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?

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 ►

02-Apr-19: Setting facts, ethics, context aside, Al Jazeera salutes a couple of murderers

Mr and Mrs Tamimi at home in Jordan's capital Amman,
in a video segment embedded in the Al Jazeera homage

In Arabic only (so far), Aljazeera published a paean this past week to a pair of convicted and unrepentant terrorists sentenced by Israel to life-term prison sentences for killing many Israelis.

The two are not merely out of prison but, from what we can tell, live a highly public and comfortable life replete with exposure, celebrity, adulation and valuable political connections that seem to help smooth their way.

Al Jazeera Media Network whose chairman Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani served as a minister in Qatar's government in the eighties and nineties and who is a member of the ruling family of Qatar, the House of Thani, is a formidable communications conglomerate owned by the government of Qatar. It has some 80 bureaux and more than 100,000 employees distributed around the world.

This particular piece was published on the AlJazeera.net site last Thursday and so far has appeared only in Arabic. While the group publishes in multiple languages including English, Turkish, Indonesian, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, the AlJazeera.net platform is specifically dedicated to Arabic speakers.

Because we think it shines some much-needed light on how Arab-on-Israeli terror is viewed in much of the Arabic-speaking world, we arranged a professional translation. The text appears below. 

A word for those uncomfortable with violence and bloodshed: Rest assured. Though this is all about a couple of unrepentant convicted felons, people who murdered other people and have never expressed regret for their deeds, and while one might expect some unpleasant discussion about killings and deaths - actually there isn't that much. Hardly any.

In fact, what violence there is happens to be about Israelis threatening (they say) and killing other people (they allege). We'll come back to that counter-intuitive aspect at the end.

Political News
Nizar and Ahlam: A couple pursued by “chains” despite their release from occupation imprisonment

March 28, 2019 | Aljazeera.net | From Mahmoud Al-Shar’aan in Amman 

They became engaged in the prisons of Israeli occupation. They were released in the prisoner exchange deal of 2011 known as the “Wafaa’ Al-Ahrar deal” between the Palestinian Resistance Movement (HAMAS) and the occupation. [TOW: In the West, it's better known as the Gilad Shalit Deal]  

Their relationship led to marriage and the establishment of a Palestinian house of “resistance” in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

They are the freed prisoners Nizar Al-Tamimi (45) and his wife Ahlam Al-Tamimi (38) who was born in Jordan. 

The bond of marriage was not the only thing they shared. They were also brought together by the defence of Palestine and the sacrifice they gave towards the struggle through the years they spent in prison.

Nizar, who belongs to the Palestinian Liberation Movement (Fatah) was sentenced to life in prison after he participated in the killing of an Israeli citizen in the nineties of which he served 20 years before he was released. 

Ahlam on the other hand was the first woman to have joined the Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. She was sentenced to 16 life sentences after she participated in a martyrdom operation against the occupation of Jerusalem in 2001, of which she served 10 years before she was released.

A new life

Their many years spent in prison have not killed the normal life of these freed prisoners as they both are pursuing their education, each in his own field. 

The husband is preparing for his Masters thesis [sic] in political science with the title “The law of Jewish nationalism and its effect on the reality and future of the Palestinian cause”, while the wife is preparing to study towards her Masters thesis [sic] in Journalism and Media under the title “A theoretical etymology of the concept of prisoner media”.

Nizar tells Aljazeera.net that freedom was like a new birth for them both after having spent many tough years in jail. “We were able to come out of prison strong, and more importantly we are still bearers of the message of truth when it comes to our just cause, and we have begun a new life”.

But the lives of the couple were thrown into disarray after they received messages threatening to pursue them and to lay cases against them in the United States.

The last case of these threats came in the words of the American peace process delegate to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, who wrote on his official Twitter account that “Americans must know that Ahlam Al-Tamimi who is a Hamas terrorist convicted of killing 15 people, seven of whom were children killed in cold blood, is living free today”.

