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?

08-Oct-19: Again: Jordan's inscrutable US relationship

The Jordanian government harbors and safeguards within its borders the Sbarro pizzeria bomber, Ahlam Tamimi, a Hamas jihad agent.

It has been doing this since at least March 2017, days after the US Department of Justice unveiled terrorism charges against her and announced that it had called on Jordan to extradite her under their 1995 treaty.

Since then, and despite repeated efforts by us - Frimet and Arnold Roth whose daughter Malki was murdered in the terror attack masterminded by Tamimi - the US government has not once stated publicly in any form or any language that it views Jordan's unstated failure to extradite as being in clear breach of the 1995 Extradition Treaty signed by the two countries.

(But there's this: In correspondence addressed to us specifically and said to be official and quotable, a spokesperson for the US government made clear that the US "continue to dispute the Jordanian government’s claim [namely] that the bilateral extradition treaty we signed in 1995 is null... as we exchanged instruments of ratification, bringing the treaty into force on July 29, 1995, and the treaty has not been terminated.")

From US law enforcement services, we have learned that they are ready to take Tamimi into custody. That's been the case since March 2017 at least ["14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought"].

The problem, and it's a stunning one given how dependent Jordan is on its American allies, Jordan won't allow it.

We have written polite and carefully drafted letters to a variety of senior officials in the Department of Justice, to officials in the State Department, to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, to a variety of US diplomats posted in the Middle East.

Not one of these has produced a satisfactory response, no matter how generously "satisfactory" is defined.

Image Source: Jordan Times, a newspaper controlled by
the Jordanian government. It blocks us on Twitter. So does
Jordan's ambassador to Washington.

Jordan continues, despite the outrageous finger-in-the-American-eye, to be treated by the United States as if nothing had happened. Our objections, as the parents of a child, a US citizen, murdered in the Sbarro massacre, are for all practical purposes ignored.

The government-controlled Jordan Times (a newspaper that blocks us on Twitter) has just produced the next chapter in this ongoing process of US self-debasement.

King receives US congressional delegation

Meeting focuses on Jordanian-US cooperation, strategic partnership, latest regional developments
Jordan Times | October 6, 2019
AMMAN — His Majesty King Abdullah, accompanied by HRH Crown Prince Hussein, at Al Husseiniya Palace on Sunday, received a US congressional delegation headed by US House of Representatives member Jason Crow.
The meeting, attended by HRH Prince Feisal, focused on Jordanian-US cooperation and strategic partnership, in addition to the latest regional developments, according to a Royal Court statement.
King Abdullah expressed Jordan's appreciation for the support provided by the United States in development and defence, emphasising the important role of Congress in this regard, the statement said.
Discussing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, His Majesty stressed the need to step up international efforts to end the conflict based on the two-state solution, which guarantees the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The King also stressed the need to de-escalate and resolve regional crises through dialogue.
Discussing the Syrian crisis, His Majesty called for a political solution that preserves Syria's territorial integrity, the unity of its people, and the voluntary, safe return of refugees, underscoring the importance of maintaining stability, especially in southern Syria.
The meeting also covered regional and international efforts to counter terrorism within a holistic approach.
For their part, the US lawmakers highlighted the deep-rooted US-Jordan relations, commending Jordan’s role, under the leadership of His Majesty, in achieving peace and stability in the Middle East.
Adviser to His Majesty for Communication and Coordination Bisher Al Khasawneh and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maj. Gen. Yousef Huneiti attended the meeting.
Also on Sunday, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi discussed with the US delegation regional developments, with a focus on the Palestinian cause and the challenges facing the two-state solution, the Syrian crisis and the war against terror.
Safadi highlighted the deep Amman-Washington relations and expressed appreciation for the US’ support to the Kingdom, according to a ministry statement.
Members of the delegation lauded King Abdullah’s role and his efforts to achieve regional security and stability reiterating continued support to Jordan as a strategic partner to the US, according to the statement.

We're speechless.

UPDATE October 21, 2019Another high-level US Congressional delegation has gone to Jordan to pay homage to the king ["19-Oct-19: House Speaker Pelosi led an official visit today to the chief protector of our child's killer"]. And once again, there's not a word about any US official or representative even raising, let alone tackling in a meaningful way, the issue of Jordan harboring a fugitive from US justice.

