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.

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 ►

30-May-19: Paris, Amman, Washington: Extradition and what it can reveal about governments and terror

The landmark Jewish restaurant in Paris whose patrons were

targeted in 1982 by Palestinian Arab jihadists

and their machine guns and hand grenades.

In this post, we explain why an important court decision handed down in Jordan this week by its highest court throws a sharply negative light on Jordan's controversial 2017 claim that the kingdom's 1995 Extradition Treaty with the US in invalid and non-binding.

That earlier ruling, concerning Ahlam Tamimi, now looks contrived and unconvincing. And though the United States isn't saying much about it, we think people ought to know.

Terror and the Hashemite Kingdom

Jordan's creativity with the definition of terror is not new and hardly a secret.

But in polite circles, especially circles which view King Abdullah II as a valuable friend of the West and a strategic ally in the battle against "the terrorists", discussion of the matter is largely confined to whispers.

That's an insight we keep re-acquiring as we pursue Ahlam Tamimi, the confessed Jordanian killer of our daughter [24-Mar-17: Our daughter's smiling killer: "Shocked" that US "decided to go after her for no obvious reason"]. The Hashemite Kingdom's role in that process, and few know this as well as we do, has been obstructive, deceptive and dangerous.

Ahlam Tamimi, now a fugitive from US justice with her own "Most Wanted" poster (in English and Arabic versions), is a Jordanian woman of 39 who faces serious US Federal terrorism-related charges that were announced in Washington on March 14, 2017.

Ahlam Tamimi the fugitive

The brief version: At the age of 21 and as Hamas' first female terrorist, Tamimi masterminded the bombing of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria massacre and the many Jewish children inside. (She has proudly admitted for the record that it was Jewish children she sought to kill. And why.) She carefully chose the site, scouted out the access path, brought the bomb (a human bomb - a young religious fanatic also in the service of Hamas) and then fled back to Ramallah moments before the explosion where she read the evening TV news bulletin for Istiqlal TV.

One of her many innocent victims, as regular visitors to this blog know, was our daughter Malki, 15. She was an American citizen.

In October 2011, Tamimi was released prematurely to our horror from a prison sentence of 16-life-terms in Israel in the Shalit Deal. Israel sent her off to Jordan where she came from ["19-Oct-11: Haaretz: Shalit prisoner swap marks 'colossal failure' for mother of Israeli bombing victim"]. She quickly set about developing an enhanced career in terror and terror-incitement under Jordanian protection.

Some weeks later, in early 2012, we went to Washington and asked the US Department of Justice to prosecute Tamimi. Under a Federal law, the US can go after terrorists who kill US citizens on foreign soil. Its jurisdiction is world-wide.

And indeed, this eventually happened. The background is here: "14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?"

The details of how terrorism charges were finally announced against Tamimi are not well known. For instance, the fact that the judge who signed off on the charges actually did so in 2014, three years earlier. There's a reason for those lost three years; not such a good reason.

And this:

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 [i.e. in March 2019], 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... [Our March 14, 2019 post]

It's distressing to report that the Justice Department has still not responded to our letter. But our concern here and now is with other aspects of the Tamimi case.

The 1982 Paris killings

Let's turn now to a murderous Palestinian Arab terror attack on one of France's best-known Jewish landmarks, a Paris restaurant called Chez Jo Goldenberg. In a 2016 post (13-Feb-16: Three decades after a terror attack on a Paris restaurant, some things remain just as they were"), we made some pungent observations about Jordan and the poorly understood, even surprising, way it approaches terrorism in general and ultra-violent antisemitic attacks in particular.

In November 2018, Mr and Mrs Tamimi, unrepentant murderers both,

were paid generous tribute on Jordan's most-watched TV channel.

Not one word about the Israelis they killed.

We wrote this:

We wish there was much wider awareness of how Jordan has provided a friendly environment since 2011 for the woman who masterminded the murder of our daughter, allowing her to operate freely from within Jordan's borders; to speak as an honored guest at its universities, professional guilds, law courts and other venues; to record her television program "Naseem Al Ahrar" (translation: “Breezes of the Free”) week after week for beaming out to the Arabic-speaking world throughout the past 4 years; and to emerge as a genuine pan-Arab celebrity.