Greenblatt announced a reward of the equivalent of 5 million dollars to anyone who can provide information on Ahlam Al-Tamimi and the Hamas leader, Saleh Al Aruri.

Continuous threats

Greenblatt’s threats were not new. They are a part of a long chain of threats received by Ahlam and her husband. It was revealed to Aljazeera.net that Jewish organizations paid to lay cases against them in American courts of law.

Ahlam identifies herself as a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian origin who is a freedom fighter for a just cause. “I refuse to allow my cause and the cause of my nation to be labelled as terrorism or that the door be opened to some representatives trying to make political gains to pass whatever they want under the cover of their mission”.

The freed prisoner regards her being in Jordan to be a point of strength as there is no agreement between Amman and Washington that states that wanted people need to be handed over. In addition, the Jordanian judicial authorities refused a previous American demand for her to be handed over.

She is asking the Kingdom to protect her from American hegemony and the continuing threats against her, and to solve her crisis with the United States “politically”.

Ahlam does not deny her fears of the financial reward offered by Greenblatt, because the involvement of money in this case might facilitate passing information on her or that the matter might even reach assassination, as she says.

At the same time, her husband is of the view that once a prisoner is released from prison, he remains a target of Israel, and he can therefore never really feel total calm as other prisoners have been killed after they were released from prison, as he says.

A house of resistance

Between four walls, the couple spend time telling stories and reliving the memories of prison life, of Palestine and of comrades in struggle. The best years of their lives were taken from them by Israeli courts and prison bars. This however did not prevent them from trying to live normally and defend their rights in a clear message that is not open for discussion, the summary of which says that there is no conceding the entirety of Palestine.

Nizar, the son of Fatah, and Ahlam, the daughter of Hamas, are the embodiment of the reality of a unified Palestinian people, in the wake of division which they described as an exception to the rule. They have spent their lives together with many ideas, some of which were conflicting, but they both always agree in the end that there is no way to liberate Palestine except through resistance and that it is the only way to achieve it.

Source: Aljazeera (Arabic) online here. In case it somehow disappears, we arranged for it to be  archived here.

A few observations.