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

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

(Clicking the photo will enlarge it.)

A king?

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

Who else was there?

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

Which breakfast?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There might be more by now. 

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

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

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

It's a troubling affair.

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

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

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

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

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

— RHC (@RHCJO) September 21, 2018

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

A happy new year and good wishes to all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jewish children, to be more exact about it.

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

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

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

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

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

Questions and comments? Reach us at [email protected]

05-Sep-19: On thwarted justice and bearded women

We have devoted several years and considerable effort to generating awareness of the almost unfathomable evil of a Jordanian woman, Ahlam Tamimi (speaking on this video).

Tamimi is a high-profile fugitive from the FBI with a $5 million reward on her head from the US State Department. She freely admits for the record and in public that she played a key role in the August 9, 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem. She has boasted of how she deliberately targeted and succeeded in massacring the Jewish children inside and on the street. One of them was our fifteen year old daughter Malki.

Recently, in her (since-shut-down) Instagram account, Tamimi called this Hamas attack "my operation":

Instagram shut down this account, which was Tamimi's over a period of years, a few days
after this posting appeared in August 2019

She is protected by the Kingdom of Jordan which, in cynical breach of its 1995 extradition treaty with the United States, has refused since 2013 to hand her over to the US authorities for prosecution on terrorism charges. It continues to give her safe haven.

But her hitherto-frequent travel in and around the Arab world, a key part of her evolution as a pan-Arab celebrity, has come to a halt as a result of an Interpol Red Notice.

What's more, for the nearly five years starting early 2012 and ending in mid-2016, it provided her with the freedom and means to have a TV program of her own called "Breezes of the Free", which she recorded in Amman, Jordan every week [see "27-Apr-17: Satellite TV and other basic rights of terrorist life behind Israeli bars"] for a global TV and Internet audience.

The purpose of the show was to encourage support for Arab-on-Israeli terrorism, to celebrate and honor the terrorists and to provide a two-way channel for communication between terrorists imprisoned in Israel and their families.

It's important to keep in mind that the privilege of engaging in years of incitement to extreme violence given to a confessed mass murderer comes against a background where Jordan has one of the most tightly controlled and un-free media regimes in the world [see "20-Jan-18: Shutting down media critics in Jordan isn't quite the challenge it might seem to be"]. Had Jordan wanted, Tamimi - along with her Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood sponsors - could never have gotten these hideous "Breezes" off the ground.

Our personal efforts to get Tamimi in front of a US federal court to face charges in Washington DC involve a good deal of political awareness-raising and lobbying in the US. Our daughter Malki was a US citizen.

Exactly a week ago, Haaretz - in a story filed from Washington by Amir Tibon who is its correspondent in the US capital - reported online on efforts to bring the thwarted Tamimi extradition issue to a larger audience. (Though we're not mentioned, we are the instigators of those efforts.)

Ahlam al-Tamimi took part in the organization of a 2001 bombing at a pizza place in Jerusalem that killed 15. These American lawmakers want Jordan to extradite her to the U.S. https://t.co/wCuXak29Jq

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) August 29, 2019

The following day, the paper edition of Haaretz arrived at our front door as it has, in both Hebrew and English editions, every Friday for years. We rubbed our eyes at what we saw:

The almost-comical use of the photo of a bearded man to depict a 39 year old female media celebrity with a long history of public appearances and blowing children to pieces obviously had nothing to do with the Haaretz reporter. He was simply conveying the facts.

So we reacted by addressing the newspaper's well-known publisher via Twitter:

Mr @AmosSchocken:

As #MalkiRoth's father, it's troubling that our battle to get her killer, #AhlamTamimi, extradited from Jordan to face terror charges in the US gets zero coverage in @Haaretz and other mainstream media.

Do your editors know who she is?https://t.co/cejqdloCcz

— Arnold Roth (@arnoldroth) August 31, 2019

Obviously the editors had the wrong person. But do they even know at Haaretz who Ahlam Tamimi is? It's hard to tell.

And if you're wondering - yes, we're troubled by how no one from the paper-publishing side of Haaretz has bothered to respond to us. Of course being ignored, as anyone following this blog knows, is hardly a new experience for us.

