditioned to expect that not one of them will see fit to reply to us. Perhaps if we were political figures... but we're not.

Here is what we are: simply the parents of a US citizen, a child of 15, murdered by a fugitive terrorist who is kept safe by the man who hosted them so royally on Saturday. A man who claims to be at the forefront of the war against terror but who tramples the extradition treaty his father signed with the US government 24 years ago.

Tamimi and Jordan's calculated and illicit thwarting of her extradition to Washington, overseen by King Abdullah II who appoints all of his country's judges, go entirely unmentioned in the Pelosi media release.

Why are we not surprised?

07-Oct-19: How hard is it to produce 12 year old knife-attackers?

We don''t claim to be 100% sure but a social media post [here]
suggests this is the stabber described in our post.
The world-class treatment he's getting is courtesy of
Shaarei Zedek Medical Center and the government of Israel

With a current news item in mind, here's some insight into how the Palestinian Authority's policy of child weaponization works.

We wrote here a week and a half ago ["27-Sep-19: Weaponized Palestinian Arab children and more Arab-on-Israel stabbings"] about an on-duty female member of the Israel Police being injured in the course of a frenzied stabbing attack launched by a Palestinian Arab boy of thirteen. We were wrong: he was twelve. And it's evident he didn't intend to inflict mild trauma. He was very likely intent on killing.

The boy apppeared in court yesterday.

12-year-old indicted for Jerusalem attack in which officer was lightly injured | Boy charged with terror offenses for attempting to stab police officers in Old City last month; female officer was lightly hurt when barrier fell on her hand during scuffle | Times of Israel | 6 October 2019 | The Jerusalem district attorney on Sunday indicted a 12-year-old boy under terror laws for the attempted stabbing of a policewoman in Jerusalem’s Old City last month.
According to the indictment, on September 26, the day of the attack, the minor attended prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. At the conclusion of prayers, he allegedly walked up to a group of female officers at the Temple Mount’s Chain Gate, above the Western Wall area, pulled out a knife and attempted to stab the officers. During the ensuing scuffle, a female officer, age 34, was lightly injured when a security barrier fell on her hand. According to the indictment, a staff member of the Waqf, the Muslim trust that oversees the site, tried to catch the boy and keep the police from him.
The boy was overpowered at the scene and arrested.
The boy is accused of committing an act of terror in which he unlawfully attempted to injure a person with a knife for religious and national motive. Prosecutors asked that the boy remain detained until the end of legal proceedings.

There's no indication whether the Waqf worker who tried to prevent the police from taking the stabber into custody will face criminal or terror charges. If he's not, that's disturbing.

Here's some of the background that put the boy in the photo above into, first, an Israeli hospital bed and then Israel's juvenile criminal justice system where he's now fated to spend some of what should have been his best years.

First, let's understand the meaning of Waqf, an Arabic term defined [Wikipedia] as "confinement and prohibition" or causing a thing to stop or stand still. In the legal sense, it is said to mean the detention of a specific thing for purposes of "charity of poors [sic] or other good objects".

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan imposed a waqf on Jerusalem after the invasion by its British-led army, and the subsequent two-decade long massively-destructive conquest and occupation, of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the wake of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.

After East Jerusalem was liberated in the course of the June 1967 Six-Day War, Israel - for pragmatic reasons related to its desire for neighborly relations and respect for Muslim sensibilities - allowed the waqf to re-assert its authority over the Temple Mount, which happens to be Judaism's holiest site.

Jordan's King Abdullah II "currently supplies all of the funding needed to operate the waqf." But as a recent analysis of changes in its structure shows, ["New Waqf Council Managing the Temple Mount", JCPA - Nadav Shragai, Lenny Ben-David | February 28, 2019], the Waqf is poised to do more harm:

The main, most dramatic change in the composition of the Waqf... was the joining of Sheikh Akram Sabri, currently chairman of the Supreme Muslim Council and former Mufti of Jerusalem. Sabri is now identified with the Muslim Brotherhood’s “the northern faction of the Islamic Movement” in Israel, and he follows the orders of Turkey and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Some also believe that he is close to Hamas. At the beginning of the second intifada, Sabri identified with suicide bombings, and he is known for his extreme pronouncements against Israel... Other new members of the Jordanian Waqf, who Jordan agreed to allow into the new council after it was expanded from 11 members to 18 are mainly affiliated with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority... Until the establishment of the new Waqf, most of its members were pro-Jordanian. Its new composition expresses a united front [among] the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and people like Sheikh Akram Sabri – and anyone who fears for Jordan’s future status on the Temple Mount. It is a joint coalition against the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

The weaponization of Palestinian Arab children by the kleptocratic/geriatric Mahmoud Abbas regime that rules them is the result of several concurrent strategies that have been implemented for years by now:

• Large long-term monthly payments to prisoners and the families of dead terrorists by the Palestinian Authority, funded from a deficit budget that is replenished via foreign aid grants to the PA. These Pay-to-Slay payments as they are comminly termed grow with the seriousness of the terror offense. 
• Overt, explicit incitement to more acts of terror by the Palestinian Authority and by terror groups
• The recruiting and training of children to engage in conflict: Special mention to the United Nations UNRWA people responsible these past seven decades for nurturing, preserving, perpetuating and legitimizing the violent discontent of Palestinian Arab schookl children.
• The systematic glorification of Arab-on-Israeli violence throughout Palestinian Arab society
• The deliberate, ideology-driven abandonment of weaponized Palestinian Arab children by the numerous child-protection agencies that raise billions each year on the profoundly dishonest premise that, like DCI Palestine, they are "committed to securing a just and viable future for Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory".

With all these in place, getting to the results they want are not that challenging.