• The only violence mentioned in this brazen homage is violence they claim is directed at - not by - the Tamimis, a pair of unrepentant murderers. As journalism goes, this is exceedingly shabby. Are there ethical standards in the Al Jazeera media empire? What are they?
• Seriously, is it true as they claim here that "there is no agreement between Amman and Washington that states that wanted people need to be handed over"? No, not really. We explained that here: "14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?" Bottom line: Jordan and the US signed an extradition treaty 24 years ago; the US absolutely considers it still valid and in full effect and Jordan has never complained to its American treaty partners that there is a problem with it. In fact, Jordan has cheerfully handed over Jordanian felons to the US at the request of the US. But it refuses to hand over Ahlam Tamimi. It justifies this on the contentious footing that there is now a Jordanian constitutional law issue to consider. They don't say, but we think they should, that Tamimi is different from the others already extradited because she killed Israelis. Note that none of this seems to be known to the Al Jazeera editors and their reporter. Or perhaps they simply have no interest in conveying what they know to their news consumers. So it's either shameful pretense or it's professional incompetence.
• The reporter claims that "the lives of the couple were thrown into disarray after they received messages threatening to pursue them and to lay cases against them in the United States." This is pure invention. Ahlam Tamimi is wanted on US Federal charges that were unsealed in Washington on March 14, 2017 (see the previous para). There are no charges pending against her husband, but it adds an element of extra drama to the story. A great pity, seriously, that it's bunk.
• Did Ahlam Tamimi hurt anyone? Hard to know from this piece of shameless advocacy and terror promotion. All that the Al Jazeera journalist and his editors want their Arabic-language readers to know is that this Jordanian woman was locked away for a tremendously long prison term because "she participated in a martyrdom operation against the occupation of Jerusalem". Is it even worth mentioning that 16 people were murdered in that "operation"? That Tamimi picked the spot because it attracted so many children and brought the bomb to it at the busiest time of the day? That this savage boasts openly and happily about it in front of cameras and live audiences? That the panel of judges who sentenced her recommended that Israel never consider letting her out under any circumstances or deals? And that they were ignored when the Shalit Deal was done? We guess not.
• Did she reveal that she's now pursuing a masters degree in journalism and media? We think (and we're checking so that we can be sure) that only a couple of Jordanian institutions offer such programs. One happens to be a school about which we have written in the past, and which has an extremely shabby connection to Tamimi herself: See "By their role models shall ye know them" [Times of Israel, December 2014]. 
• The Tamimis claim to have "received messages threatening to pursue them and to lay cases against them in the United States". Other than as another invented dramatic device, this notion of threats doesn't make much sense. The reporter could have mentioned that the US Department of Justice unveiled those serious criminal charges against Ahlam Tamimi more than two years ago ["14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought"]. He could have pointed out she was arrested in Jordan by Jordanian police on the basis of an Interpol Red Notice in September 2016 (with absolutely no publicity), but he doesn't. She was released the following morning but that says more about Jordan and its legal and power system than about the criminality of Ahlam Tamimi. Maybe he doesn't know. Maybe he already forgot. Maybe this isn't really about facts and news but about fantasies and delusions of Tamimi victimhood. But how is this journalism?
• The reporter and his editors are under the mistaken impression that Trump envoy Jason "Greenblatt announced a reward of the equivalent of 5 million dollars to anyone who can provide information on Ahlam Al-Tamimi". No, he didn't. The reward, which certainly does exist, was issued more than a year before Greenblatt mentioned it in his Tweet. And it doesn't come from Greenblatt but from a unit of the US State Department called Rewards for Justice. The year-and-a-half-old details for the Al Jazeera news-hounds are here (you're welcome): "31-Jan-18: There's now a $5 million reward for bringing the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to justice". Can we now expect a correction? Or do Al Jazeera's people claim ownership of their own version of reality?
• It's quite moving to read that "The best years of [the Tamimi couple's] lives were taken from them by Israeli courts and prison bars". Taken from them? Why? But it's chilling that the editors of this Al Jazeera group outlet manage to tell the story of two unusually cruel murderers without even a passing reference to the many lives they extinguished by their acts of depraved savagery. They give the impression that they identify with the killers and the killings. Is this fair of us? But if we're right (of course we are), do their pay-masters in the government of Qatar know this? Perhaps they will now. Perhaps they will even want to know about the life and lost "best years" of our desperately missed daughter Malki who was 15 when Ahlam Tamimi delivered her exploding guitar case on the back of her human bomb to Sbarro. (Full disclosure: Malki was not the only person murdered there that day. It was a massacre. In a pizzeria. Children were the target; they ended up being more than half the casualties. Tamimi's sickening, satanic plan worked. She hasn't stopped smiling and boasting about it.)  
• When Al Jazeera quotes Nizar Tamimi asserting that "other [Palestinian Arab] prisoners have been killed after they were released from prison", did they check? Can they bring cases? As a news agency, did they think of listing the names of the many mass murderers [some named here along with their crimes] who walked free in that catastrophic transaction? Did they think of referring to the Israelis murdered after the Shalit Deal [some of them named here] by unrepentant terrorists who were let loose?
• The Al Jazeera editors, aware of the endless enmity among the Hamas, Fatah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad factions, must have seen the almost humorous irony in their reporter claiming the Tamimis as "the embodiment of the reality of a unified Palestinian people". Unified? They must have already decided this scurrilous piece of reporting-as-incitement needed to serve a higher purpose than the objective reporting of news. So what the heck - go for broke. 
• Will the major news organizations and global content aggregators who partner with Al Jazeera (like Google, Bloomberg, TechLive, Snapchat) be interested to know how the party they're consorting with acts as an active and effective promoter of terrorism that publishes sentiments like Ahlam Tamimi's "there is no way to liberate Palestine except through resistance"? Probably not. The rest of us surely should.