In a Jordanian courthouse

So now to the events of this week. Ben Cohen's fine report today ["Jordanian Refusal to Extradite Paris Kosher Restaurant Killer to France Renews Concern Over Amman’s Terrorism Policy"] on The Algemeiner website sets the stage:

The Kingdom of Jordan’s highest court has rejected a French appeal for the extradition of a suspect in a deadly attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris more than 30 years ago — raising further concerns that the stalwart ally of the West continues to offer safe haven to terrorists wanted by the courts of other countries, including the United States.
On Tuesday, Jordan’s Court of Cassation ruled against the extradition of 57-year-old Nizar Tawfiq Mussa Hamada, one of the alleged participants in the Aug. 9, 1982 attack at Chez Jo Goldenberg, a kosher restaurant in the traditionally Jewish Marais district of Paris.
After exploding a grenade inside the packed restaurant during its lunchtime service, two terrorists then opened fire on the diners with machine guns. Six people died and 22 more were wounded in the assault.
The atrocity was carried out by the Abu Nidal Organization — a radical Palestinian terrorist group that was active during the 1970s and 1980s, when it carried out attacks in over 20 countries. Named after the nom de guerre of its founder, Sabri al-Banna, the Abu Nidal group was backed at different times by the Iraqi, Syrian and Libyan regimes.
Speaking after Tuesday’s decision in favor of his client, Hamada’s lawyer, Mazan al-Tawil, praised the Jordanian judges for “categorically refusing” the French extradition request. Al-Tawil referred to the court’s decision to reject an earlier extradition request for Hamada in Feb. 2016 for the same reason — that a period of more than 30 years had elapsed since the atrocity, exceeding Jordan’s “limitation period” for extradition.
Al-Tawil’s co-conspirators in the attack on the restaurant have similarly escaped French justice because of the intervention of Jordanian courts.
The suspects in the Chez Jo Goldenberg attack were not formally identified until 2014, when two anonymous informants associated with Abu Nidal’s group supplied the French authorities with the missing information.
The following year, France’s top magistrate tasked with combating terrorism, Marc Trévidic, issued arrest warrants for several suspects, including Hamada and fellow Jordanian citizen Souhair Mouhamed Hassan Khalid al-Abassi — aka Amjad Atta — reputedly the mastermind behind the attack.
A French request to the Jordanian courts for al-Abassi’s extradition was similarly rejected in Oct. 2015 — just three months after the Hashemite Kingdom signed an extradition treaty with the French government.
But France is not the only country to have been turned down by Jordan after submitting an extradition request in connection with terrorism... [The Algemeiner today]

The Tamimi extradition

Ben Cohen is of course right.

That very same Jordanian tribunal, the Court of Cassation in Amman (the equivalent of a Supreme Court), handed down a highly problematic ruling in an unrelated extradition case two years ago. That 2017 case is about Mrs Tamimi. Its larger importance is that it considers the legality of an extradition treaty between Jordan and the United States that the US considers - without any doubt - in effect and binding.

The US had made a formal request years earlier (we think in 2013 but can't be sure) for Jordan to hand Tamimi over to them for bringing her to the US as required in their treaty. Jordan had persisted for the following three-plus years in its refusal.

The Jordanian court was asked, in effect, to rule on whether Jordan could, should or had to extradite Tamimi to face US terror charges.

It decided within the same week as the announcement of Federal charges against Tamimi, in fact just days later. In a somewhat bizarre ruling it first confirmed what everyone already knew, that there is indeed an extradition treaty with the US and has been since 1995. The Clinton Administration had signed it with King Hussein's government when it wanted to get its hands - and did get its hands - on Eyad Ismoil, one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing plotters.

But, said the court, embarking on a Save Tamimi strategy, a constitutional flaw in the process meant that the treaty with the US could not be used to send the confessed killer to a Washington courthouse. Moreover, the treaty was not only invalid now. It had been invalid since the day it was signed.

This is an astounding thing for a US ally to claim.