Israel attracts serious criticism for its treatment of child offenders. In large measure, this is dishonest, politically-spun and based on poorly understood data. For instance, as a respected human rights organization based in Israel reported in February 2018 [NGO Monitor] in an essay that contradicts some of what "everyone knows" about Israel's "failures":

• Some 90,000 children aged between 10 and 17 were arrested in England and Wales between April 2015 and March 2016, an average of about 7,500 per month. Adjust these numbers for population and you can make this highly relevant comparison - that minors are arrested in England and Wales (where armed conflict is not currently a major feature of life) 5.5 times more often than Palestinian Arab minors living in the so-called West Bank are.
• In data covering the years since since 2013 (a period of considerable Arab-on-Israeli violence and the massive Arab promotion of terror), the number of Palestinian Arab minors arrested annually in areas under Israeli control was between 800 and 1,000. 
• Of these arrested, how many were subjected to prosecution? About 450-505. Thus on average, in a population of roughly a million minors (quoting Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics data), fewer than 85 such minors are arrested each month and fewer than half of those are prosecuted.
• And this: International law and Article 66 of the Fourth Geneva Convention mandates that Israel must establish military courts as part of its obligation to “take all the measures in [its] power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.” Moreover, Israel's law and enforcement practices meet all the requirements of “due process,” the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Article 68 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The rules of evidence applied by the Military Courts are the same as the rules of evidence applied in the Israeli domestic criminal justice system.

These are not points that the chorus of child-weaponizers and their foreign-government-funders, backers and advocates want us to know.

Nor do they advertise the single most important take-away we can think of: that, given Pal Arab society's massive ongoing investment, it is dead easy to weaponize pre-teen Palestinian Arab boys and girls and turn them into killers.

29-Sep-19: As we prepare for the High Holy Day season

This is about the king's breakfast. (We just tweeted about it here.)

(Clicking the photo will enlarge it.)

A king?

Yes, Abdullah II. He's the absolute ruler of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Who else was there?

A select group - the king's selection, it seems - of leaders of the most important Jewish organizations in the United States. How or why these particular Jewish leaders were invited is a little mysterious but from what we understand, they all hold positions of prominence in US Jewish public affairs. Still, neither their names nor the names of whom they represent are in the published record. Nor are the views they expressed, assuming they expressed any at all. We recognize some of them from the photo. But others are unknown to us and the published photo - not of the highest quality - released by the Jordanian govvernment doesn't help.

Which breakfast?

A formal one, or maybe it was just coffee and cookies, in a New York City hotel dining room on September 22, 2019, in the week that the UN General Assembly got its year underway. The king often speaks in the US General Assembly's opening session and did this year too. The official report from the king's Royal Court says the breakfast meeting included discussion around the table covering efforts "to reach political solutions to regional crises" and "to fight terrorism within a holistic approach".

Holistic? An odd word in the context. We know from years of following their somewhat opaque reports about terror that the Hashemite Kingdom is the only country fighting terrorism that claims to do it holistically.

The word means "dealing with or treating the whole of something or someone and not just a part" (Cambridge English Dictionary). If they deal with terror by attacking all of it, but at the very same time keep Ahlam Tamimi, a confessed murderer, an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist and a celebrity savage whom they have allowed to become a national celebrity, safe and secure in Amman where she can do daily, irrepairable harm, does that make it holistic? It's hard to tell.

The Jordanian government's news release identifies only some of those breakfasting. The king of course, along with Jordan's long-surviving foreign minister Ayman Safadi. Also "Adviser to His Majesty for Communication and Coordination" Bisher Khasawneh, Jordan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Sima Bahous and Jordan’s Ambassador in Washington Dina Kawar. (To her shame, Ms Kawar with whom we have been unfailingly polite and reasonable blocks us on Twitter.)

As we said, none of the Jews are named. Nor are the organizations they represent.

The Jordanians have no interest in dealing with the Jewish content of the breakfast. And even now, days later, the Jews themselves are silent. We're making enquiries. But so far we're getting zero co-operation. Given who we are and the unique circumstances, that hurts us deeply. We asked an official at one of the Jewish groups that attended (no names) for help in identifying who took part. We got this email from him yesterday:

I was unable to attend the meeting, which I know was off the record, so I can’t make any comment on it.

Can't make any comment? Off the record? Really? Because that's what the Jordanians wanted? Anyone can see the Jordanians have placed it on the record themselves; on their record, along with the photo. Is he open to the thought that his fellow leaders have been used?

Who did and who did not report this high-level event?

First, King Abdullah's personal website [here] gave it prominence along with this commentary (which differs slightly from the text provided by the Royal Heshemite Court):

The King meets representatives of international and American Jewish organizations in New York | 23 September 2019
His Majesty King Abdullah II met in New York on Sunday with representatives of international and American Jewish organizations on the sidelines of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly.
His Majesty stressed that the two-state solution is the only way to achieve peace between Palestinians and Israelis, which leads to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and live in peace and security alongside Israel.
His Majesty pointed to the role of international and American Jewish organizations in supporting efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace in the region.
The crises of the region, the search for political solutions, as well as the war on terrorism efforts were reviewed in a holistic approach.
The meeting was attended by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Affairs, His Majesty the King's Advisor for Communication and Coordination, the Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations and the Jordanian Ambassador in Washington.

Essentially identical reports, accompanied by the same group photo, were re-published by

• Jordan's Royal Hashemite Court [here and archived here and here in case it disappears]
• Petra, the official Jordan government newsagency - in Arabic and in English
• A Jordanian commercial site: RoyaNewsTV. (They're the media organization that has taken a leading role in promoting Ahlam Tamimi, confessed bomber of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria, as a Jordanian national hero: see "24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers [Video]")
• Jordan's Al Ra'i, a government-owned daily Jordanian newspaper, the Arabic-language sibling of the English-language Jordan Times which also blocks us on Twitter
• Urdoni, a Jordanian site
• Akherkhabr Today, an Arabic-language news consolidation site
• Maqar, a Jordanian site
• Al Malaz News, a Jordanian site
• Al Bosala (Compass) News, a Jordanian site
• Khaberni, a Jordanian site
• Sabaq News, a Saudi site

There might be more by now. 

So while not a single Western media organization has given it attention, it's certainly all over the Jordanian news. So much for 'off the record'. More significantly, there's no reporting at all, as far as we can tell, by any of the Jewish organizations. (If we're wrong, we welcome corrections.)