And there's this: over at the Hebrew version of Haaretz, they have given no coverage at all, zero, nada, to the Nadler initiative: not online, not in their highly influential daily newspaper. It seems, as friends have told us, that the Israeli election campaigns now underway dwarf everything else.

But then nor has Haaretz ever published a word about our years of efforts to see Tamimi tried on terrorism charges.

And a lot more importantly, given its unexamined implications, Haaretz in all its various Hebrew, English, online, on-paper editions entirely ignores, just as do many other mainstream news outlets do, the much larger and weightier matter of Jordan's mendaciousness in purporting to fight terror while keeping one of its highest profile practitioners safe, well and protected in the bosom of the Hashemite Kingdom and its law courts.

25-Aug-19: A rising sense of something awful started settling in

Malki HY"D

Most people know that the truly life-changing things that happen to us come when we least expect them.

This was a hot August Thursday at a busy time for me. I was chief executive of a drug technology company based in one of Jerusalem’s science and technology campuses and we had a lot on our plates, most of it very good.

I went to lunch with the same friends as usual and got back just in time to receive a frantic call from Frimet, my wife. “There’s been a pigua and I can’t reach the children.” I went directly into calm-husband-and-father mode, trying to say what I really believed: “Don’t reach for the worst. Give the kids time to call in and reassure us.”

But the call ended while I was in mid-sentence.

Jerusalem had been free of major terrorist attacks for years at that point and the grim reality of armed guards emplaced outside supermarkets and restaurants had not yet been instituted. But the massacre at Tel Aviv’s Dolphinarium had happened in June and the raging terrorism that the more ideological parts of the media repulsively called the Second Intifada had gotten started almost a year before. In the capital, we were living on borrowed time but we didn’t realize it.

Frimet and I phoned back and forth several times over the next two hours. Malki was the fourth of our children, the oldest of our daughters, and at 15 busy, energetic and independent. Her older brothers all checked in by phone during the early afternoon.

As a rising sense of something awful started settling in, I phoned Malki’s cell a couple of times, begging her to call back as soon as she could. I imagine Frimet did the same.

Around 4:00 pm, and although I had a string of meetings and conference calls to deal with, I left my desk to go home. Frimet called me just before that to say she couldn’t bear waiting at home, was going mad from the worry and stress and needed to do something, go somewhere. We have a very disabled youngest child who needs constant care so Frimet leaving the house meant I needed to be there in her place.

I think of myself as religiously observant and believe hashgacha pratit - divine providence at the personal, individual level - is a real thing. I was trying to negotiate private deals with the Almighty as I walked to the bus: Let her phone be broken. Please let her be in an area where there is no reception. Let her be mildly concussed. 

I no longer remember the scenarios. But I was hoping desperately that I could offer something that, if it were only accepted above, would let us off the hook that started to feel more and more real.

There was no relief at home. At first, I was alone with our daughter whose disabilities are extreme and profound. We didn’t know how to communicate with her at that stage in her life. So she was not part of the anxieties; rather she was part of the normalcy.

One by one, the children arrived home and then so did Frimet, accompanied by one of our sons who had started his compulsory military service the previous day and was sent home to help with the emerging crisis. He and Frimet, it turned out, had been at one of Jerusalem’s hospitals looking for whatever there was to look for. But before Frimet left our street to get there, she encountered Avivah, our neighbor. Avivah’s daughter Michal, it turned out, was with our Malki from early that morning. 

The mothers went to the hospital together and then split up to search. Frimet and our son found no sign or word of Malki and came home.

We all, in our separate private nightmares, did our praying and hoping and deal-making in the ensuing hours. As night fell, a neighbor struggled up the stairs, ashen-faced, to tell me at the open door that Michal’s name had just been reported on the news as one of those killed at Sbarro five hours earlier.

The world, already deeply grim, now looked a lot blacker.

Sbarro, Central Jerusalem - August 9, 2001, shortly after 2:00 pm

Another neighbor, at the time a department head at Hadassah Ein Karem hospital who had been working the phones to tap into his network of doctor contacts, walked in and told me to get ready to go with him. “I was told there’s a teenage girl on the operating table. I’ll drive you there.”