It gets worse. Jordan has in reality happily extradited other Jordanian terrorists after 1995, The most recent was sentenced in the US just last year. None of them, as it happens, targeted Jews. (Could that be the missing key?)

The flaw, said the court, was in the fact that the treaty needed to get the approval of Jordan's rubber-stamp parliament. But it somehow never did. And it continues not to get it. Never getting it meant, the court implies, that Jordan's constitution prohibits the treaty from going into effect. And so Ahlam Tamimi could not be handed over to the US for prosecution. Case closed.

The US government reward

In its March 14, 2017 announcement, the DOJ did more than just unveil charges against Tamimi. It also added her to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list where she still is today. A $5 Million reward for "information that leads to [her] arrest or conviction" was announced nine months later by the Rewards for Justice Unit (RFJ) of the Department of State.

Never in hiding: The Tamimis in their Amman apartment

in March 2017 where Associated Press reporters and

video people visited them [link including video]

That reward, which we pressed for is a curious thing. Why?

Because Tamimi has never been in hiding. She lives free-as-a-bird in Jordan today in a pleasant, well-equipped apartment with her family in Amman. Her husband, who is her cousin and also a convicted murderer was also released in the Shalit Deal. News crews, among them Associated Press visit regularly and interview her there.

The DOJ and the State Department's RFJ clearly know this.

Jordan's legal stance

Consider now what Jordan's Court of Cassation did in the Jo Goldenberg Massacre decision on Tuesday. It said (our words, not theirs):

We would simply love to do the right thing and extradite these evil shooters back to Paris. But - such rotten luck - the 2015 France/Jordan extradition treaty doesn't help since the statute of limitations has expired. Yes, it's too late. Our judicial hands are tied.

To which a pair of grieving parents in far-away Jerusalem say: So which one is it, Your Honors?

In your French decision, you treated that 2015 extradition treaty as legal and binding but you discovered an unrelated problem that meant the alleged perpetrator of the Paris massacre didn't have to be handed over to the French prosecutors. But in your American decision, you found the US treaty was invalid; some additional signature was needed, you said, and 22 years later Jordan's rulers still hadn't found the pen (except when it was needed for that French treaty). So Tamimi is saved the trouble of being prosecuted in Washington.

What a farce.

Did the 2015 France/Jordan extradition treaty get approved by the Jordanian rubber stamps that, according to the 2017 Tamimi decision, had to approve it? Apparently yes. Jordan's most senior judges aren't claiming the agreement with France is tainted constitutionally (as the 1995 US/Jordan one is, they say). If the French treaty was flawed, they would have said it. And they didn't.

We say: So then let that same Jordanian rubber stamp come now, this afternoon, right this hour, and at the king's command fix Jordan's allegedly invalid US Extradition Treaty. Isn't that how rubber stamps are supposed to work?

Or take the opposite view. Let's say the French treaty was never rubber stamped by Jordan's parliament. Yet the judges, who are silent on this point, treat it as being perfectly effective. No constitutional flaw. No need for it to be rubber stamped because, well, you know. But, oops, sadly there's this statute of limitations.

Taken together, the two Jordanian Court of Cassation decisions, one from 2017, one from this month, underscore the very high likelihood that the Jordan/US Treaty is in reality perfectly valid. That is precisely what the US says though it has not yet said it in public for reasons that bother us a great deal. (We have it in writing from multiple US government sources).

Without being excessively blunt on this, let's just say there's much room to be deeply cynical about Jordan's claims and its highest court's decision to refuse the US extradition request in the specific case of Tamimi. (Jordan's government itself, as distinct from its Court of Cassation, has never said a word in public about their refusal to extradite Tamimi.)

"Stop bothering Jordan"

Respected observers have noted that the kingdom of Jordan is going through a rocky period. There seems to be a sense that its dear friends in the West need to cut it some slack, not press too hard and do what needs to be done so its widely admired anti-terrorism monarch, King Abdullah II, can get on with the job of fixing the economy and building a stable, prosperous Western-facing state.

