26-Sep-24: A question to people who have children and love them

Arnold Roth posted this on his X account yesterday.

• Imagine someone kills your child, not because the child did something but for reasons that you need to be a sociopath to understand and sympathize with.
• Imagine the killer is indicted by the US but is held close to the bosom of another country. It's a country that your taxes have kept afloat for decades.
• Imagine that the US can demand that the killer is handed over for trial in Washington. A treaty for that exists.
• Imagine that the US does this but in a very small voice. The country keeping the killer safe understands this to mean they don't really have to hand her over at all.
• Imagine the people running the US write to you, tell you how cut up they are about what happened, and say this a really important case for them.
• Imagine that you learn they didn't mean a word of it.
• Imagine that after years of them ignoring you, it finally hits you that absolutely nothing has been done to get the killer handed over and tried in the US.
• Imagine that along the way, the killer is given her own television show by the country keeping her safe and sound. And that her show is beamed into homes all over the world, including into the US, weekly for nearly five years. And that it's all about whipping up support for people like the killer -- support for other people who want to kill your child.
• Imagine no one in the US government agrees to talk with you about what's really happening, about how the US won't allow the country doing the hugging-to-the-bosom to be criticized. Or even mentioned. 
• In fact, imagine that most of them fail to acknowledge your existence.
• Imagine a decade goes by and no one in the US government - not its diplomats, not its law enforcers, not its lawmakers, not its many spokespeople - has done anything to get your child's fugitive killer into the dock of a US criminal court. 
• My question: At what point do you give up trying to make American justice happen? 

27-Aug-24: This is how we affirm the principles of justice, fairness, and the rule of law

A version of the short essay below, authored jointly by Frimet and Arnold Roth, was first published on August 20, 2024 by Jewish News Syndicate. 

On August 18, 2024 - a recent Sunday evening - a Palestinian Arab male blew himself up in central Tel Aviv with enough explosives to murder hundreds of Israelis. He managed only to end his own life. 

For us, almost 23 years to the date that a Palestinian suicide bomber murdered our teenage daughter Malki and so many other innocents, this served as a jolting reminder that the scourge of Palestinian human-bomb attacks is still here. Hours afterwards, Hamas claimed responsibility, calling it “a suicide bombing conducted as a joint operation with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and vowing further such attacks”.

For Israelis and Americans, the “failed” bomber is a wake-up call, a harbinger of fresh trouble ahead. From where we stand, it’s the kind of wake-up call that should never have been needed.

• • •

In August 2001, during a busy lunch hour in central Jerusalem, a bomb exploded in a Sbarro pizzeria. The attack killed 16 people, including eight children. 130 were injured, some catastrophically. Three of those killed were American citizens. All were Jewish.

Source: YouTube screen capture

The mastermind behind this massacre was a 21-year-old Jordanian journalism student and TV newsreader, Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi. The atrocity, in her subsequent retelling, was “the crown on my head.”

Tamimi later told Arab audiences that she carefully selected a target rich in children, calculating the number of casualties with chilling precision. She accompanied the bomber—a young zealot carrying an exploding guitar case—to Sbarro, fleeing the scene minutes before the explosion. 

Today, she lives in Jordan, free to glorify her role in the attack, to incite further violence, to normalize the murder of civilians as "resistance."

One of Tamimi’s American victims was our Malki, just 15. 

Since 2012, we have fought to bring the Hamas terrorist to U.S. justice but are stymied by Jordan's refusal to extradite her and by American failure to compel Jordan to honor its treaty obligations.

It crushes us that Jordan protects a fugitive terrorist. Beyond that, it’s incomprehensible that the Biden administration—and those before it—continually fails to take the steps it should and can take to bring her to trial. Why does the U.S. government obstruct justice in this clear case of criminal terror?

Justice Delayed, Justice Denied

In the weeks after the Sbarro disaster, Tamimi was arrested and then tried and convicted in an Israeli court. Pleading guilty to all charges, the judicial panel ordered a term of 16 life sentences with an emphatic recommendation that she never be freed. But that’s not how it worked out. Israel made a controversial 2011 deal with Hamas to secure the freedom of an Israeli hostage and, to our horrified disbelief, Tamimi was released along with 1,026 other convicted and imprisoned terrorists.

She returned to Jordan where she was born and educated. Embraced as a hero, Tamimi became a public speaker and television personality, urging respect for what she calls “resistance” and encouraging others to follow in her path.

Two years later, the U.S. Department of Justice charged her under seal with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals resulting in death. This was made public only in 2017 when the U.S. formally requested her extradition under a 1995 treaty with Jordan ["Individual Charged in Connection With 2001 Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem That Resulted in Death of Americans"]. The FBI added her to its Most Wanted Terrorists list the same day; she remains on it today. A State Department $5 million reward for information leading to her capture was announced some months later.

But Tamimi has never been in hiding. She lives openly in Jordan, shielded by the Hashemite government that refuses to honor its treaty obligations.

A Personal Betrayal

The diplomatic failure and the trampling of justice have been accompanied by years of our being ignored and humiliated in Washington.