It's obvious this September 22, 2019 gathering held considerably more significance for the Jordanians than it did for the Jewish attendees. On that basis, and deeply bothered by what's just happened, we're left to ask:

1. why some of the most influential US Jewish leaders in the US would want to get involved in a PR exercise like this without trying to get their own views heard by a wider audience; 
2. why the mattter of justice for the murdered Jewish victims, three of them Jewish Americans, all of them females, one of them our fifteen year old daughter, somehow doesn't rise to the level of being worth speaking out about or appearing on their agenda papers; 
3. why these careful and thoughtful people imagined there was something in this for them and those they represent. If they did, what was it, ladies and gentlemen?
4. did they omit any mention of the Tamimi extradition so as to avoid offending their host? Or out of fear of spoiling the congenial breakfast mood? Or missing out on an invitation to next year's royal get-together? Or do they simply know nothing about the Jordan extradition issue and the ongoing Tamimi scandal? Can someone tell them about our efforts and those of the US Department of Justice, to see Malki's killer finally brought to justice? Because if they don't know, that's simply incredible.

It's a troubling affair.

As bereaved parents of a murdered Jewish child with US citizenship who are determined to see long-delayed justice done, we're perfectly aware of how few US Jews appear to be bothered by it. And of course how few know anything about it all, thanks to a certain disgraceful media understanding (don't report on Jordan harboring the killer) that's never discussed.

And not for the first time. Did you know another breakfast meeting hosted by the Jordanian king for Jewish US leaders exactly a year ago similarly got publicized only by the Jordanians and almost no one else? (The only exception, we think, is Haaretz which published an interesting Amir Tibon report.)

Here's how the Jordanian royal court reported that 2018 gathering on Twitter:

جلالة الملك عبدالله الثاني يلتقي، بحضور جلالة الملكة رانيا العبدالله، ممثلين من منظمات يهودية دولية وأمريكية #الأردن

His Majesty King Abdullah II accompanied by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah meets with representatives of international and #US Jewish organisations#Jordan pic.twitter.com/NEPN17CciO

— RHC (@RHCJO) September 21, 2018

That's about all we want to say about Jewish leadership for now.

A happy new year and good wishes to all.

18-Sep-19: With Jordan's King Abdullah II visiting the United States again, things worth knowing

This week, as he has done for several years, Jordan's absolute ruler is in New York, ostensibly to attend and to speak at the annual opening session of the UN General Assembly.

It is possible he will be officially received in the US halls of power again as he has on his many previous visits. Given the context, this is surprising - even bizarre.

We are the parents of Malki Roth whose confessed killer, a Jordanian woman called Ahlam Tamimi, lives free as a bird under the explicit protection of the Jordanian government. This despite her having facing US Federal terrorism charges and being on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist list. She is a Jordanian celebrity - not despite the bombing she masterminded in Jerusalem that was intended to kill as many Jewish children as possible but because of it.

Jordan has had an active extradition treaty with the US, covering cases exactly like Tamimi's, since 1995.

Jordan has never refused to extradite until the Tamimi case. Indeed it has extradited a string of Jordanian terrorists who are now imprisoned in the US. So what makes Tamimi different? We think it's that she is the first Jordanian whose extradition was requested by the US and who confesses openly to have specifically targeted Jews in the attack.

Jewish children, to be more exact about it.

Since Jordan's highest court declared its 1995 treaty with the US invalid two years ago, there has been an extraordinary media blackout in the West, and in particular in the United States, on any mention of what Jordan has done. Jordan itself maintains strict and total silence on its refusal to hand her over to the US authorities.

Even more troubling, important parts of the US government, which ought to be leading the charge to encourage Jordan - a strategic ally of the US that is highly dependent on US aid - to live up to its treaty obligations have avoided almost all public mention of the issue. If they have been pressuring Jordan (as is occasionally claimed), there are no signs of this at all.

In the interests of encouraging greater awareness of the Tamimi/Jordan scandal, we offer this list of articles we have written (from a much longer list gong back several years) during the past year.

Ours are not the only voices speaking out on this issue. But try to find mainstream media articles that deal with the issues. You might be searching for a while.

• 05-Sep-19: On thwarted justice and bearded women
• 25-Aug-19: A rising sense of something awful started settling in
• 12-Aug-19: The pain of a child's murder: A burden of grief and injustice
• 21-Jul-19: Jordan, peace and how little has actually changed
• 11-Jul-19: Keeping Ahlam Tamimi safe: A Jordanian case for double jeopardy?
• 30-May-19: Paris, Amman, Washington: Extradition and what it can reveal about governments and terror
• 02-Apr-19: Setting facts, ethics, context aside, Al Jazeera salutes a couple of murderers
• 25-Mar-19: On justice and decency for American victims of terrorism: When US indignation leads to a troubling comparison
• 21-Mar-19: The Sbarro Massacre mastermind worries she isn't getting enough sympathy
• 14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?
• 12-Mar-19: Yes, Americans surely ought to know that Ahlam Tamimi lives free today
• 14-Feb-19: A prince, a princess, four Tamimis - and murderous violence
• 24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers [Video]
• 23-Oct-18: She admits she planned the Sbarro massacre. But for parts of the media, Ahlam Tamimi remains 'an accomplice'

Questions and comments? Reach us at [email protected]

12-Aug-19: The pain of a child's murder: A burden of grief and injustice

Malki Z"L was deeply devoted to her blind and profoundly
disabled youngest sister

It appears that the pain of a child's murder is so inconceivable in our society that it is down-played. Swept under the carpet.

Frimet Roth | This op ed was originally published on the Israel National News website, August 8, 2019

I don't mention my murdered child, Malki, often.

Over the eighteen years since the terror bombing at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria, I have learned that most people are bored, disconcerted or annoyed by my dredging up that "ancient incident".

Closure, moving on, forgiving are the trendiest notions circulating in the world of grief.

A few years back, my husband, who had just delivered a talk about terrorism in his hometown, Melbourne, overheard an old acquaintance gripe about him. "Hasn’t gotten over that yet?"

I recall a CNN journalist reporting about a tragic mass shooting in the US involving children, commenting "The families of the victims certainly have several tough weeks ahead of them."

Weeks? Make that lives.

It appears that the pain of a child's murder is so inconceivable in our society that it is down-played. Swept under the carpet.

I vividly recall the silky feel of my Malki's hair, the way we swam the crawl together holding hands, the way we always walked up the ramp to our car arm in arm, the tears of pride I would shed whenever I heard her play the flute in a concert.