The man speaking is the Palestinian Arab father of the human bomb who

was brought to the Sbarro site by Ahlam Tamimi. (The Middle East bureau
chief of Australia's national broadcaster, ABC, at the time of the Sbarro 

massacre tried to persuade us to be interviewed with because he's so opposed
to violence and so pro-peace.) She fled to the safety of Ramallah
after instructing him to explode a few minutes later. Which he did.

We don't agree.

Jordan, entirely unreported by the news industry, has turned the Sbarro savage, Tamimi, into a pan-Arab hero from her safe, government-guaranteed perch in Amman, Jordan's capital.

Since 2011 via TV, social media and Internet-streamed video all over the Arabic speaking world and even into Israel's security prisons, she has become an inspiration to the powerful and very large forces inside the kingdom (and far beyond it) who want more bloodshed and conflict, more killing of Israelis and Jews, more "dignity" for the 80+ percent of Jordanians who call themselves Palestinians.

Tamimi no longer takes part in the weekly terror-promoting TV program we mentioned earlier. (Leaving it was not her choice - another story.) But she continues to play a key role in Jordan's fascination with Arab-on-Israeli terror. For a good example, see "24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers".

Justice

The thwarted Jo Goldenberg extradition underscores what we already learned as we have tried (and continue to try) to bring our child's killer to justice since 2012:

You can have healthy bilateral relations based on justice, openness and honesty. Or you can pander to the powerful pro-terror forces operating inside Jordan. No one and certainly not a government that aligns itself strategically with the US can expect to have both.

It's a message we still hope (and fully expect) to hear articulated by officials of the US government.

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.

01-Jun-18: On watching our child's killer

Some people wonder why Tamimi has such an enthusiastic
following. We're not so puzzled.

What must it be like to endure a loved child's violent death and then see the killer's face in front of you: unhindered, alive, well, thriving, a celebrity boasting to others about what a blessed thing she did?

Not such a common thing of course. But in our case it doesn't take much imagination. It's part of our lives, a stressful and painful matter of our routine.

The name of Ahlam Tamimi, our daughter Malki's murderer, will be familiar to people who follow our blog. Tamimi was convicted on her open confession for the central role she had in the 2001 massacre at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria. She was sentenced by an Israeli judicial tribunal to 16 consecutive terms of life imprisonment. But she walked free in October 2011 - not because she was pardoned, not because she repented, not because the court changed its mind.

She was a beneficiary of the catastrophic Shalit Deal which brought about the unwarranted (and eventually lethal) release from Israeli top security prisons of no fewer than 1,027 Arab terrorists, the majority of whom were there for having killed or tried to kill Israelis and/or Arabs.

Two days after her release, Tamimi was re-settled in her homeland, Jordan. Shortly after that, we started work on asking the US government to bring serious charges against her under its laws. Our daughter Malki was a US citizen.

Early last year, a US Federal criminal complaint against Tamimi was unsealed in Washington DC ["14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought"].

The same day, the FBI announced she was being immediately added to its Most Wanted Terrorists list, and that the US was asking the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to extradite her under the provisions of the Clinton-era Jordan/US Extradition Treaty of 1995.

Fifteen months later, she is still on the FBI's list; the charges against her remain pending, though she needs to be in the US for the US courts to do their work; and Jordan flatly refuses to extradite her.

In fact, a Jordanian court has ruled that the treaty is of no effect, and never took effect. It blamed some narrow and technical factors that the US lawyers and criminal justice officials we have consulted dismiss as nonsense and that could have been fixed, if they existed at all, by Jordan alone. Our own research has turned up at least three separate cases where Jordan did extradite its own nationals to face serious criminal charges in the US.

An October 2017 commentary published by the respected National Security Law Brief says

Jordan's positions are without merit... the United States should not give up on attempting to extradite Al-Tamimi. If other countries place enough pressure on Jordan due to concerns of Al-Tamimi’s danger and susceptibility to planning another attack, Jordan may change its position... Jordan should reconsider its position and permit extradition in the case of Al-Tamimi for the safety of Jordanians, and citizens of other nations that may be subject to another attack by Al-Tamimi. Thwarting extradition not only violates the principle of comity, but it also perpetuates the international danger presented by Al-Tamimi... ["Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements", Michelle Munneke, October 28, 2017]

Nonsense or not, Jordan seems to be at ease with this self-confessed mass-murderer among its citizens, living freely and unhampered in its capital, playing an active role in that country's public life. Our efforts to get Jordan's foreign minister, other vocal members of Jordan's government, and Jordan's diplomats in Washington to justify Jordan's scandalous approach have produced what we feared: silence.