This reward poster in Arabic was issued by the US State
Department in January 2018 but has never been physically
posted anywhere in Jordan or the Arab world.

In the interests of seeming balanced, and having regard for the monumental media footprint the Al Jazeera empire has managed to create, here's what the public relations professionals working at Al Jazeera said about their employer a year ago:

We, at Al Jazeera, renew our commitment to global audiences with news coverage and programs which provide in depth analysis of news and current affairs. We will continue celebrating the achievements brought by our diversity of staff who hail from almost 100 different countries. It is this diversity of values and cultures that enriches our work and provides our audiences with the award-winning content on all our platform. We urge democratic forces all over the world, especially in United States, to stand with free media institutions to promote and protect the values of democracy, liberty, human rights, freedom of media and the right to free speech. Don’t shoot the messenger, journalism is not a crime.

Maybe they don't mean their Arabic output. And when the subject is this thing they call "resistance", perhaps different rules apply.

UPDATE Monday April 2, 2019 at 7:00 pm: The Al Jazeera piece includes a substantial video interview which is of course not in English. We have just been told by friends (thank you, friends!) that MEMRI has posted a translation. Please go and read, watch and share - it's here.

21-Mar-19: The Sbarro Massacre mastermind worries she isn't getting enough sympathy

The Moroccan interview [Source]

Some far-off day, we may write a book about how it feels to grieve for the lost life of a beloved child murdered at the age of 15 by a violent religious fanatic - and to see other people place the mastermind of her killing on a hero's pedestal.

That's been our fate since Ahlam Tamimi, a Jordanian woman who was Hamas' first-ever female terror agent, returned in 2011 to her homeland  and began living the life of her dreams.

Jordan is where she was born and raised. It's where most of her family live. Jordan is also the kingdom whose rulers have taken what seem to us to be huge foreign relations risks by sticking a finger in the eye of their most important ally, the United States.

How they did this is something about which we have written and spoken publicly a lot. Jordan has an extradition agreement with the United States. It's been in place since Bill Clinton was president. Several Jordanians were extradited to the US and convicted and imprisoned.

But there's evidently something about a Jordanian woman who identifies as a Palestinian Arab and whose targets were not only Israelis but also mainly children that somehow changes the degree to which Jordan respects its bilateral obligations.

The bottom line: Jordan's highest court ruled in March 2017 that Tamimi cannot be extradited to Washington because (this takes genuine hutzpah, given the realities of power in Jordan) that treaty is not only unconstitutional now but has been since the day it was signed by the two governments. We won't go into details but the problem on which Jordan's Court of Cassation based its finding is a highly technical, narrow and trivial one that Jordan could have easily fixed and still can. It chooses not to.

And so instead of standing trial in Washington and facing life imprisonment, this FBI Most Wanted Terrorist who confesses to killing 15 people now appears - more and more often - in public Jordanian forums, in Jordan's mass media and in the newspapers and websites and television  programs of Arabic media outlets throughout the world. (For more about the events of the past two years since the US charges against Tamimi were unveiled, see "14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?")

If you're a regular visitor to our blog, you may know how distressed we are by the sense that the US government could do, but is not doing, more to press Jordan and bring this loathsome and very dangerous woman to justice.

You might also know that we have been campaigning for the US to take more active measures. This has entailed more and more overtures to public officials and members of Congress [see "03-Feb-16: In Washington DC, victims of terror and the search for justice"] and a lot of behind the scenes activity. There has been meaningful progress but still not enough.

Out of the blue, in the midst of yet another official King Abdullah II visit to Washington nine days ago, one of the US president's senior advisers took up the Extradite Tamimi cause publicly. He did this via Twitter ["12-Mar-19: Yes, Americans surely ought to know that Ahlam Tamimi lives free today"], tweeting

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

Two days ago, Tamimi took advantage of an interview with a Moroccan newspaper, to push back.