It turned out not to be Malki.

But as we stood there in the miyun (emergency room) area, surrounded by people who looked like I felt, a medical colleague of his took in the situation and as he rushed to deal with yet another emergency case, he may have said to my friend: “I don’t know what to tell you” or something else guarded and careful. 

But in the memory of the man I now am, nearly eighteen years later, what I know he actually said is: “Check over there in that cubicle. There’s a girl we’re about to operate on. And another one who’s dead. One might be yours.”

That’s how one of life’s hardest moments is engraved in my memory.

We didn’t find Malki anywhere.

A hospital social worker having what was surely one of her own most challenging days, walked over to me and, under huge stress herself, said without much ceremony: “If you’re looking for a child here and can’t find her, and it’s now nine hours after the bombing, you need to go to Abu Kabir. Now.”

I understood what she meant but demurred. “I will ask one of my sons to go. At this point, it will be better if I go back and stay with my wife at home.” As I left, the social worker calmly did exactly what was needed: arranged for a taxi and a social worker to collect two of my sons and bring them to Israel’s only center for performing autopsies and identifying terror victims. It’s known as Abu Kabir after the Jaffa neighborhood where it is located.

My two older sons phoned from there at two on Friday morning, exactly twelve hours after the Battle of Sbarro Pizzeria started and ended. They had found their sister. I recited the brief and awful prayer that’s said on learning of a death and was aware of my wife starting to scream as she ran out the front door and into the night...

* * *

The above is excerpted from a fine full-length interview of Arnold Roth conducted by Judean Rose (she tweets as @epavard) and published three months ago on the indispensable ElderofZiyon blog as "A Father Speaks Out: The Murder of Malki Roth and the Refusal of Jordan to Extradite the Beast Ahlam Tamimi". We urge you to click over to the link and read the whole piece. Malki's life was taken from us 18 years ago. We continue to seek the extradition to the United States of the attack's Jordanian mastermind, the proud-and-still-free-as-a-bird bomber Ahlam Tamimi.

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 ►

21-Jul-19: Jordan, peace and how little has actually changed

Today happens to mark the seventieth anniversary of a Middle East milestone:

The quote is from a scholarly tome dealing with the work of the United Nations Security Council. Turns out the military phase they mentioned had several more violent and deadly rounds to go over the following decades. So much has changed, especially here in Jerusalem where we live.

And in some ways so little too.

British-led soldiers of the Arab Legion, Jordan's state army, at the
renowned Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City
shortly after conquering, and just before utterly destroying, the synagogue.
[Wikipedia]

Starting in 1948 when the Kingdom of Jordan's British-led military overran Jerusalem's eastern part and occupied the Old City and its unique holy places, unrestrained state-inspired vandalism became the fate of one of the world's most revered places.

Here's how the Jewish Telegraphic Agency described it in a 1967 report compiled shortly after Israel finally took over:

A shocking record of destruction and desecration of Jewish holy places in and around Old Jerusalem during 19 years of Jordanian rule was documented today in the report of an inter-ministerial committee that was appointed after the Six-Day War to determine the state of Jewish shrines in Jordan held territory. The findings of the committee were summarized by Zerach Warhaftig, Minister of Religious Affairs, at a press conference here. 

As examples of the wanton disregard of the religious rights of others, Mr. Warhaftig noted the destruction of all but two of the 58 synagogues in the Jewish quarter of the Old City and the almost total destruction of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives which has been in continuous use for more than 2,000 years. 

The cemetery was one of the Jewish holy places to which access was promised by the Jordanians in the 1949 armistice agreements although the promise was never observed. Tombstones were carried away for purposes ranging from fortifying mortar positions to building lavatories and the report says, documentary evidence and eye witnesses “make it clear beyond doubt that the desecration of the cemetery was carried out by Jordanian authorities for official purposes.”

The Jordanian Government, according to the report, had placed a special guard at the cemetery, but only to prevent tombstones from being pilfered by private persons. Their use was authorized for building military camps, fortifications, pathways and other installations and the walls of the building that housed the army commanders. Part of the road to the Intercontinental Hotel was paved with tombstones, the report said. And the Jordanians never bothered to remove the remains of the dead. In the Old City of Jerusalem, the report went on, only the synagogue of the Chabad Hassidim and the Torat Chayim yeshiva were left standing.