We have some pots on the cooker and are quietly hopeful that the day is not far off when Ahlam Tamimi appears before the US justice system and has to answer to the law.

We also claim some credit for a bounty that was announced by the State Department five months ago ["31-Jan-18: There's now a $5 million reward for bringing the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to justice"] but has not yet been awarded though there's no secret about where Tamimi and her family live.

Meanwhile, Tamimi remains - as we warned she would be in the months and years leading up to her extorted freedom - a highly visible spokesperson, an idolized advocate for the Islamist brand of terrorism and for bigotry directed at Jews, a constant and persuasive pro-terror voice spreading her brand of jihad in receptive circles.

(Among the scores of instances of what we said publicly back then, see "13-Oct-11: Roth explains to Australia's AM why the release of murderers is so bad [audio]"; "19-Oct-11: Haaretz: Shalit prisoner swap marks 'colossal failure' for mother of Israeli bombing victim"; "17-Nov-11: A monster walks the streets and she has many accomplices").

For five years, Tamimi fronted a heavily-promoted, made-in-Jordan terror-advocacy television program called “نسيم الأحرار” (transliteration: “ Nassem al-Ahrar” or “Breezes of the Free”) on one of the global Hamas TV stations. Beamed weekly by satellite and internet to large audiences, this turned her into a personality throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

Tamimi is an extremist who sees herself part of a war pitting her religion against others, in particular against the Jews. Not a philosophical war or an abstract clash-of-cultures battle but an actual blood-and-guts war in which people are physically conquered and killed. You can watch her being explicit about this in a video here: "08-Oct-17: Why kill religious Jewish children? Because, says Hamas celebrity-jihadist, this is a religious struggle".

For reasons worth exploring, though not here and now, she seemed to be less obvious and lower-profile in recent months. But spring has a been a busy time for her. Here she is addressing the Association of Palestinian Women Abroad in Jordan just a month ago:

Tamimi, in the white kerchief , is standing in the middle

As thrilling as enjoying the live presence of the woman who overcame the Zionists must have been to the ladies group, Tamimi played the central role in a significantly more impactful appearance just a few days later on May 8, 2018.

That's when one of the numerous arms of Hamas - equipped for reasons that baffle us with a working Twitter presence that has attracted more than 300,000 followers - ran this video clip (Tamimi comes on after about 15 seconds). It calls our daughter's murderer "the liberated prisoner Ahlam al-Tamimi" and it captures her delivering a message to the students of Birzeit University.

(It's archived here in case, you know, it gets lost at some point.)

رسالة الأسير المحررة أحلام التميمي إلى طلبة جامعة بيرزيت . pic.twitter.com/nZvXaDRV8l

— شبكة فلسطين للحوار (@paldf) May 8, 2018

Click the image above to view the video

Screen grab from the video

Translated to English by a friendly native-Arabic speaker, she is saying to the students:

“This phase is the phase of your persistence. The future is yours and the dawn smiles on you. God is with you and God’s eye protects you.”

She's in comfortable territory when addressing the Birzeit students. In 2001, Tamimi was herself a student of journalism at Birzeit University. Its website offers this self-description:

What began as a small girls’ school in Birzeit town has become the most prestigious Palestinian university, transforming Palestinian higher education through its impact on community awareness, culture and resistance. Birzeit University has been a thorn in the side of the occupation, insisting on playing its role of enlightenment and creating a multicultural Palestinian society on the campus grounds.

Ramallah where it is located has been ruled by the Palestinian Authority since the early nineties and serves today as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority. Nonetheless it's only too clear what the Birzeit authorities mean by their references to "resistance" and being "a thorn in the side of the occupation".