The interview was of course published in Arabic. What follows is a fisked English version (and it's not machine translated) in which the fugitive engages in a mixture - by now familiar to us - of outright lies, self-aggrandizing exaggerations and a small handful of intriguing revelations.

I am not a terrorist but a girl who defended her land and America does not frighten me: Interview | 2019-03-19 | Yusuf Bannasiriya in AlYawm24

Last Tuesday, the American president’s delegate to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt attacked the Jordanian journalist of Palestinian origin, the freed prisoner in the Wafaa al-Ahrar (Gilad Shalit) deal, Ahlam Tamimi. He said via a tweet on Twitter that Tamimi “killed more than 15 people and is living free today” while demanding information on her whereabouts in exchange for a financial reward.

This Ongoing War says: Actually Mr Greenblatt isn't demanding anything other than that Americans ought to know. Why they surely should. The link he includes in the tweet explains - in English but unfortunately not in Arabic - that the Rewards for Justice unit at the US State Department has for more than a year now been offering a $5M prize for information leading to her capture and conviction in the United States. (The far more important Arabic version of that State Department poster is online here.) Tamimi and her Moroccan interviewer are probably not familiar with the reward for the sad reason that no physical posters have actually been posted anywhere. That's an issue for another time.

In this context, the Al-Yawm 24 website interviewed this young Palestinian woman who is wanted by Washington, Ahlam Tamimi, and who was arrested by the Occupation after her involvement in a martyrdom operation in 2001 after which she was sentenced to 1,600 years of imprisonment, before being released in the prisoner exchange deal in 2011.

This Ongoing War says: They call her a Palestinian but the record shows she was born in Jordan, was educated there right up until the point where she decided to cross the Jordan River and pursue journalism studies at a Palestinian Arab university, and lives there today with the man she married there seven years ago ["22-Jun-12: A wedding and what came before it"]. Calling the massacre of Jewish customers (Tamimi says she went looking for Jews) "a martyrdom operation" is a cognitive warfare strategy. Tamimi is no martyr and has made clear repeatedly that her goal was murder - the murder of Israeli children. The weapon she planted at Sbarro to achieve her hideous aim was a human bomb - a young religious fanatic with an explosive-laden guitar case on his back; at the critical moment, he blew up the guitar case, himself, the Sbarro pizzeria and many unarmed, unsuspecting humans. She brought him from Ramallah, accompanying him through the Israeli security checkpoint and along the streets of central Jerusalem. Neither he nor she sought to commit suicide but to kill people. The reference to "1,600 years of imprisonment" is inaccurate: she was serving 16 concurrent terms of life imprisonment with a strong judicial recommendation that she never be paroled or otherwise released. In the event, she was in prison for barely 8 years after being sentenced.

Q. What is this all about and what is the story behind the American demand of handing you over to Washington?

Tamimi: Mine is an old story that goes back to September 2016 when Interpol circulated the red memo all over the world in an attempt to capture me and hand me over to America due to two cases having been opened against me by the families of the dead Israelis who had dual American citizenship and who died in the Jihadi operations which I waged in Jerusalem. These were successful and from that day on, the statements kept coming, the most recent one of which is Greenblatt’s statement claiming that I am living free and that there is an American reward site which is offering 5 million dollars to whoever provides information on me.

This Ongoing War says: The FBI and the US Department of Justice sought and got an Interpol Red Notice some time before September 2016 while the US Federal criminal complaint against Tamimi was still under seal i.e. secret. Interpol doesn't have its own officers. Interpol says the Red Notice is "a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action... A Red Notice is an international wanted persons notice, but it is not an arrest warrant." The Jordanian police were obliged to act on it and did. (They have since made clear the case is closed from their standpoint, and they don't plan to bother her again.) She was taken into custody for a single night and then released in the morning. She was then, we believe, told by Jordanian government officials to maintain a low profile, as a result of which she stopped presenting the inciting-to-terror, Hamas-produced TV show ["Breezes of the Free"] she had recorded every week in Amman for nearly five years.