Dr. Warhaftig said that there was only one known instance of a clergyman protesting against the desecration and he was told by the Jordanian authorities to mind his own business. Moslem dignitaries whom Dr. Warhaftig questioned about the outrages disclaimed all knowledge. ["Cabinet Report Says Jordan Destroyed 56 Old City Synagogues, Desecrated Cemetery", JTA, November 2, 1967]

An armistice agreement signed almost exactly seventy years ago (April 3, 1949) in Greece governed relations between the new-born state of Israel and the Jordanians. The burden of the safeguards it included never really troubled the Arabs who ignored them totally. No one else seems to have cared:

• Jordan had undertaken to give free access to the Holy Places and to cultural institutions, and use of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives [Section III, Document 6, Article VIII, and Section V, subsection E, Documents 15 and 16]. It breached all of these obligations and it kept on breaching down through the years before its armed men were forcibly removed by the IDF in 1967. 
• Jews were entirely barred from the Old City and denied access to the Western Wall and the other Holy Places of incomparable importance.
• The Jewish Quarter in the Old City was systematically destroyed. (It took years, starting in 1967, for what was lost to start to be painstakingly reconstructed. The  job is still underway.)
• Moslem residents of Israel were not permitted to visit their Holy Places in East Jerusalem. 
• Christians didn't fare much better. In 1958, Jordanian legislation required all members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre to adopt Jordanian citizenship. In 1965, Christian institutions were forbidden to acquire any land or rights in or near Jerusalem. 
• In 1966, Christian schools were compelled to close on Fridays instead of Sundays, customs privileges of Christian religious institutions were abolished. 
• In May 1967, the Temple Mount became a military base for the Jordanian National Guard.

On 24 April 1950, a year after the largely-ignored armistice, a joint session of Jordan's House of Deputies and its House of Notables adopted a resolution [source] seizing formal control of all of the West Bank and the eastern (and older) part of Jerusalem.

Viewed through the lens of today, the opening words of the annexation document are startling:

In the expression of the people's faith in the efforts spent by His Majesty, Abdullah [great-grandfather of the present-day king of Jordan who has the same name], toward attainment of natural aspirations, and basing itself on the right of self-determination and on the existing de facto position between Jordan and Palestine and their national, natural and geographic unity and their common interests and living space, Parliament, which represents both sides of the Jordan, resolves this day and declares:
First, its support for complete unity between the two sides of the Jordan and their union into one State, which is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, at whose head reigns King Abdullah Ibn al Husain, on a basis of constitutional representative government and equality of the rights and duties of all citizens...

It's easy to forget now that when the Hashemite military was riding high, the Jordanians and the Palestinian Arabs had no problem seeing themselves as a single Arab entity with shared interests, shared living space, national unity.

Occupied territories? National self-determination for a Palestinian people? Two-state solution? In your dreams.

Most readers understand that Jordan - the Hashemite Kingdom and its absolute ruler King Abdullah II - gets a lot of our attention these days. This of course is mostly because they harbor our daughter's killer and so far at least refuse to hand her over for criminal prosecution in the United States despite a treaty that requires them to do just that.

Hussein, Clinton, Rabin at the 1994 peace treaty signing

Jordan has never publicly addressed this issue, but simply persists in refusing to extradite her despite the perfectly valid extradition treaty the two countries signed, and have basically honored, since 1994. 

In Israeli circles, and despite wars in which Israel has had to defend itself from Jordanian invasion, there's long been a sense that in the unstable and frequently violent and bigoted Arab world, Jordan's has been a voice (relatively speaking) of moderation and reason.

It's a complex situation, and is growing more complex as Jordan's troubles mount, particularly the widespread and deep dissatisfaction with how the country's economy is being managed.