Her smile as she walked through our front door was infectious.

Her concern for anyone with disabilities was incomparable and unique for a teen. It was expressed not by vacuous words of compassion but rather active involvement with them.

Malki sought out places to volunteer as a caregiver even to the most profoundly affected children.

That included her youngest sibling Chaya who suffers from a rare genetic illness that includes severe epilepsy and blindness. Malki’s tenderness and devotion to her were incomparable.

And I remember the last time I heard her voice; she phoned me an hour before her life ended and we closed always, with the words “I love you.”

For the past eight years, our grief has been exacerbated by anger over injustice. The mastermind of that terror bombing, a Jordanian terrorist called Ahlam Tamimi, sentenced to 16 life terms in an Israeli court, was freed in the 2001 Shalit Deal.

She was “exiled” to her home – Amman – where she was reunited with her family. Some exile.

On March 14, 2017, the US Department of Justice unsealed charges against Tamimi and said it was requiring the Jordanian regime to extradite her to Washington. This was due to Malki and two other victims of that attack being US citizens.

But Jordan’s King Abdullah II has provided Tamimi with refuge, refusing to abide by his kingdom’s 1995 extradition treaty with the US.

My husband and I have asked that US officials pressure the king to hand over the monster he is protecting. Instead, the current US administration fetes him and his family, receives him in the White House as an honored guest, lavishes his shaky kingdom with massive cash gifts and other support.

The terror attack on Sbarro was unique in several ways.

One family was nearly decimated: a mother, father and three of their eight children perished.

Another couple lost their one and only child along with the baby she was carrying who would have been their first grandchild. I visit that bereft mother regularly as she now faces myriad health crises, confined to a wheelchair.

Sbarro is also unique in that Tamimi boasts to this day of “her operation". She has described in televised interviews how she scoured Jerusalem's city center for the perfect target - one that would be filled with women and children.

For years she hosted a weekly program beamed from Amman to viewers throughout the Arab world on Hamas' Al Quds TV station.

She smiled joyfully when she learned that her 15 victims included 8 children, not the mere three she claimed to believe.

She has been a constant presence on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter where she incites her fans to follow her example. She is undeniably the incarnation of evil.

And yet she is safe, free and raising a family. Every day of this reality is another stab in our hearts.

This week, grieving Americans were assured by Federal authorities that the El Paso shooter who murdered 22 innocent victims would be deemed a terrorist. He would receive “swift and certain justice.”

The victims of terrorist Tamimi are still waiting for that.

Frimet Roth's daughter, Malki, was murdered in the Sbarro terrorist attack at the age of fifteen. She had gone to enjoy a summer vacation pizza with her friend Michal Raziel, who was killed with her. Frimet is a freelance writer. She and her husband live in Jerusalem with their family. More from the author ►

14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?

Two years ago today, on March 14, 2017, the United States Department of Justice made an official announcement about the legal status of the woman who for years has boasted of bombing Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria and everyone in it.

Fifteen people were killed there that hot summer afternoon in 2001. One was our daughter, Malki. A sixteenth victim has been alive but unconscious all these years. Many more people were left maimed with injuries of a hideous nature. Tragedy layered upon tragedy and more tragedy.

We - Frimet and Arnold Roth who write this blog - campaigned for years for terrorism and murder charges to be brought against Ahlam Tamimi after her freedom was extorted by Hamas in the catastrophic Shalit Deal. We wrote, spoke, cajoled, lobbied, and with help from some very fine people even took it to the US Congress ["08-Feb-16: Terror is now a legitimate career option in Pal Arab society but its enablers barely notice" - text and video]

And then, with almost no advance notice, serious terrorism charges against her were suddenly unveiled two years ago to the day. The official text of that March 14, 2017 announcement is online here.

Tamimi, a woman of 21 at the time she admits she carried out the massacre, is Hamas’ first female terror operative. Today she is 39, married to another convicted and unrepentant murderer, a mother, a Jordanian celebrity, a prominent propagandist for Islamism and jihadist ultra-violence, and a disgracefully well-paid beneficiary of the Palestinian Authority's notorious Pay-to-Slay program.

In Jordan, she does not live in hiding. As far as we know, she never has.

Her address there is well enough known that she is frequently interviewed by the media; and not only by the Jordanian media or the Arabic media but by respected global news agencies like Associated Press that have sent reporters to her home to interview her on video. The disturbing reality: anyone who seriously intended to take her into custody would have no difficulty locating her.

She has boasted publicly, repeatedly and for the record that she took the central role as the planner and executor - the mastermind - of the Sbarro pizzeria massacre. She has claimed obscene credit - while smiling broadly - for the fact that so many of those killed were children. She has made clear that this was her intention in choosing the target site and the attack time.

As monsters go, it's hard to imagine one as calculating and unapologetic as Ahlam Tamimi.

All three of the DOJ officials quoted in the 2017 announcement have moved on to other positions during these past two years. We wrote a letter last week, addressed to them and to the three officials who filled their places in the DOJ. Among other things, we asked them whether the DOJ is going to address certain serious problems that we described for them.

At  this stage, we do not plan to publish the letter; we continue to hope that we will get a meaningful DOJ response that deals with the important issues we raised. However we do want people to know (which is why we are posting this now to our blog) that we sent that letter and that it respectfully requests the DOJ to take specific steps.

To set the stage, that March 14, 2017 DOJ announcement starts with a statement of the basic facts:

A criminal complaint was unsealed today charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, also known as “Khalti” and “Halati,” a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death. The charge is related to the defendant’s participation in an Aug. 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a pizza restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two U.S. nationals. Four other U.S. nationals were among the approximately 122 others injured in the attack. Also unsealed today was a warrant for Al-Tamimi’s arrest and an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint and arrest warrant. The criminal charge had been under seal since July 15, 2013... Two Americans were killed and four injured.

It goes on to describe Tamimi bluntly but perfectly accurately as

an unrepentant terrorist who admitted to her role in a deadly terrorist bombing that injured and killed numerous innocent victims.