Q. Who issued the previous statements?

Tamimi: Among these were official statements issued by the US Attorney General who said that I was a terrorist and a criminal, and she demanded from Trump, at the beginning of his presidency, that he arrest me. She said: “Go and practise your duty as president and arrest this terrorist who is currently living freely in Jordan”, in addition to statements issued by the Jewish society which laid two cases against me in the Washington court.

This Ongoing War says: To see what three of the highest-ranking law enforcement officials in the US, including Mary B. McCord, the then Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security,  actually did say, go to the Department of Justice Media Release dated March 14, 2017 and headed "Individual Charged in Connection With 2001 Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem That Resulted in Death of Americans". Prof. McCord called Tamimi "an unrepentant terrorist who admitted to her role in a deadly terrorist bombing that injured and killed numerous innocent victims... 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."

Q. What is your response to the latest statements of the US delegate to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt?

Tamimi: Firstly, this person is the consultant to the American president Donald Trump, so he is not a nobody. In addition, as I indicated before, he is the US peace delegate to the Middle East. His mission therefore is as someone who is supposedly working towards peace and who is speaking from this starting point, while his statements conflict with the expected mannerisms of this role. How can we speak about peace and complete calm while he leaves the terrorists of ISIS and the terrorist citizens within America to shoot at schools and kill civilians, and then he comes to speak against a Palestinian having Jordanian citizenship and whose role it was only to defend her homeland in a resistance against the longest invasion in the world, as the Palestinian people have done.

This Ongoing War says: Tamimi, a highly-ideological savage who grins right into the camera when asked about the children she bombed to pieces, assumes the mantel of striver for peace. A defender of her homeland. A resistance fighter. She assumes (and she may be right) that she's addressing an audience for whom war crimes, the cold-blooded, calculated murder of innocents and the deliberate hunting down of children all come with no moral stain. That what she did is perfectly understandable. The question for the rest of is do we want to live in a world like that; or allow her to live free in our world and promote those ugly ideas.

I say to Greenblatt after his very racist statements that I am not a terrorist. I am a girl who defended her land and country and who based on this was falsely sentenced by the Zionist entity. I spent 10 and a half years in prison and then left according to an internationally recognized deal.

This Ongoing War says: We're all racists in Tamimi's view of the world. She's feted, celebrated, given public podiums to make her hate-filled, ultra-violent speeches but we need to understand, she says, that she's a girl (actually 39 now, and 21 when she masterminded the massacre) and that having confessed to the Israeli court that sent her to sixteen life terms, she was "falsely sentenced". She implies that an "internationally recognized deal", presumably the release of 1,027 terrorists in a Hamas-directed extortion of Israel in the 2011 Shalit Deal, means she's off the hook. But of course she's not. We have a copy of the legal papers she was given prior to being released that say she and the others are having their sentences conditionally commuted subject to them not re-offending. Tamimi herself, in every public appearance she makes, reminds us how central the idea of murdering Israelis is to her existence and values. She incites to terror as easily as most of us breathe. The terms of her commutation mean she became immediately subject to re-imprisonment in Israel as soon as she landed in Jordan. Separate and independently from that, she faces serious terrorism charges in Washington.

I consider these statements to be very racist and unjust Nazi-like statements. They are illogical and indicate that this person, Jason Greenblatt, is working in favour of Zionism as he is using the same rhetoric as the Zionists, at a time when he supposed to speaking about peace as he is the peace delegate.

This Ongoing War says: As a communicator, Tamimi is no idiot. She knows her audiences. Slinging accusations that the guy giving you a hard time is a Nazi and/or a racist evidently works in her circle. She doesn't need to explain; hurling the insults is a goal in itself. And of course peace is very dear to her ice-cold heart.

So your accusations against me are false, and I shall continue to defend my rights until my last breath. Neither Greenblatt nor others scare me. I am going on with my life. I live as a free citizen in Jordan, I am completing my studies, and I have not done anything against Americans as they are claiming.