But complex or not, when Jordan has the opportunity to join moderate Arab voices but pointedly refuses, then Israelis and those who care for Israel's well-being will notice and draw inferences. For instance:

Oman FM: Palestinians must reassure Israel it’s not in peril  | Associated Press Omar Akour | AP | April 6, 2019 at 2:40 PM

DEAD SEA, Jordan — Oman’s foreign minister urged Palestinians on Saturday to reassure Israel that it is not under threat in the Middle East, drawing a rare public rebuke from his Jordanian counterpart. Oman’s Yusuf bin Alawi and Jordan’s Ayman Safadi shared the stage at a regional gathering of the World Economic Forum, held on Jordan’s shores of the Dead Sea. Bin Alawi spoke at a time of warming ties between Israel and several Gulf Arab states, as part of an unofficial alliance against Iranian influence in the region. The Omani minister said that Palestinians “should help Israel to get away from” what he said was its mistaken sense of being threatened.
Safadi responded sharply, to applause from the audience. “I beg to differ on a number of issues,” said Safadi. He noted that in 2002, as part of the Arab Peace Initiative, scores of Arab and Muslim countries offered Israel recognition in exchange for a withdrawal from occupied lands sought for a Palestinian state. Safadi said the problem is whether Israeli occupation “is going to end.”
Lebanon’s defense minister and Bahrain’s foreign minister were also present on stage during the exchange.
The recent rapprochement between Israel and several Gulf states has been fueled by deepening rivalries between regional camps, led by Saudi Arabia and Iran, respectively. The Trump administration’s hard anti-Iran line has contributed to growing regional tensions.
In October, Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a surprise visit to Oman and Israeli officials visited the United Arab Emirates in recent months.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians feel increasingly sidelined, fearing Israel, Gulf states and the U.S. plan to strike a deal behind their backs about the future of war-won lands they seek for a future state.
Jordan, which has a peace treaty with Israel, considers itself a strong advocate for Palestinian political demands. A majority of the kingdom’s citizens are of Palestinian origin.

Jordan's public bellowing over how Israel deals with Muslim rights in Jerusalem provides a sadly rich source of intemperate and frankly ugly stamping of the foot by Jordan's foreign ministry. This is from just a few weeks ago:

Jordan has called for an immediate halt to Israeli “provocations” at East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, warning of a new cycle of violence in the Middle East region, Anadolu reports. Hundreds of settlers forced their way into the flashpoint site on Sunday, in a rare tour in the final days of the fasting month of Ramadan, which ends this week. The tour has triggered clashes between Muslim worshippers and Israeli police, which chased assaulted a number of worshippers during the violence. In a statement, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry warned of the “dangerous consequences of Israel’s provocative and repulsive escalatory Israeli practices, which will drag the region into a new cycle of violence that may threaten the security of the region as a whole”. It called on the Israeli authorities to “immediately cease all these provocations”, which it described as “absurd, irresponsible, rejected and condemned”. ["Israeli ‘provocations’ will lead to violence: Jordan", Middle East Monitor, June 2, 2019]

For anyone who knows something of the history of the region and the devastation wrought by Jordan's heavy-booted occupation over nearly two decades, it's odd to note those ridiculous adjectives. Jordan, when it had the opportunity during the 19 years of its illegal and violent military occupation of Jordan and the West Bank, carried out deliberate, massive and systematic destruction and desecration of Jewish holy sites in and around Jerusalem.

The "provocations" are the sight of polite, respectful Israelis and Jews visiting Judaism's single holiest ancient place. For certain kinds of political analysts, politicians and politically-warped media reporters, this sight is just unbearable.

Note how certain especially bizarre elements play a role:

Image Source: Turkey's Anadolu Agency, a source of rabidly anti-Israel news

• Jewish and Israeli visitors to the Temple Mount never walk, stroll or simply visit. They storm. The word is used religiously these days. (A quick Google search produces more than 600,000 hits.)
• The Arab sources quoted in shabby reporting like this always seem to know, without ever speaking with them, that the Jews are "settlers". Even if they're visiting from Brooklyn or Brussels or Bangkok.
• These Jewish and/or Israeli visitors don't actually go anywhere near the mosque constructed on the ruins of the First Temple and Second Temple. But in ideologically-obsessed parts of the Arab media, the entire football-field size plateau is lately termed "the Al Aqsa complex" to confer some spiritual air to the largest possible space. And yes, football is indeed played there by Arab boys.