Then follow these stirring sentiments:

“The charges unsealed today serve as a reminder that when terrorists target Americans anywhere in the world, we will never forget – and we will continue to seek to ensure that they are held accountable,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General McCord. “I want to thank the many dedicated agents and prosecutors who have worked on this investigation…” “We have never forgotten the American and non-American victims of this awful terrorist attack,” said U.S. Attorney Phillips. “We will continue to remain vigilant until Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi is brought to justice. “Al-Tamimi is a terrorist who participated in an attack that killed United States citizens,” said Assistant Director in Charge Vale. “The bombing that she planned and assisted in carrying out on innocent people, including children, furthered the mission of a designated terrorist organization. The FBI continues to work with our international partners to combat terrorists like Al-Tamimi and hold them accountable.”

Two full years, as we said, have passed since the unsealing of the charges against Tamimi. Today is the anniversary. Despite the charges and despite the strong words of US justice officials, she remains at large and a potent voice for more Islamist terror.

Paraphrasing, our letter lists some of what has happened in these past two years. (Some important points in our letter are not included here - we may disclose them at some future time.):

1. First, what has not happened: Tamimi is not in custody, not restricted in her movements, not subject to police attention or legal impediment, not pushed to the margins of Jordanian society. She is not on the run. She lives out in the open, free as a bird, living a high profile life from her base in Jordan’s capital city. Her profile continues to become more prominent in Jordanian society. We absolutely agree with those who say she has evolved into a pan-Arab media celebrity and a respected mainstream figure in Jordanian society.
2. Tamimi has never expressed regret. Nor has she in any way denied her key role as the mastermind of the Sbarro pizzeria bombing.
3. We have not found a single instance – not in Jordan, not in any other part of the Arabic-speaking world – where she has been publicly rebuked for her boastfulness over the massacre of innocent Israelis, or even criticized in the mildest way. We have never seen or heard of a single case where Tamimi was criticized or challenged to justify her appalling deeds by an interviewer. She is never contradicted despite her obviously self-aggrandizing exaggerations and her many outright fabrications. She is a hero.
4. Mere days after the March 14, 2017 DOJ announcement, Jordan’s Court of Cassation - the highest court in the kingdom - declared the 22 year old extradition treaty between the US and Jordan invalid under Jordanian law. It found on narrow, highly technical grounds that it was unconstitutional and had been so since the day it was signed during the Clinton Administration. It directed that Tamimi could not be extradited by Jordan.
5. The Jordanian government itself made no public statement of any sort in the wake of the court’s ruling. No intention to prosecute her under Jordanian law or to remedy the alleged procedural defect in the treaty with the US has ever been publicly expressed by any official Jordanian source.
6. It's clear that, unless pressed robustly by its allies, King Abdullah II’s government will simply continue to view the Tamimi chapter as now closed.
7. Is Jordan's view about the validity of the treaty right? Having sought advice from experts in these matters, we say no. Among numerous factors: (a) The flaw in the extradition treaty, if it exists, was one that Jordan’s government could have cured in a simple and straightforward way at any point in the past two decades. But did not and has not; (b) The court had not made a finding of invalidity in other cases of extradition to the US before Tamimi’s case; (c) And as a result, Jordanian fugitives have been extradited to the US several times, most recently in 2015. (We know the details.)
8. The official view of the United States, not surprisingly, is that the Jordan/US extradition treaty is and has since 1995 been in full force and effect. The treaty is listed in the authoritative “Treaties in Force” document published by the US State Department and posted online here. The treaty with Jordan appears on page 252 of that listing.
9. Multiple extraditions from Jordan to the US have been requested, and carried out, since the treaty entered into force. Something about a Jordanian calling herself Palestinian bombing a restaurant filled with Jewish children somehow puts the Tamimi case into a different category for the Jordanians.
10. Tamimi serves as a prolific advocate for Arab-on-Israeli terror. Starting in late 2011, immediately after she returned to Jordan from her Israeli prison cell, she traveled widely among the Arab states, addressing enthusiastic audiences with a message blending incitement and vile bigotry. We have tracked her appearances closely. She demonstrates a special interest in focusing on high school and university students. 
11. For nearly five years beginning in March 2012, she was the presenter of her own produced-in-Jordan, terrorism-focused weekly TV show beamed globally from Amman to the world. Made under Hamas auspices and beamed to the world via a Hamas satellite TV channel, the toxic program suffered no evident interference from Jordan’s government. It was heavily promoted and its reach was amplified by hundreds of Internet streaming video sites. 
12. Tamimi discontinued her frequent traveling outside Jordan’s borders – and ended her central role in that TV show - after being very briefly (for one night) taken into Jordanian police custody on the basis of an Interpol Red Notice request in 2016. At about the same time, she was warned by the Jordanian authorities to lower her profile; it appears she complied, a least for a while. These developments received no publicity at the time they happened.
13. But starting in March 2017, following the court decision that lifted the threat of extradition, Tamimi once again elevated her public profile significantly, once again speaking in public forums, appearing with senior Jordanian politicians including a former Jordanian prime minister. She has made numerous well-publicized speeches, most recently at Jordan’s central Trade Union compound, a venue where meetings of the government itself take place. 
14. In October 2018, she and her husband received a “This is Your Life”-like tribute on a widely-watched program called “Caravan’, broadcast on Jordan’s highest-rating TV station ["24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers"] After recounting Tamimi’s years in an Israeli prison and subsequent release (but not the murders), the presenter of that prime time Jordanian TV show exclaimed to Tamimi and to the audience: "This is admirable! You, the people of the struggle, elevate the name of Jordan!" It is a tribute that seems consistent with all the other indications we got from the Jordanian media.
15. At the time of the March 2017 DOJ announcements, we learned for the first time that Jordan had already for some years been resisting DOJ efforts to get them to extradite Tamimi to Washington. 
16. Within days of the March 2017 announcements and from numerous interactions, it became clear to us that figures within the State Department sought, and continue to seek, to deflect US pressure on Jordan in the Tamimi matter. This has a personal dimension; we see ourselves as being subjected to unacceptable treatment that no one in our position should have to overlook or suffer. It's a deeply unsatisfactory situation and one that exacerbates our ongoing stress and pain as bereaved parents wanting to see the triumphant, admitted murderer of our dearly loved child brought to justice. 