Something seemed to change when a personal letter addressing us as bereaved parents and written in the names of both President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken was delivered to us in October 2022. Tamimi must be held accountable, they wrote, and the U.S. is fully committed to bringing her to the U.S. to stand trial. Justice for Malki and the other murdered Americans was "a foremost priority for the United States". It closed with this assurance: “We will stay in contact with you regarding our ongoing efforts to ensure Tamimi is held accountable for her despicable crimes.”

Our spirits were dramatically raised. 

We responded with thanks and questions to the senior official who had signed the letter: Victoria Nuland, at the time the Deputy Secretary of State. Nuland never responded – not to that first of our letters and not to any of the dozen that followed. When she retired from the State Department in May 2024, no other official stepped in to continue the dialogue or deliver on the commitments she made.

This failure to act feels like a personal betrayal—just one more in a long series that have denied justice for Malki.

The past year has been especially hard for us. In December 2023, our son-in-law Naftali Gordon, an IDF reservist, was killed in Gaza while fighting Hamas, the same terrorist organization that sent Tamimi into our lives. Naftali was the husband of one of Malki’s sisters and the father of two young children. Our fresh grief, compounded by ongoing neglect in our search for U.S. justice, underscores the imperative of seeing Tamimi held accountable in a U.S. court.

Congress must help

This agonizing, ongoing failure of justice demands that Congress take a meaningful role. While the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations have all claimed to pursue Tamimi’s extradition, forceful measures are clearly needed. If they become involved, Congressional lawmakers can escalate America’s response so that it matches the gravity of the terror charges and the prevailing view in Jordan and the Arab world that Tamimi cannot be touched.

Leveraging U.S. foreign aid to Jordan, which currently exceeds $1.4 billion annually, is one way. Conditioning it on Jordan’s cooperation in Tamimi’s extradition would convey that U.S. prioritizes justice and the rule of law, a very different message from the reality of this past decade. Financial aid provided by American taxpayers cannot be used to harbor terrorists or undermine justice.

Congress can hold hearings to look into the passivity that has marked the failed Tamimi extradition until now, and insist on greater transparency, putting essential pressure on the State Department and the White House. Lawmakers can insist that key current and past administration officials testify about steps taken—or not taken—to achieve the Tamimi extradition.

Congress can issue a resolution aimed at galvanizing public opinion in the U.S. and internationally and to end years of media neglect—or suppression—that have made this case essentially unknown to most Americans.

Grassroots outrage—expressed by advocacy groups, community organizations, and spiritual leaders—can and should call on the government to ensure that those who harm Americans are held accountable, no matter where they are. Or who shields them.

A Moral Imperative

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously taught that "in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible." The U.S. is not responsible for Tamimi’s crimes, but Americans and their institutions can ensure that justice is served. Those who obstruct it—including those within Washington's chambers—must be made to address their duties.

Those who commit acts of terrorism must expect to be brought to account. This is how we affirm the principles of justice, fairness, and the rule of law. The extradition of Ahlam Tamimi goes beyond legal obligation; it is a moral imperative.

• • •

Versions of this opinion column by Frimet and Arnold Roth appear in the Baltimore Jewish Times (August 28, 2024) and the Washington Jewish Week (September 2, 2024) as well as Israel 365 News (August 21, 2024) and J-Wire (August 21, 2024)

24-Apr-24: The Sbarro bomber: Betrayal, lies, politics and grief

Nuland, Biden, Blinken [Image Source]

On March 14, 2024, under the headline "Betrayal, lies, politics and grief | The world’s refusal to bring my child’s killer to justice.", the Jewish News Syndicate published a first-person opinion piece authored by Arnold Roth.

Its appearance was timed to coincide with the anniversary of the day in 2017 when federal terrorism charges, kept secret up to that point by the US government for years, were finally made public.

Since the op ed was republished by no more than a handful of JNS syndication outlets, we think it's right to repost it (with light changes and additional hyperlinks). 

What's said here is important to us - important enough that we continue to press the government of the United States to finally do what its law enforcement arms have endeavored to do since 2013 when it indicted Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi under seal: to put her on trial in Washington and if convicted, to put her behind bars for the rest of her life.

For murky reasons which we think we understand but which have never been revealed by any news media anywhere, those US federal charges remained secret from the world, the media and the families of Tamimi's victims for four years, until March 14, 2017. 

But they were not kept secret from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan which is bound by bilateral treaty to the United States to extradite Tamimi to the US. Via a formal ruling by one of its appellate courts, just six days after the charges became public knowledge in 2017, Jordan flatly refused. It still refuses until today.

Here's the updated version of what Arnold Roth wrote for the JNS in March.

* * *

Seven years have passed since criminal charges were brought in Washington, D.C. against the woman who murdered my sunny, lovely, empathetic 15-year-old daughter Malki. The anniversary of the charges being made public is today, March 14.

As milestones go, this one is dark. The fugitive killer admits to her central role in the massacre for which she is being prosecuted. Though she brags about her atrocity, she lives the life of a celebrity and an inspiration to others. 

Yet her ongoing freedom gets negligible attention in the news industry and public discourse—even in the U.S. To the extent that the Arab media report on her, it is overwhelmingly favorable and sympathetic.