It's also clear what Tamimi, Hamas' first female jihadist, speaking via a Hamas-mouthpiece Twitter account, means when she refers to the future belong to the students and the almighty being with them and protecting them. She is an advocate for murdering Jews and Israelis. As she has said many times in public, she thinks others should do it too.

When it comes to Ahlam Tamimi, this is no mere polemic. Her audience understands that she is free despite masterminding a massacre. In her customary religion-centric language, she is urging them to do the same, assuring them of the same divine protection that her life exemplifies.

What sort of impact does explicit incitement of the Tamimi kind have on university students?

It's a question that ought to be asked by the various foreign universities that have "international partnership" arrangements with Birzeit. As the list here on the Birzeit website show, they include campuses in Spain, Belgium, Latvia, Malta, Greece, United Kingdom (including Middlesex University,  and the University of Salford), Italy, Norway, Bulgaria, Estonia, Iceland, Ireland, Austria and Germany.

The Arabic version of Birzeit's Wikipedia entry lists under the heading "Students and Graduates" the names of prominent terrorists including Tamimi herself along with Yahya Ayyash, Hamas'  most famous bomb-maker (now deceased) and Marwan Barghouti, serving multiple life sentences for terrorism and murder. (None of them is mentioned in the English-language Wikipedia entry for Birzeit, though it does mention that "Hanan Ashrawi taught literature there".

Jordan is an ally of the United States. A March 2018 "Fact Sheet" issued by the State Department and entitled "U.S. Security Cooperation With Jordan" calls the Hashemite Kingdom

a critical and close partner for the United States in the Middle East with which we share a number of important strategic goals. Jordan has been a staunch U.S. ally in the global effort to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other terrorist groups. Jordan is also a close partner with the United States on a range of diplomatic and security challenges throughout the region, among them the crisis in Syria, combating violent extremism, and advancing Middle East peace. Jordan’s stability and security is a priority for the United States, which has provided assistance to Jordan... 

Then there's also this:

Jordan has treaty obligations to the US and seeks - successfully so far - to avoid them in the specific case of the murderer of Jewish children and Israeli citizens even as it agrees to extradite other Jordanian felons whose victims weren't Jews or Israelis.

And this:

Jordan provides a safe haven for one of the highest-profile individual propagandists for Hamas' brand of Islamist terror currently active.

If Jordan respects its US ally, it ought to be acting very differently and the US ought to be letting the Jordanian regime know what is expected of it. If Tamimi is a test, up until now there can be little doubt the jihadists are ahead.

27-Apr-18: If it really means to tackle radicalism, the Kingdom of Jordan should extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the US

The US State Department announced a $5M reward on Ahlam Tamimi's head in January 2018 [Source]

His Excellency Dr Mohammad Momani,
State Minister for Media Affairs and Communications,
Amman, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Dear Dr Momani,

We know from very recent media reports that Jordan is currently navigating treacherous waters. Its economy is weak, prices are rising, incomes are not and government subsidies on bread and other essentials are being slashed or removed. Jordan's GDP per capita is barely a quarter of the world's average, roughly the same as Albania's. In 1965 (according to the World Bank), Israel's GDP was 2.7 times the size of Jordan's; today (IMF estimates for 2018) it's almost 7 times as large. The two countries have roughly the same size population and roughly equivalent resources.

We're hearing that the Jordanian populace are angry and the fury is growing. There have been riots over the prices of basic foods.

On top of all that, there's been an upsurge in grand larceny as this report from yesterday shows:

A series of armed bank robberies in Amman has rattled Jordan, with some activists blaming the country's rising crime rate on alleged government corruption and failed economic policies. Activists say increased taxes and food and fuel prices have eroded the savings and salaries of the country's poor, which has pushed some to resort to serious crime. Armed bank robberies are rare in Jordan, but Amman has recently seen four heists in branches of the Societe Generale Bank Jordan and Arab Bank - Jordan... Many Jordanians have since expressed seeming delight in the robberies on social media, in a reflection of anti-government sentiment... Activists say government policies were the main catalyst contributing to the increase in violent crime, something that was rare until recently. They point to the recent proliferation of violent street gangs, car thefts and drug trafficking rings that have dominated some sections of Amman with impunity... ["Jordan bank robberies rattle Amman, activists blame government", Al Jazeera, April 21, 2018]

While Al Jazeera speaks of four heists, you probably know the Jordanian media speak of a larger number ["6th bank robbery in Amman since start of year", Jordan Times, April 18, 2018]. This surely worries you and your ministerial colleagues.