There are multiple disturbing ways in which Jordan's opposition to the Tamimi extradition is being represented partially and not entirely accurately to the American public and to law-makers.

Here's an example. US law, since 2004, has required the Secretary of State to provide Congress by April 30 of each year with “a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation”. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. As in previous years, the 2018 edition says: “Jordan remained a committed partner on counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism in 2017…”

Then, for the first time ever, it goes on to very briefly address the Tamimi extradition:

A U.S. criminal complaint was unsealed in March charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the United States resulting in death. The charge is related to her participation in an August 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two U.S. nationals. Four other U.S. nationals were among the approximately 122 others injured in the attack. Also unsealed was a warrant for Al-Tamimi’s arrest and an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint and arrest warrant. Jordan’s courts have ruled that their constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals.

That last sentence is astounding; it's also quite revealing. Why does this important State Department report to Congress not go on to explain, which is certainly the case, that while Jordan says it's invalid, the United States of America says the exact opposite and clearly means it. The US says the 1995 Jordan/US Extradition Treaty is fully in effect and always has been since it was signed into effect. Isn't that worth noting in a report to Congress? Shouldn't the diplomats and officials of the US State Department at least say the US does not agree with Jordan? And that the US believes Jordan is wrong?

It's an exceedingly strange matter on which to remain silent.

Tamimi has become an iconic figure, a person of huge influence in a region where terrorism is a daily and manifest threat to public stability. She lives a life to which no one with a violent history of savagery like hers should ever be entitled.

While we believe in the importance of a peace-oriented strategic relationship with Jordan and its ruler, we also believe in the central and pre-eminent role of justice. We continue to hope we will still see it in the case of our child’s killer.

12-Mar-19: Yes, Americans surely ought to know that Ahlam Tamimi lives free today

Overnight, a tweet [here] was posted by Jason D. Greenblatt, Assistant to the 45th President of the USA and Special Representative for International Negotiations.

The timing is notable, coming on the same day that King Abdullah II of Jordan, a frequent guest of honour in the US's corridors of power, makes the rounds of Washington power centers including a string of high-level administration officials as well as the White House.

Twitter source

Here's the text:

Americans ought to know that Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamini [sic], a convicted Hamas terrorist who, together with others, murdered in cold blood 15 people including 7 children, lives free today. See details here: https://rewardsforjustice.net/english/ahlam_al_tamimi.html

We of course agree - though it would surely have been better if Mr Greenblatt had spelled Tamimi's name right.

It might also have been better if he had linked to some information that actually explains how and why arch-terrorist Tamimi "lives free today". Instead, the link he provides goes to the State Department's Rewards for Justice website where details of the $5M prize for the capture and conviction of Tamimi appear. (And if any enterprising reporter cares to look into why, after two years, no one has succeeded in getting that reward money, we will be more than happy to discuss what we know. We're certain that some people might be quite surprised. Mr Greenblatt might be one of them, though there's no indication he's actually interested in even the smallest way.)

Still we're pleased that a senior official in the Trump Administration has gone as far as Mr Greenblatt has. It's a first, and an important one.

From the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists website

Americans surely ought to know. And so should anyone to whom justice is a supreme value.

There's much more to be said, and much more that we have already said about Tamimi, justice, and what the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan has done and continues to do to thwart the extradition of this deadly dangerous FBI Most Wanted fugitive.

But for now, we're pleased to see a Trump Administration official speaking out on the issue that has occupied our days and minds for many years.

Tamimi, for those who might not know, admits to being a central figure - we say she was the mastermind - of the bombing of Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria on August 9, 2001. Our daughter Malki, 15, was one of the many innocent victims killed there that day.

Here's a partial selection of the many things we have written in this blog about the Sbarro massacre during the past two years since Jordan's legal system formally announced that it would not be extraditing Tamimi to the US to face the Federal terrorism charges that await her  there:

• 24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers [Video]
• 23-Oct-18: She admits she planned the Sbarro massacre. But for parts of the media, Ahlam Tamimi remains 'an accomplice'
• 24-Aug-18: What aid funds handed to the Abbas regime ($1 million and growing) have done for savages who kill Jews
• 23-Aug-18: New data: How the terrorists who bombed the Sbarro pizzeria fared financially
• 24-Jun-18: Chilling: In boasting of those she killed, the fugitive terrorist can barely control her excitement
• 01-Jun-18: On watching our child's killer
• 05-Jan-18: In Jordan, the FBI fugitive Ahlam Tamimi pays tribute to her slapping/taunting/kicking Tamimi cousin
• 03-Dec-17: Understanding Jordan's king and his "holistic" approach to terror
• 21-Nov-17: Mass-murdering Charles Manson and mass-murdering Ahlam Tamimi: Who's more monstrous?
• 08-Oct-17: Terrorists and justice for their victims
• 24-Aug-17: Malki's killer: We're looking for some friends
• 30-Mar-17: Years of pursuing a child's killer: Setbacks, challenges and a roller-coaster ride
• 15-Mar-17: Sbarro and justice
• 14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought

14-Feb-19: A prince, a princess, four Tamimis - and murderous violence

Image Source | February 6, 2019: Jordan Media Institute in Amman
Ahed Tamimi is the speaker. Princess Rym Ali,
the JMI's founder, is seated in the front row

Ahed Tamimi, a young Palestinian Arab woman from Nabi Saleh, a hamlet a few kilometers from our Jerusalem home ["17-Mar-13: A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns"] has been busy traveling and speaking to attentive crowds these past few months.

Ahed Tamimi

Just before she started an eight month sentence in an Israeli prison a year ago, the result of a plea bargain her handlers made with the authorities, we noted here ["24-Dec-17: Nabi Saleh, the media and a Tamimi child's journey"] that she is

the young woman many call Shirley Temper, a photogenic performer who for at least eight years now has been the central figure in a long-running propaganda performance orchestrated by her father Bassem Tamimi and his publicity business, Tamimi Press.

Bassem Tamimi, Ahed's manager/father and long-time producer/director, asserted some months back ["Palestinian Ahed Tamimi 'banned from travelling abroad'"] that Israel was in some unspecified manner standing in the way of the post-prison globetrotting/meet-and-greets he had in mind for her.