The dry details of Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi’s long-thwarted prosecution are easy to find. The mugshots, biographical details and charges are accessible via three sites: The FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists, the 2017 Department of Justice unveiling of the hitherto secret charges and the State Department’s 2018 post of a $5 million reward that is still unclaimed two full decades after it first went public.

What’s behind Tamimi’s freedom is harder to ascertain. 

Those who know don’t talk openly and those with a stake in her ongoing freedom are too often untruthful about it. Understanding this and conjecturing why it is the case is at the heart of the nightmare my wife and I endure years after our beautiful child’s life was extinguished.

* * *

Tamimi was recruited by Hamas in 2001. The first female to become one of its jihadists, she was given the mission of bombing one of Jerusalem’s few large department stores.

Hamashbir Lazarchan, located on busy King George Street, was an easy hit. On July 30, 2001, she entered its basement supermarket with an explosives-filled beer can. No security people stood at the doors in those innocent days. Tamimi placed the bomb on a shelf among other beverage containers and strolled out.

An FBI “Most Wanted Terrorist” poster for
Jordanian terrorist Ahlam Ahmad Tamimi [Source: FBI]

Still flush with excitement in a 2012 interview on an Arab TV station, she recounted what resulted:

“The supermarket completely exploded... The Israelis said that nobody had been killed or wounded... This was the beginning of the intifada, and it was normal for them to conceal the number of casualties in order to avoid panic among the Zionists” (Arabic-to-English transcript).

A calmer version from the standpoint of the bombmaker, a Kuwaiti kinsman of Tamimi by the name of Abdallah Barghouti, stated, 

“The operation was not intended to cause deaths or injuries but was intended to test the occupation’s security precautions” (source).

Both accounts are absolutely untrue. No one was injured by the bomb, though the aim was to cause a bloodbath. And when it failed, Tamimi badgered her Hamas handlers to immediately give her a better bomb for a second shot at jihadi fame.

That came just a week later on Aug. 9, 2001. An exploding guitar case fabricated by Barghouti was handed to Tamimi by a Hamas handler who paired her up with a religious zealot willing to sling it across his shoulder and carry it inside the target she had selected: central Jerusalem’s bustling Sbarro pizzeria.

From Ramallah, she accompanied the suicidal human bomb by bus and cab to Jerusalem. Then on foot through its downtown streets where, unknown to Tamimi or the young man by her side, the Israel Police had been put on alert following an intelligence tip that a terrorist attack was about to take place. 

Tragically, the general public was never told.

Sbarro, central Jerusalem, the afternoon of August 9, 2001
[Image credit: Avi Ohayon, Israel Govt Press Office]

The massive explosion gutted Sbarro at two o’clock on a hot school vacation afternoon, erasing 16 lives and injuring 130 other innocents. Three Americans were murdered, one of them Malki.

Tamimi was arrested weeks later. Tried in Jerusalem, she was convicted and sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment. The three-judge panel, horrified by the smiling accused who admitted all the charges against her, recommended from the bench to the Israeli authorities that Tamimi should never be set free—not in any political deal, not on bail, not for any reason.

Their advice was ignored.

Tamimi walked free in a 2011 deal between Hamas and Israel for the release of a young IDF soldier held hostage for five years. Israel paid heavily, conditionally commuting the sentences of 1,027 convicted Palestinian Arab and other Arab terrorists and setting them loose. More than half had blood on their hands.

Tamimi was bused to Cairo on the day of the release. Following a high-profile media event there in which Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal blessed her arrival, she left on a VIP flight to Jordan and a tumultuous welcome at its main airport and instant, noisy stardom. 

In the years that followed, she hosted her own made-in-Amman terror-friendly Hamas show that was beamed globally via satellite TV. She settled into a jihad-centric talk circuit that got her in front of television cameras, on public event panels and before live audiences throughout the Middle East, as well as opinion pieces in influential Arabic mainstream and social media outlets. Tamimi’s position as one of Islamist terror’s most influential icons is beyond doubt.

* * *

Meanwhile, starting in 2012, just weeks after she left her Israeli cell, Tamimi became a person of interest to the U.S. Department of Justice. A core factor was that two of her victims were U.S. citizens, one of them Malki. (A third, who suffered profound injuries in the atrocity, died in May 2023, having never regained consciousness.)

Those charges were signed off by a U.S. federal judge in July 2013. But they became public only much later on March 14, 2017 via a Department of Justice announcement. 

As this was happening, we were quietly told that Jordan, which is obligated by a 1995 treaty with the Clinton administration to extradite Tamimi, had flatly refused to comply. “You’re now in the court of public opinion,” one of the officials told me. “Good luck.”

The court of public opinion doesn’t have a single address but many. As Malki’s parents, we have tried to reach all of them. We have gone to Congress, assailed the mainstream Western media, written privately to the Biden administration and to the two that came before it, turned to a herd of America’s Jewish organizational insiders, sought help from the government of Israel, and engaged with numerous respected commentators and analysts with expertise in the field.

One or two have said getting Tamimi prosecuted is a bad idea if it offends Jordan. The vast majority either fail to respond or acrobatically avoid dealing directly with the issue even as they sit in the room with my wife and me. The result is mostly the same: We come away frustrated and dismayed by the miles-wide gap between the values they profess and their inaction or actual obstruction.