This Ongoing War says: She's not defending her rights. She's not deflecting any accusations. She's not denying any actual charges. None of this is surprising; she has admitted them for years. She doesn't have to defend, deflect or deny because the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is already shielding her, doing an effective job of keeping the Feds away. As for "I have not done anything against Americans", she had a different version two years ago ["24-Mar-17: Our daughter's smiling killer: "Shocked" that US "decided to go after her for no obvious reason""].

Q. How do you consider the timing of these latest statements? What is the motive behind them?

Tamimi: I consider the timing to have been calculated and intentional because it coincides with the visit of the King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Washington, and with the meeting held between King Abdullah and Greenblatt, the US foreign secretary and the White House consultant. So what happened? And what was said behind the scenes in this meeting for Greenblatt to come out with these statements? This is the question that I pose. I have Jordanian citizenship, and these statements coincide with King Abdullah’s meeting with them, and with the nature of the discussions held by these three people. They spoke of the deal of the century and consolidating Jordanian American bilateral relations in combating terrorism – two lines under the word terrorism – and then these statements were made. I shall leave the readers to do their own analyses, and for the analysts to analyse the timing of these two events.

This Ongoing War says: This is revealing. Tamimi is solidly aligned with Hamas. At the same time, she claims to be grateful to King Abdullah II and his "steadfast" law courts for keeping her safe from the DOJ. But there's been considerable friction between the Islamists and the Hashemites, sometimes more, sometimes less, since he became king. Saying "I shall leave the readers to do their own analyses", Tamimi is inviting criticism of the king that, if it came out of her own mouth, would cause her problems with Jordan's government - the members of which the king appoints and removes at will. Important note: Tamimi would probably hate for people to start commenting on how ungrateful she actually seems to be to the king.

Q. How is your daily life going in light of this situation?

Tamimi: I am banned from travelling to any country in the world because my name has been registered at all the airports since 2016. I am banned from making Umrah. I used to work in Lebanon after I was freed from prison but unfortunately my travel ban has caused my source of income there to come to a halt. In addition, my freedom of movement within Jordan itself is limited. My life as a freed prisoner is now restricted. It has placed limitations on my life and it is frustrating. In other words, I have not benefited anything from this freedom with these American demands hovering over me. As for my life becoming unstable, there are many continuous threats that make you live cautiously with your eyes open. There is no comfort and quiet.

This Ongoing War says: Life's a bitch. She's a mass murderer and wanted by Interpol but really, all she wants is comfort and quiet, to visit Saudi Arabia, to go about her jihad-focused business. And they just won't let her. She's a victim of American demands. What did she ever do to deserve all these restrictions?

After the financial reward was offered this week, I have had to beware of any person I see in the street whom I do not know. He could be a bounty hunter or someone who was hired to take me. At any moment, I could be forced into a car and taken to America, due to the American embassy being located in Jordan. These are some of many dangers which unfortunately have been revived in my life.

This Ongoing War says: The State Department reward was announced more than a year ago ["31-Jan-18: There's now a $5 million reward for bringing the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to justice"]    and not, as Tamimi says, "this week". She blew eight children to pieces but asks for sympathy because of "dangers which unfortunately have been revived" in her pampered life of fame and influence. You could choke from reading this kind of thing. We could. We do.

Q. In March 2017, Jordan, through the Court of Cassation, rejected the American administration’s decision that you be handed over to Washington. What do you expect now from the Kingdom of Jordan?

Tamimi: My story has become a political one, and it therefore needs to come to an end through the strong American-Jordanian alliance in a one minute joint session, through understandings taken between King Abdullah and President Donald Trump, so that this issue can be laid to rest and so that the two cases are withdrawn from the Washington court.

Jordan has naturally taken a very important first step when it provided me with a judicial decision and submitted it to America. They told them that they cannot and will not hand over Ahlam Al-Tamimi to you. But in the wake of the financial reward being offered, this subject needs to be brought to an end from its political roots, by the King and the Jordanian government.