Intemperate news reporting is a problem. But some other problems carry greater weight. For instance these three which bear a disturbing integrity-of-the-homeland similarity to each other:

• This past October, Jordan decided to terminate the lease by Israel of two small areas on the Jordan River, roughly a thousand acres of agricultural ‎land‎, which had been farmed by Israelis for the past 25 years. The leases were part of the 1994 Jordan/Israel peace treaty. As the Jerusalem Post noted: "The 30 families which reside [there] live off these lands and export millions of dollars' worth of crops to the world as well as to the Israeli market." Jordan's king announced that he seeks “full sovereignty on our land”. There's surely a message in the unexpected and unwelcome move. From our conversations with relevant people, there's some doubt what that message is.
• Another important deal between Jordan and Israel, a far larger and more strategic one signed in 2016, is arousing angst and furor as a result of a bizarre speech by a member of Jordan's parliament a couple of weeks ago. The deal concerns the sale of natural gas which is to be piped from Israel's Leviathan offshore gas field to Jordan's electric company. It's a $10 billion deal to be executed over 15 years; the first gas is due to be delivered early next year. But as  critically important as this is to Jordan's need for energy, it's (of course) opposed by a range of Jordanian political factions including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' local affiliate, on the customary grounds that if it involves normalization and cooperation with Israel, it has to be bad. Tareq Khouri, a Christian and an opponent of the transaction said at a Muslim Brotherhood gathering on July 3, 2019 that good Jordanians should bomb the gas pipeline. "Every lover of freedom in Jordan [should] give up his life and the lives of his children in order to bomb any gas pipeline [from Israel] that passes through Jordanian territory. We shall all be potential martyrs [and] prevent this pipeline from entering one centimeter of Jordanian soil."
• A decade ago, reports emerged of the uncovering of an ancient Jerusalem pathway with considerable historical significance. Haaretz said: "Israel Antiquities Authority researchers have re-exposed a stretch of road in Jerusalem dating to the Second Temple period that is believed to have been used by pilgrims on their ascent to the Temple. Existence of the 40-meter segment of road, cleared over the past few months to open it to visitors, has been known of for more than a century. The excavation is taking place in the neighborhood of Silwan near the Siloam Spring." Then on June 30, 2019, this Israeli update: "After six years of extensive archaeological excavations led by the Israel Antiquities Authority, a 350-meter-long section of the Pilgrimage Road was unveiled at a festive ceremony in the City of David." Cause for celebration, right? Not necessarily, since Jerusalem is involved. So here's the full text of Jordan's official reaction: ["Amman condemns Israeli opening of "pilgrims road"", PETRA Jordan Gov't News Agency, June 30, 2019]: 

"Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Sunday slammed Israel for opening a tunnel beneath the Silwad town that is called the "pilgrims road" towards al-Aqsa Mosque/ Haram al-Sharif, issuing a warning that such "illegal and irresponsible" actions escalate tension. The official spokesperson of the ministry Sufian Qudah underscored Jordan's utter rejection of Israeli attempts that seek to alter the identity of the occupied city of Jerusalem, especially the al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings.  Such Israeli actions are "vile violations" of the international and human law, he said, calling on the international community to assume its moral and political responsibilities in promptly halting these practices and to emphasize the importance of respecting East Jerusalem's status as an integral part of the Palestinian territories, which have been under occupation since 1967, in accordance with the international law and resolutions of the international legitimacy."

She's King Abdullah II's long-serving ambassador to Washington.
A talented lady but not above blocking a pair
of pesky bereaved parents from Jerusalem

When they want to, Jordan's official representatives can be quite talkative. A shame that on the subject of extraditing Ahlam Tamimi, they have not uttered a single official word as a government, leaving it to the media and their highest court to say the relatively little that has been offered to explain their indefensible policy.

As for their official spokesperson in the United States, Ambassador Dina Kawar of Jordan's Washington embassy blocks us on Twitter.

That of course doesn't change very much and certainly doesn't mean we will stop our efforts to be heard. But along with plenty of other evidence of Jordan being today very far from its moderate image, it contributes to the sense that they haven't really come a great distance since the days of blowing up ancient synagogues on a massive scale and maliciously denying Jewish history.

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[This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("Jordania, pokój i jak niewiele się naprawdę zmieniło") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.]