The specific way you chose to address this problem caught our attention and made us want to get in touch. Here's the full text of a report we spotted in an independent Jordanian newspaper from a few days ago, quoting you:

AMMAN: Government spokesperson and State Minister for Media Affairs Dr Mohammad Momani condemned the sweeping sympathy for bank robbers on social media today, Thursday, and described sympathisers as criminals. During the Minister’s weekly appearance on Radio Jordan, every Thursday, he said that publically [sic] condoning criminal activity is a crime. The same goes in various countries around the world, he claimed. On Jerusalem, Mr Momani reaffirmed that Trump’s decision to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv is illegal and hurtful to the peace process... It feeds radicalisation as it only fosters frustration and desperation, he underlined. ["Gov’t Speaker: Sympathising with Bank Robbers is Crime", Al Ghad, April 19. 2018]

You make some good points here. But if condoning bank robberies is a crime, Mr. Minister, then what do you say about protecting and honoring an unrepentant killer of children - the woman we describe below? And how do you justify allowing her to spread a lethal message of ultra-violent bigotry from the safe haven of Amman, Jordan? Why is she still living free in your country and sheltered by your legal system?

We traveled to Jordan a couple of times before - but not after - our child's murder at the hands of a Jordanian woman in 2001. These were brief stays and we weren't tourists. The meetings we had were with impressive decision-makers and thought-leaders. We enjoyed the experience. But to be clear, we don't claim special knowledge of your country. On the contrary - much about it puzzles us.

To illustrate: you underline (using Al Ghad's words) that radicalisation "fosters frustration and desperation". That sounds right to us. For what it's worth as non-Jordanians, we would encourage you and King Abdullah II to keep radicalisation of Jordanians as much under control as possible. Radicalisation is a widespread problem right across the Arab world. But it's not without solutions, provided the government leads the way. 

Dr Momani [Image Source]

But then what Jordan is doing to lead the way doesn't seem very well-advised. How your country has dealt with Ahlam Tamimi, Mr Minister, illustrates the point dramatically.

There's no need for us to tell you that among Jordanians, she's a celebrity, a figure of huge admiration, who has appeared often in your media and has a high public profile. As you surely know, she shared a public platform with several Jordanian lawmakers and a former Jordanian prime minister just a few weeks ago [We documented it here: "05-Jan-18: In Jordan, the FBI fugitive Ahlam Tamimi pays tribute to her slapping/taunting/kicking Tamimi cousin"].

But this is an open letter. So we will explain to our readers that Mrs Tamimi is an admitted agent of the widely-outlawed jihadist organization Hamas, the first female to be recruited by them and – in terms of lives extinguished and grief inflicted – one of their most productive.

She boasts explicitly and often of the killings she masterminded and executed at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. She takes credit for choosing a site where significant numbers of children could be blown to pieces. Jewish children, of course; she makes clear that for her the conflict and the homicides are all about religion.

Tamimi faces Federal charges brought against her by the US government that were unsealed just a year ago, in March 2017. She is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list with a reward on her head of $5M. Her extradition has been requested by the US government under the fully-in-force and undoubtedly valid 1995 extradition treaty your kingdom signed with the Clinton administration. By the way, several Jordanian felons have been extradited by Jordan to the United States since the treaty came into effect. Jordan and its courts pretend this is not so and journalists seem to be cowed into accepting the pretense.

For reasons most Jordanians understand and which your country's leadership obfuscates, Jordan says it will not hand her over to the US authorities. Tamimi herself understands how valuable your government's help has been to her and has publicly thanked the Kingdom of Jordan and its courts for this. She appreciates Jordan standing in solidarity with her. Her family has explicitly praised Jordan's judiciary - which of course is answerable to the king - for its "integrity, justice and patriotism" [source]. They recognize that they owe Jordan's leadership a large debt of thanks.