I therefore direct a message to them that it is necessary to bring this case to an end so that I can live freely and calmly, and so that I can go travel to perform Hajj and Umrah, and also so that I can find job opportunities.

It is important to me that I not remain restricted because humanitarianism dictates that I should not live in this manner.

This Ongoing War says: We literally stay awake at night worrying that the self-serving, immoral trash-talk that this barbarian articulates here is going to move people outside the Arab world to reach deep inside themselves and stand up for Tamimi's "rights". Jordan's King Abdullah has never spoken publicly about Tamimi, at least not for the record. But people in his entourage have been in touch with Tamimi's handlers and as a result she's confident enough to say to a newspaper interviewer that the king "needs to bring" the American pursuit of her "to an end" because she's entitled to "live freely and calmly". The tragedy is that she lives in a region where people actually do think like that. 

Q. The anniversary of the killing of American Rachel Corrie, who was mowed down by a military bulldozer belonging to the Israeli army in March 2003, was observed two days ago. How do you interpret the American administration’s overlooking of her murder?

Tamimi: Rachel Corrie is not the only American who was killed the Zionist occupation without the American administration lifting a finger to hold the Zionist entity accountable for what it had done. There are other activists who had American nationality who come to Palestine for the sake of peace, who join the popular resistance and who believe that it is the right of Palestinians to live. A large number of them have been shot in the legs and have been sometimes arrested due to their support of the Palestinian people.

What we notice in the case of Rachel Corrie is that her case has passed without any accountability for those who killed her, or even condemnation of the crime. If this proves anything, it proves that the Zionist entity is in control of the American system. We all know that biggest lobby in the American congress is the Zionist lobby which controls all the decisions. We also know that the Deep State within America is the Zionists who are the capitalists. No decision is made and no president elected without their prior approval. 

If we were to comment as well, then let us comment on all the events that have taken place in America, such as when Americans shoot up schools, university students and when such people are condemned, they are labelled as mentally unstable. This is terrorism which kills citizens in your country, Oh America. As for me, I am defending my country and my land. You want to hold me accountable while you do not hold the Zionist occupation accountable for murdering Rachel Corrie, nor for their shooting at American activists. You do not hold those who intentionally kill innocent people in your country accountable.

This Ongoing War says: Tamimi, a TV reporter and far from stupid, has a solid grasp of what Hitler and Goebbels meant by the Big Lie and how to use it. She's drunk deeply at the well of classic antisemitic tropes and "knows" that in America, it's the Zionists who are in charge and as a consequence Americans don't know how to deal with terrorists who set out to murder large numbers of innocents. If America ever wants to take advice from an Islamist zealot who brings a deep familiarity with murder and lethal bigotry, Mrs Tamimi will be a leading candidate.

Q. How do you evaluate the Moroccan position, be it the official or popular position towards the Palestinian resistance?

I always look to the popular position in any country. When speaking about Morocco, it is a valuable position and we truly appreciate it...

The article goes on but from this point Tamimi devotes herself, speaking to a Moroccan news site, to praising Morocco. She appreciates their support of the "resistance" in Gaza (this means Hamas) and of Khaled Mashal (who used to run Hamas). But for all her high regard for them, she doesn't support Morocco's relatively constructive ties with "the Zionist entity".

The real take-away here is her toxic influence. This dedicated murderer, now living free as a bird, not in hiding, not on the run, in the capital of an Arab kingdom reckoned to be a US ally, has standing, celebrity and access to the media. What Tamimi says in her explosive region of the world has the potent and quickly-out-of-control flammable impact of a lit match in a field of tinder-dry brush.

And even though much of what she has to say is plainly distorted, dishonest and provocative, we have not yet seen even a single instance where her appearance in the Arabic-language media includes criticism or even any serious analysis of the woman, her narrative or her views.

We wish this would disturb other people as much as it disturbs us.