We have written or spoken about some of those beating-our-head-against-the-wall encounters, but not all. I present a small sample:

• Jordan signed an extradition treaty with the U.S. in 1995 and complied with it for years. There’s no doubt that it remains valid and enforceable. But a Jordanian court, suspiciously ruling just a week after the charges against Tamimi were unsealed in Washington seven years ago, said the treaty needed to be ratified by the parliament but never was and thus was invalid.
• No reporter whom I have contacted has ever pressed the Jordanians about the patent falseness of this claim. If it’s true, Jordan created the problem and Jordan can fix it by simply ratifying the treaty tomorrow morning. But as we discovered by suing the State Department in 2021 under the Freedom of Information Act, King Hussein—the father of Jordan’s present King Abdullah—personally ratified the treaty and swore not to allow its violation. That should have ended the controversy but, of course, it hasn’t.
• Years of appeals to senior American Jewish leaders have been brushed off. 
• But two significant breakthroughs came this past year: The American Jewish Committee (AJC) wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland in July 2023 and the Conference of Presidents wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken in January 2024. Each asked the U.S. to press Jordan harder so Tamimi is handed over for trial in Washington. Both requests have failed to get a response of any kind.
• My wife Frimet is a registered voter in Queens, New York, where she lived for 20-some years. Our requests to the lawmakers who represent her to take up the Tamimi issue with the State Department have gone unanswered or gone nowhere. Both parties in Congress have shown the same unwillingness to tackle the issue.
• All our encounters with Washington’s ambassadors to Israel have been, putting it respectfully, a disappointment.

That’s also true of the things we have done to get reactions from the top of the pyramid. I have avoided publicizing this but I feel justified in sharing how our polite, cogent personal appeals to various presidents, secretaries of state ["27-Aug-21: What we said to Secretary of State Blinken about our child's murder and how he replied"] and current National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan have been brushed aside as if the Tamimi case were not worth addressing.

* * *

Out of the blue, months after we decided to stop wasting further time on them, a letter dated October 25, 2022 arrived from Victoria Nuland, at the time the Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs and Deputy Secretary of State. She has just retired.

She opened with some startling words: 

“On behalf of the President, Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan I want to reiterate…”

She then listed things no government figure has until now: Tamimi must be held accountable; the U.S. is fully committed to getting her into a U.S. court; it’s pursuing “all viable options” with Jordan; and getting justice for Malki and others “is a foremost priority for the United States.”

The most distressing part of Nuland’s letter was its final sentence: 

“We will stay in contact with you regarding our ongoing efforts to ensure Tamimi is held accountable for her despicable crimes.” 

She hasn’t stayed in contact at all. And now she's left her job as America's third-highest ranking diplomat.

On one level, the ongoing pain of our bitter experience stems from the failures of U.S. justice, Congress and the executive branch, reinforced by a depressing propensity for clear-cut issues to fall victim to politics both domestic and global. 

On another level, especially painful for us, there are the lessons about American Jewish life and its leadership’s failure to lead. 

On yet another level, ours is simply a human story of parents fighting so that the killer of our teenage daughter is brought in chains to a U.S. court to face prosecution. 

Tamimi hosted an Arabic language TV series,

"Breezes of the Free", beamed from Amman to the entire

Arabic-speaking world for five years.

The U.S. and the world want to see the Israel-Hamas war wrapped up. In some ways, there’s a mood of “whatever it takes” in the air, and therefore a realistic prospect that Israel will free Palestinian Arab terrorists, including senior Hamas figures. (We’re totally opposed.) 

Some of them might go to Jordan.

So what would it mean if the incomprehensibly generous grant of impunity that Jordan, one of the world’s most antisemitic entities, has enjoyed while illicitly holding tight to Tamimi were extended to cloak those terrorists? 

The Tamimi case is a red light for what may lie ahead.

* * *

Our battle for justice and against the terrorists has been personal from the outset; not because it’s important for us alone (it’s more important than that) but because it’s driven by pain and grief. Those feelings grew even more intense a few weeks ago when our son-in-law, the beloved husband of one of Malki’s sisters and adored father of two of our toddler granddaughters, was killed fighting Hamas in Gaza.

It’s time to change how America views the war against the terrorists and those who stand with them. Everything dear to us depends on getting that right.

06-Feb-24: Obituary: Naftali Yonah Gordon, our adored son-in-law

The obituary that follows was published yesterday by Times of Israel under the headline "Master Sgt. (res.) Naftali Gordon, 32: A man of ‘honesty and justice’ | Killed in combat in the Gaza Strip on December 7". 

The fallen soldier was our greatly-loved and admired son in law, the father of two of our toddler grandchildren.

* * *

Master Sgt. (res.) Naftali Yonah Gordon, 32, a soldier in the IDF's Artillery Corps Battalion 53, was killed in battle in Gaza on December 7.

Naftali, who was a physiotherapist in Jerusalem, leaves behind parents, siblings, a wife, and two daughters.

Speaking at Naftali’s funeral, his wife Pesi, who lost her sister Malki Roth in the 2001 Sbarro bombing, said that he was a perfect husband and father.