Somehow overcoming the Israeli opposition (if indeed it existed), the young woman, frequently referred to via overblown noms-de-guerre ("Palestine's Joan of Arc", "Ahed Tamimi, Palestinian protest icon", "I know I am a symbol of Palestinian resistance"), managed to pull-off a run of well-publicized visits to Spain, France, Tunisia, Greece and Jordan in September and October 2018. She also became the subject of a photo spread in the October 2018 Arabic version of Vogue magazine along the way.

She's been busy. And the drum-beating and orchestrating have paid dividends.

After years of wildly zig-zagging media estimates of her age [outlined here: "28-Dec-17: So how old is the Tamimi girl?"], there's little doubt she's now come of age and is an adult for all legal purposes (her 18th birthday was two weeks ago). This may become relevant if she repeats or enlarges on calls for more Arab-on-Israeli thuggery like those she made in front of her mother's Tamimi Press video camera ["04-Feb-18: The embarrassing violence of Ahed Tamimi and its fig-leafers"] a year ago. Mother took care to have the video very widely distributed. But surprisingly (alright, not so surprisingly as this excellent Forward piece by Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll points out), the fact that not-quite-adult Ahed Tamimi quite plainly called for real, physical violence has somehow become a point of controversy and doubt.

It shouldn't have. She did it and it's on the record.

Notwithstanding, she's turned up again in Jordan where she gave a speech a few days ago, asserting in some little publicized comments

that the Palestinian people’s struggle is to obtain their freedom, and not to gain the world’s sympathy or compassion. During a meeting with the Jordan Media Institute’s (JMI) students, in the presence of JMI founder HRH Princess Rym, Tamimi added that she works to convey a message for the need to support Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom and national unity. She also explained that she was subjected to various psychological and physical pressures both during the 16 days of investigations, and after being transferred to prison. She said she underwent deprivation of sleep and food, as well as threats to arrest or kill her relatives... ["Ahed Tamimi addresses students at Jordan Media Institute", Jordan Times, February 6, 2019]

There's similar coverage in Jordan's Arabic media here and here as well as on the website of her hosts, the Jordan Media Institute. About that last entity, we have some experience (keep reading).

The Nabi Saleh Tamimis

The JMI's English language report mentions only in passing Nariman Tamimi, Bassem's wife and Ahed's mother, who was in attendance. The Arabic language version (but not the English) adds this somewhat repulsive piece of Tamimi self-promotion:

As for the anti-public campaign against Ahed, her mother Nariman al-Tamimi pointed out that the great support for Ahed came because of the spread of the video [Nariman's video] slapping the Israeli soldier and Ahed Tamimi's ability to resist in spite of all circumstances... adding that her constant contact with media professionals over the past ten years to contribute to the promotion of justice in the Palestinian cause has helped increase support for Ahed... [Jordan Media Institute - Arabic language report of the Tamimi event on their premises, February 6, 2019]

Think about that. The mother seems to be boasting about the fact (and it is a fact) that she and husband Bassem Tamimi began grooming their daughter to be a fist-thrusting, slogan-spouting, angry-on-demand shrieking street activist and provocateur from when the child, already blonde and still somewhat Western looking, was a very vulnerable 8 years old.

In most places, this would be justifiably viewed as child abuse and the parents as derelict and likely culpable criminally. Noot, of course, in those netherworlds ruled by the appalling Palestinian Authority and the no-less-horrific Hamas.

But Nariman Tamimi's ethics descend to greater depths. She has no qualms, for instance, supporting the murderous violence of her cousin, the bomber Ahlam Tamimi. Quote the opposite. In her own words

...What she [Ahlam Tamimi, the smiling mass-murderer of Jewish children] did was an integral part of the struggle. Everyone fights in the manner in which he believes. There is armed uprising, and there is popular uprising. I support every form of uprising... ["11-Sep-15: How devoted to non-violence are the villagers of Nabi Saleh really?"]

The Sbarro massacre mastermind

Ahlam Tamimi returned the favour a year ago ["05-Jan-18: In Jordan, the FBI fugitive Ahlam Tamimi pays tribute to her slapping/taunting/kicking Tamimi cousin"].

Standing before a Jordanian audience, flanked by Jordanian dignitaries including a former Jordanian prime minister, she praised Nariman's daughter Ahed Tamimi who had been detained by Israeli authorities (as was Nariman) some days before. Both were facing charges and an Israeli prison sentence. Somewhat vaguely (based on the reports we saw), Ahlam Tamimi congratulated Ahed Tamimi for "breathing new life" into the cause of female prisoners and children prisoners.

We remarked on how disturbing it was to see

...very prominent Jordanians, members of the country's political elite, [who] have no problem sharing a public platform with a confessed killer of Israeli children who is also an FBI fugitive and the subject of American efforts to have her extradited to the US to face serious federal charges. Can you imagine this happening anywhere else? She's a wanted criminal but not in Jordan where she's a hero. [Source]

Most readers of this blog know Ahlam Tamimi ["17-Nov-11: A monster walks the streets and she has many accomplices"] confesses repeatedly, publicly and with evident pride to being the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria massacre where 16 innocent Jews, among them our daughter Malki, were killed. Ahlam Tamimi was serving a prison sentence of 16 consecutive life terms right up until the catastrophic Shalit Deal that Israel transacted with Hamas in 2011.

That's when she was freed and returned to the land of her birth, the place where most of her family lives and where she was raised.

We have written hundreds of blog posts and op eds about Ahlam Tamimi, born in Jordan and living there today, not in hiding but out in the open.

She has become a genuine celebrity ["24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers"] who speaks often in public forums and on Jordan's media. But (or perhaps and) she is a fugitive from the FBI, charged by the US Department of Justice with Federal crimes and with a State Department $5 million reward for her capture and conviction.

She is the subject of an extradition request which the Jordanian government, for narrow and technical reasons, has rejected ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"]. The US and Jordan have a valid extradition treaty that has been in effect between the two countries since 1995. Several Jordanian felons were extradited to the US before the Tamimi case.

It's interesting to us that of all the possible Jordanian venue options, Ahed Tamimi was a guest last week at the Jordan Media Institute.

It's also striking that Princess Rym Ali, the JMI's founder and a former CNN on-camera reporter before she married into the Hashemite royal family, was present to hear her speak, seated in the front row (see the photo above).