One might hope that there are large numbers of Jordanians who are sickened or at least embarrassed by this. Sadly not so much, it appears. For the past several years and up to today, we and several Jordanian friends who help us check the Jordanian media closely have not yet found a single instance of a Jordanian official or judge or religious leader or political commentator distancing your country from the horrific slaughter which elevated Ahlam Tamimi into a Jordanian hero.

We don't claim deep knowledge of your country. If we're mistaken and there is in fact meaningful outrage over the admiration she attracts among Jordanians, please do tell us.

We're left to wonder about all of this. Not one word of criticism in any part of your media. No public arguments. No evident self-examination. No dissent from the popular view that this homicidal sociopath is a champion of Jordan, a figure for your society's children to grow up and emulate.

Then there's the disturbing matter of one of your country's most admired educational centers, the Jordan Media Institute.

As the political official responsible for Jordan's media, you're surely aware of the matters we described here ["10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred"]. Your government created a school for training a new generation of Arabic-language journalists along what were to be Western lines, and right there on their website those best-and-brightest budding editors and reporters declared that Ahlam Tamimi was their role-model.

That astounding, appalling veneration for a confessed mass-murderer of Jewish children remained on view and uncontradicted right up until we publicized it. We successfully persuaded several (not all) of its foreign supporters to back off and to discontinue their funding.

The school's response was to silently, without any public explanation or attention, take down the entire site and pretend the scandal never happened. We documented all of this in articles we published on December 11, 2014; January 11, 2015; January 16, 2015; January 19, 2015; January 23, 2015; and February 4, 2015. 

By the way, we tried to speak directly with the JMI. Our attempts to get into a dialogue with its leadership were rebuffed in a blunt, ugly and completely unacceptable way. For all anyone knows, the students who graduated from the JMI since 2015 have taken up positions in the Arabic language journalism industry fully committed to the idea that their professional role-model is a mass-murdering Jordanian female who is on the run from the US legal system.

What impact will that have on your plans to reduce radicalisation and counter all the frustration and desperation? Perhaps not much given that Jordan's press freedom is in such bad shape:

Jordan drops two places on World Press Freedom index | Jordan Times | Mohammad Ghazal | Feb 12, 2015 | 21:44 | AMMAN — Jordan has dropped two places on the World Press Freedom Index 2015, ranking 143rd among 180 countries, as the government said it will continue to develop media freedom in the Kingdom. The Reporters Without Borders annual index released Thursday showed that Jordan continued a decline in press freedom, as it was ranked 141st in the 2014 index and 134th in the 2013 index. At the Arab level, Jordan ranked 11th... Commenting on the report, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Mohammad Momani said: “We will continue to develop our freedom of expression.”

You are quoted there yourself, saying you will "continue to develop [Jordan's] freedom of expression". That was three years ago.

So how well did you do in the following years? Not too well. In the most recent index, Jordan is in 138th place - lower than in 2013, lower than in 2016. Jordan's press freedom is almost at the bottom of the world league... and sinking, as we wrote here.

Here's something else we wrote back then that deals directly with how to defeat radicalisation:

A society claiming to be at war with the terrorists and aspiring to "continue to develop" its "freedom of expression" and "media freedom" has to have a strategy that goes beyond self-aggrandizing press statements. It also needs to be substantially more upfront with the outside world - and with itself, it seems - about the lethal support for jihad that infects the ranks of key parts of its population, including some of the journalists whose future careers it is proudly hailing... ["13-Feb-15: Jordanian accuracy"]

It's still relevant today. 

We still hope and expect to see Jordan comply with its international treaty obligations described well here ["Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements", Michelle Munneke - American University Washington College of Law, National Security Law Brief, October 28, 2017] and hand Tamimi over to the US so she can be brought to justice.

If Jordan's leadership is sincere about suppressing radicalism, it will share that aspiration.

Sincerely,

Frimet and Arnold Roth

Jerusalem

(A version of this open letter appeared originally in Times of Israel on April 23, 2018 under the title "Extradite Tamimi: An open letter to Jordan’s media minister". If you are a friend or acquaintance of the minister, please pass this along to him. He's sure to want to respond to us.)