“Since you entered my life, it’s been full of light,” she said. “I wanted to grow old with you, you will always be mine and I will always be yours.”

She also promised him that she would raise their two daughters with joy.

Naftali’s mother Beaty Gordon said her son had been an excellent swimmer and loved jogging. She also said he always wanted to help people.

His sister Shira Posner echoed this, saying that he was a “man of action” and a “man of honesty and justice who was filled with joy and humor.”

A new memorial corner in the Jerusalem
medical clinic where Naftali practised as
a physical therapist

Naftali’s fellow soldiers said he had been like a brother to them and that he had regularly put himself at risk for them.

Over Hanukkah, Naftali’s clinic dedicated one of the holiday nights to their lost friend. They described him as having been deeply loved by his whole team.

“Naftali was everything,” they said before the candles were lit. “He had golden hands that could build and repair anything, and he was very smart, giving, kind, and modest.”

A former physiotherapist at the clinic, Effi Hileli, told Mynet that Naftali was a friend to everyone and had easily fit into the team when he first joined.

He had also been set to begin a process management and clinical training course.

The physiotherapy clinic’s manager, Joanie Meron, told Jerusalem MyNet news, “He had endless patience which stemmed from an incredible combination of him being a wonderful, caring, and hardworking person alongside his outstanding wisdom and expertise.”

01-Feb-24: Jordan, Tamimi and a long-awaited public call for US moral integrity and justice

Image Source: The FBI

Getting Jordanian fugitive terrorist Ahlam Tamimi into a Washington courthouse to face trial on charges that were signed off more than a decade ago has been orders-of-magnitude more difficult than we originally thought possible. 

And she's still free. This is despite

• Jordan being a treaty partner of the US and the recipient of well over a billion and a half dollars annually in aid funded by American taxpayers - more than any other country (and we don't mean per capita). 
• Tamimi being an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist of whom only 24 are currently alive and only two of them are females. 
• Tamimi living proudly and openly in Amman, never in hiding as far as we know for even a single day since her return to her homeland in October 2011 - an arrival marked by tumultuous receptions and cheering crowds at the airport, and a long series of exuberant public rallies in downtown Amman, at the University of Jordan's main campus, and at numerous other schools and universities, as well as dozens of venues in other Arab countries.

How she's perceived in Jordan is straightforward. There, she's a celebrity, widely admired for what she did (the dead Jewish children, the getting away from the scene, the getting out of Israeli prison, the outspoken and unwavering promotion and admiration of deadly terror. There's more.) We're reasonably sure that we follow Jordan's media more closely than most non-Jordanians do. If a critical word about Ahlam Tamimi has ever appeared in any newspaper or magazine article, we haven't seen it. 

We doubt it's ever happened.

But how Tamimi is viewed in the highest reaches of America's power hierarchy is considerably less simple. 

On one hand, she has faced criminal charges in Washington DC since 2013 that, if she's convicted, may see her spending the rest of her life behind bars in a federal prison. 

In January 2018, a unit of the State Department called Rewards for Justice announced a reward of "up to $5 million" "for information on Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi". That reward is still in effect. Referring to the Sbarro atrocity, the reward offer page says that

"in 2003, al-Tamimi pleaded guilty in an Israeli court to participating in the attack and was sentenced to 16 life terms in Israel for assisting the bomber. She was released in October 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel. On March 14, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed a criminal complaint and an arrest warrant for al-Tamimi. The FBI also added al-Tamimi to its Most Wanted Terrorists List."

In addition, we know what President Biden says about bringing her to US justice. It's the very same thing Secretary of State Antony Blinken says. There's a good reason we can say this and that is that on October 25, 2022, a senior official in the US State Department (we prefer to give no names at this stage) sent us a personal letter in their names. "Us" means Frimet and Arnold Roth - we write this blog.

Here's most of it:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Roth:

Thank you for your July 10 letter to President Biden and your September 1 letter to National Security Advisor Sullivan. On behalf of the President, Secretary Blinken, and National Security Advisor Sullivan, I want to reiterate our deepest condolences to you and your family for the unimaginable pain and suffering you have experienced over the tragic loss of your daughter, Malki. Ahlam al-Tamimi must be held accountable for her role in the terrorist attack that claimed the life of your daughter and 14 others.

The U.S. government remains fully committed to bringing Tamimi to the United States to face federal terrorism-related charges in U.S. courts. The U.S. government is pursuing all viable options to hold Tamimi accountable, including ongoing engagements with the Government of Jordan.

I can assure you that pursuing justice for American victims of terrorism, including Malki, is a foremost priority for the United States. We will stay in contact with you regarding our ongoing efforts to ensure Tamimi is held accountable for her despicable crimes.

Sincerely yours,

As it happens, there were some questions we wanted to ask the writer of the letter. So we wrote back. And then wrote again. And again and again. 

In fact the "we will stay in contact with you" part of it has ended up being pretty puzzling for us. Not one of our dozen or so emails and messages to the writer has gotten even a single response in the nearly sixteen months since the letter was sent to us by the US Department of State. That's a serious piece of pretending not to hear us.