This brought to mind how the princess' husband, Prince Ali bin Hussein who is the half brother of Jordan's current ruler, posted a Tweet emotionally urging support for... Ahed Tamimi in December 2017 just before she went to prison. (Posted here; archived here.)

To us, this seems odd. Ahed is no Jordanian. And most other Jordanian royals seem to have wisely taken care not to get entangled with the outstandingly problematic Tamimi clan. Perhaps some enterprising journalist will take the trouble to look into what about the Nabi Saleh Tamimis' violent bigotry that so attracts this royal attention.

Jordan Media Institute

At this point, allow us to mention that we have had seriously disturbing experiences with the JMI and the unique interplay of professional aspiration and tolerance for extreme violence that we believe the school represents.

We're referring to how we discovered four years ago, and then did our best to publicize, that the very privileged students of this prestigious and hugely-needed institution had publicly declared Ahlam Tamimi - the boastful Hamas agent who set out to kill as many Jewish children as possible and succeeded - as their "success model". 

We ended up persuading several of the school's international funders, including a number of governments, to terminate their support. But we never succeeded in (a) getting the school's management to respond to us other than rude and pointless response from a manager there, or (b) to be open about what we had reported. Their preference was to engage in a rather shabby and pathetic cover-up.

We wrote about this in the posts below:

• 10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred
• 11-Dec-14: Is it newsworthy when journalists make a terror-addicted murdering colleague their role-model?
• 16-Jan-15: Incubating terror-minded journalists in Jordan but they have an answer to the criticisms
• 19-Jan-15: The dilemmas of funding and enabling terror

What happened at the Jordan Media Institute and the scandalous way it was hushed up by management ought to be factored into people's thinking when they wonder about the state of democracy, human rights and terrorism in the Arab world.

The terrors of Arab journalism

Given the strange role played by an ambitious school like JMI, this seems a good time to be thinking about how very badly journalism serves the Palestinian Arabs (the vast majority of Jordanians self-identify as Palestinian Arabs). And the difficulties their reporters and their editors encounter under the thumb of the powers that be.

Screen capture from the Gatehouse site

A typically incisive article today by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Gatestone Institute gives some exposure to the plight of a young woman working as a reporter in the Hamas-afflicted Gaza Strip:

Hajer Harb... is currently standing trial before a court in the Gaza Strip for exposing corruption in Hamas-run ministries and institutions. Harb, a cancer survivor, has been repeatedly summoned for interrogation by Hamas security forces for her role in reporting on corruption in medical and housing institutions... She is accused of "failing to display objectivity, fairness and accuracy" in her reporting... Instead of interrogating and prosecuting the corrupt officials whose identities were mentioned in her reporting, Harb is the one who is now standing trial for telling the truth. Her lawyer, Baker al-Turkumani, described the charges against her as "flimsy." The charges, he said, are an "assault on the freedom of the media and expression, which are protected by the law. The law and justice are the journalist's weapon against corruption. The law cannot be used to limit the work of a journalist or freedom of expression." ["Palestinians: "Journalism" Hamas Style", Gatestone Institute website, February 14, 2019]

Abu Toameh unpacks the Hamas charges against the reporter and calls them disingenuous and laughable:

It is disingenuous because it is coming from Hamas -- a group for whom the terms objectivity and accuracy are wholly inimical. It is laughable because it allows Hamas to set the standards for objectivity and accuracy... For Hamas, objectivity in the media means that journalists shut their mouths about their leaders and government officials. For Hamas, "accuracy" means that a journalist working in the Gaza Strip will show Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the worst possible light -- regardless of the facts.

He's no less blunt about Hamas' rivals, the Abbas-controlled Fatah/PA:

Since the beginning of this year, the Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested 10 Palestinian journalists in the West Bank for their "negative" reporting and alleged criticism of Abbas and other senior Palestinian figures... The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate regularly chooses totally to ignore the plight of the journalists arrested by the Palestinian Authority security forces. The only evils the Syndicate sees are those that can be linked to Hamas or Israel. That is because its heads and senior staff are affiliated with Abbas's Fatah faction... Like Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, with the help of its associates in the syndicate, is apparently seeking to control the news and narrative to make sure that journalists direct their criticism only against Israel. Like Hamas, the Palestinian Authority has been relatively successful in its effort to limit the flow of information from areas under its control. A Palestinian journalist living in Ramallah will think at least a dozen times before he or she writes or says a word that could rile Abbas or one of his senior officials.

Ahlam Tamimi boasting about her life as a Hamas terrorist
[Image Source: Video capture from Kuwaiti TV]

A great shame that all those 'activists' agitating for 'Free Palestine', for BDS and for "Palestinian rights" don't direct their energies, criticisms and fury at the two ham-fisted Palestinian Arab regimes that bear almost all the responsibility for what's wrong with the lives of the people living under their boots.

And also for the extreme violence that many people think about when the word "Palestinian" enters the discussion. (Ahlam Tamimi, our child's murderer, boasts that she was a journalist at the time of the massacre, and is still called one today.)

Also a great shame that the Ahed Tamimi phenomenon continues to get so much unjustified backing in parts of the Arab world where a little more inward-focused retrospection would do so much more for the problems that beset their lives.

And ours too.

UPDATE February 15, 2019

We just came across the Jordan Media Institute's two tweets of last week's Ahed Tamimi event currently here and here and here with a half-hour video of Joan-of-Arc's customary flat/monotone speech (and archived here and here and here in case... you know).

(There don't seem to be any English-language tweets of the momentous occasion, indicating - who knows - that they don't want their foreign supporters seeing this, but perhaps we just missed them.)

The JMI photos make apparent that Nariman Tamimi, mother of Ahed, cousin and outspoken fan of Ahlam Tamimi and her hideous deeds, is seated at the head table.

Also apparent: (a) that Jordanian journalism's best and brightest don't at all mind being associated with the terror-loving Tamimi clan's messaging - which if you pause to think about it is staggering; (b) the scandal of 2015 which cost the school some substantial foreign funding is dead and forgotten; (c) the illustrious Jordan Media Institute is mighty proud that the Tamimis allowed them to give a platform to Ahed.