Has Tamimi been held accountable by the US? Not in the smallest way. Her name has never once been mentioned in any public utterance by President Biden, or by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, or by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, or by any of their media spokespersons. 

Pause and read that again; it's a serious thing. 

On the other hand, and perhaps others will be less surprised by this than we are, those very same, very important officials who haven't once managed to speak publicly about Jordan's harboring of the killer and who have never mentioned on the record the killer's name or the names of her victims have very little reluctance in publicly praising the ruler of Jordan and his country. 

Examples from among many: 

• The American President offered some widely-reported warm appreciation: "Biden Praises Jordanian King as Strong Ally in 'Tough Neighborhood'" [VOA, July 19, 2021]. 
• Secretary Blinken, speaking after a May 2021 Middle East tour, spoke highly of King Abdullah’s “crucial” leadership in helping to secure a cease-fire agreement between Israel and “Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip... Jordan’s recent contributions to help bring an end to the conflict in Israel demonstrate the kingdom's enduring role as a force for peace in the region, which is one of the reasons our relationship is so strong and so vital,” Blinken told reporters after meeting with King Abdullah in Amman.” [Source]. That's the ceasefire that so viciously ended with the Hamas mass-butchery, rape and pillage of October 7, 2023.
• And the National Security Advisor in May 2022: “Sullivan commended Jordan’s pivotal role in promoting regional security and stability, stressing the United States’ keenness on maintaining coordination and working with the Kingdom to counter threats to regional stability and their implications on international peace, in addition to ongoing efforts in the fight against terrorism and extremism.” [Jordan Times, May 14, 2022].

As the parents of a greatly-loved murdered American child, we have fought since 2012 to see Tamimi brought to justice under US law in the US. It's a process that has been marked by rudeness and disdain over those years from a long list of officials in three consecutive US administrations. 

That's why we were so heartened by what happened just two weeks ago. 

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an influential roof-body organization based in New York, is 

"the proven and effective voice of organized American Jewry for more than half a century... (working) publicly and behind the scenes to advance the interests of the American Jewish community, sustain broad-based support for Israel and addresses the critical concerns facing world Jewry with US and world leaders, key opinion molders and the public. [It's] the preeminent forum for diverse segments of the Jewish community to come together in mutual respect to deliberate vital national and international issues, set policy and priorities, deliberate proactive strategies and take collective action." 

It speaks in the names of some fifty member organizations. They include AIPAC, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti Defamation League, Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, the Jewish Federations of North America, the National Council of Jewish Women and some 44 more. 

This is what the COP sent to Secretary Antony Blinken on January 16, 2024 and made public shortly afterwards:

Dear Secretary Blinken,

Thank you very much for your and President Biden’s continuing support for Israel during the ongoing crisis.  Your steadfast dedication to ensuring a peaceful and secure future for the people of Israel is noted and appreciated by the American Jewish community. 

We write today to reiterate how deeply concerned we are by the fact that Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist responsible for the heinous 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, continues to find refuge in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The horrific attack on the Sbarro pizzeria claimed the life of sixteen innocents, three of them American nationals. These victims included a pregnant woman, a woman who remained in a coma for more than twenty years before succumbing to her injuries, and 15-year-old Malki Roth. The pain and anguish experienced by Malki’s family, Frimet and Arnold Roth, are shared by countless others in the American Jewish community and beyond.

We are heartened by President Biden’s commitment to conducting diplomacy rooted in America’s democratic values and dedication to upholding universal rights. We believe that these principles should extend to seeking justice for victims of terrorism, regardless of where the perpetrators seek shelter.

Jordan’s refusal to extradite Ahlam Tamimi represents a breach of the 1995 bilateral treaty between the United States and Jordan. Despite her confessions and incriminating statements, she has enjoyed immunity from justice, further exacerbating tensions and fostering an environment of hatred and extremism in the region.

We believe that the United States should prioritize Tamimi’s extradition in our bilateral relations with Jordan. We suggest a comprehensive review of the leverage that could be applied by the United States to signal the importance of compliance with U.S. law and principles.  We urge the State Department to engage in a robust diplomatic dialogue with Jordan’s leadership, stressing the importance of upholding international agreements and commitments to justice.

Also of concern, Jordan’s Court of Cassation denied a 2017 US request for extradition by asserting that the country never ratified the extradition treaty with the United States. However, the ruling failed to acknowledge King Hussein’s ratification of the treaty at the time of its signing in March 1995. We request that the United States make this information publicly available to counteract misconceptions and bring clarity to the matter.

We also request that you raise the issue and seek tangible progress on Tamimi’s extradition with King Abdullah II.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations stands united in our unwavering commitment to combatting terrorism and ensuring justice for victims and their families. We trust that the United States will continue to demonstrate its leadership and moral integrity by pursuing this crucial matter.

Sincerely,

        

Harriet P. Schleifer                                   William C. Daroff

Chair                                                        Chief Executive Officer

The text of the letter was made public by the COP on or just after the day it was sent [here]. When we checked today with a senior source there, we were told there has been no response so far from anyone at the State Department. 

As we have said in this blog before, our experience in getting Secretary Antony Blinken's attention on the Tamimi case, or in prodding him to take concrete steps towards bringing the Jordanian fugitive to US justice, haven't gone well. Some of that quite bitter experience is laid out here: "27-Aug-21: What we said to Secretary of State Blinken about our child's murder and how he replied". 

And as we noted above, none of the people who have served him as spokesperson or deputy spokesperson in the role he has had since 2021 has ever pronounced Ahlam Tamimi's name in public. 

It's a depressing reality made far worse by the way America's mainstream media have ignored the story, and continue to ignore it today. 

What this means is the vast majority of Americans know nothing about Jordan's ongoing breach of the treaty, about its devotion to harboring and protecting a fugitive charged with being the central figure in a massacre of Jewish children and of Americans, or about the Conference of Presidents' open letter of two weeks ago. 

Little wonder that Congress - both sides of the aisle - ignore the scandal, thereby allowing Jordan to keep pocketing massive taxpayer-provided US aid and Ahlam Tamimi to avoid justice and accountability.

04-Jan-24: Adjusting to a new reality

Our family is about as well-adjusted, mutually supportive, loving as those around us here in Jerusalem. Maybe in some respects even a little more than many.

That's not only relevant but perhaps even core to the experience we're undergoing right now.

Those who know us - not via our writing or our social media presence but as neighbors and actual friends - will already be aware of the crushing challenge that's overtaken us in recent weeks. But for the many who pass through our blog or come into contact with articles penned by people outside our family circle, a few lines here to explain.

We were as private as most families are until the summer of 2001. And then lost some of our anonymity in the explosive horror of a bombing in the heart of the city we have called home since moving to Jerusalem in the eighties. 

The middle child of our young family, Malki, a sunny, sweet-natured, generous and talented fifteen year old, was one of many children targeted for her Jewishness in a massacre engineered by Hamas and centered on a pizzeria that's gone on to become a by-word for carnage and vicious cynicism: Sbarro Jerusalem.

Half the victims of that early afternoon atrocity, timed for a busy school-vacation afternoon in one of this city's bustling gathering points, were children. The shocking-enough death toll was fifteen, with some 130 others injured, overwhelmingly mothers and children. That, we soon learned, was the explicit plan. The list grew to 16 just a few months ago when one of the victims - a young mother out for lunch with her toddler daughter - died of her injuries decades after the bombing without ever having regained consciousness.

Accompanied by one of her very closest friends and our neigbours' daughter, Malki was standing at the counter placing her order when an exploding young man (not the terrorist as he is mistakenly called but the terrorist's human bomb) walked in off the busy intersection of King George Avenue and Jaffa Road and, after a few moments of seeming to study the overhead menu, pressed a button on his chest. The button was wired to the guitar case slung across his back. But what was inside was no guitar. 

Though this wasn't obvious to our family for a while, the massive explosion that ensued, destroying the eatery and the tranquility of dozens of families like ours, marked the end of one stage of our lives. And the start of a new and very painful and challenging one.

For us, losing Malki was traumatic in ways we won't try to articulate here. 

With time, the wounds and scars did what they usually do. Not quite healing, they remained ever-present parts of the reality of coping with loss and pain as well as the sometimes-quite-complicated background to lives-going-on.

The years that followed included family weddings, the births of grandchildren, the passing of older members of our families. And, in passing, the ongoing pursuit of the atrocity's mastermind who is safe and shielded in Jordan until today. There were private and occasionally public celebrations, along with observances that for an Orthodox Jewish family like ours give specific shape to the flow of the months and years and even lifetimes. And a myriad of shared experiences that anyone who is close to anyone will recognize. 

On December 7, 2023, just after we lit the first Hanukah candle, several sombre-looking members of a special purpose team from the Israel Defence Forces knocked on the door of our son-in-law's family. Two of our youngest grand-daughters were in the room with their Mummy enjoying a special family moment. It was a relief from the stresses and strains of living without their Abba (Daddy) who was posted to far-away Gaza - along with several hundred thousand other Israeli Abbas - as part of the largest mobilization of military reserves our country has ever known. Again, as in the Battle at Sbarro, the enemy was Hamas.

The special family moment ended as soon as that door was opened. 

The army buried our son-in-law with pomp and very respectful formality three days later. In atendance were many hundreds of people whose lives were touched by this lovely young man, along with his extended family. Though his military role as a reservist involved being inside a tank, our son in law was a physiotherapist with a burgeoing career and many apprecative clients.

But first he was a loving and adored husband, father, son and sibling.

In heart-breakingly gentle tones, our newly widowed daughter spoke at the graveside and then in a television interview during the shiva of losing a deeply admired partner who saw his responsibility, without question and without delay, as being to help defend his family and the society in which we live. 

His life, like that of our Malki 22 years earlier, was distinguished by an all-embracing love and a pureness, a fineness and a nobility of personality that is almost impossible to adequately express in words.

23-Nov-23: Not war in the conventional sense

Source: YouTube

Like all wars, this war, the one in which the savages of Hamas launched an all-out slaughter of innocents, and the armed forces of Israel struck back in unusually powerful fashion, has public dimensions - mostly arguing with or trying to understand the politicians and the media. 

And private ones: looking after family members, worrying about loved ones who are serving in the standing army and in the reserves; keeping children and grandchildren calm. 

To state the obvious, a time of immense stress. Our apologies for being silent for much longer than usual. 

We continu to be active on our three Twitter  channels (it's hard to the point of offensive to call it X): Frimet's, Arnold's and the one we work on jointly, This Ongoing War.

But sitting down to write something longer continues to call for juggling skills and balancing capabilities that are beyond us most of the time right now. 

And stress being what it is, we're both battling colds or something like it.

Negatives notwithstanding, it's been a time when we have wanted to be heard. The dramatic events that started October 7 raise issues - Hamas, terrorism, war, idiotic media among others - on which we have first-hand experience and things we want people to know.

On October 10, just three days after the horrific events of Black Shabbat, Arnold Roth was interviewed on NEWSX, an Indian TV news platform ("India's leading English News Channel and the #1 choice of the young, aspiring and urbane") and a brief intro on its Twitter stream). 

He emphasized that this was not war in the conventional sense, a war waged overwhelmingly against civilians. And that Israel was experiencing the calm before the storm, after the first storm.

We have more to share. Just not yet.

14-Aug-23: Getting Tamimi to US justice: A modest positive step

The admitted Sbarro bomber hosted a made-in-Jordan weekly TV

show from Amman between February 2012 and September 2016.

Taking a robustly pro-terror line, it went to air globally via the
Hamas Al Quds TV satellite channel with a generous
assist from YouTube.

A small but meaningful step forward by America's organized Jewish communities in addressing a subject they have avoided confronting for years happened, to our surprise and appreciation, a month ago. 

But first some background.

The woman who brought a suicidal/murderous human bomb to the door of a pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem 22 years ago this week lives in Jordan today. 

A fugitive with a $5 million reward on her head from the Rewards for Justice unit of the US State Department, she's free but not only that. 

She's also a media celebrity. A 21 year old TV news reader when she spearheaded the Sbarro massacre, she went on to host a television program aimed at a global Arabic-speaking audience that was produced in Amman, Jordan's capital, and beamed from there throughout the world weekly from February 2012 for the next almost-five years. 

If she wasn't already famous, the terror-focused show called "Breezes of the Free" turned her into a pan-Arab public figure. If anyone has a claim to being an icon of Islamist terror, a person who more than anyone else embodies murderous lust for dead Jews and Israelis, it is Ahlam Ahmad Aref Al-Tamimi. 

But this isn't about her. 

What's disturbed us more than any other single factor through the years that we have striven to see her arrested in Jordan, put on a plane and brought in chains to Washington where federal US charges have faced her since July 15, 2013, is the incomprehensible passivity of so many parts of American society.

And none more incomprehensible than America's Jewish organizational leadership. 

The still-thwarted US prosecution of Tamimi ought to have been embraced as an American-Jewish issue par excellence. The woman is open about having targeted Jews, and in particular Jewish children, in the massacre she engineered at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria on August 9, 2001. And in this, she succeeded on a shattering scale: a death toll of sixteen, half of them children, most of the rest women, and three US nationals among them. 

She is on the record saying that nothing she did left her feeling any moral or other doubt: 

I have no regrets, and no Palestinian prisoner regrets what he or she has done. We were defending ourselves. What are we supposed to regret? Should we regret defending ourselves? Should we regret that the Israelis killed one of us so we killed a different one of them? We have no regrets. [Palestinian Media Watch]

And not only no regrets but redemptive theological conviction:

This is the path. I dedicated myself to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success. You know how many casualties there were [in the 2001 attack on the Sbarro pizzeria]. This was made possible by Allah. Do you want me to denounce what I did? That's out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner (Source; Tamimi interviewed in Jordan in October 2011 - translated by MEMRI).

Referring to two separate Jerusalem bombng attacks which she spearheaded, she brags (to a Turkish audience in October 2021) that 

Allah let me have a membership in the ‘Izz ad-Deen al-Qassam battalions and [allowed me to] participate in two jihad operations that produced, by the Lord’s virtue, the deaths of fifteen zionists with 122 zionists wounded in two Jihad operations. We ask Allah to accept this. These two jihad operations are a crown on my head. By Allah’s virtue, I entered history by doing the finest of deeds, the finest operations, in the finest of ways, which are the ways of jihad. Praise Allah, He has prescribed me this fate.

With years of detailed, recorded and filmed interviews, speeches and public rallies behind her, there is absilutely no reason to doubt Tamimi's deep belief in the righteousness of the crimes that have made her one of the FBI's twenty-four Most Wanted Terrorists. 

* * *

Jordan's supremely shabby role in keeping this appalling woman free and out of reach of America's law enforcement agencies is a matter of record. 

The Hashemite Kingdom entered into an extradition treaty with the United States in 1995. But in March 2017, just six days after the Justice Department in Washington unsealed its long-secret 2013 charges against Tamimi, it repudiated the bilateral agreement ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"]

There is no legal validity to Jordan's judicial assertions, whatever the Jordanians may claim. 

The United States has made a variety of official statements - some relatively forceful, some whispered, and none of them directed at Jordan in any public way - confirming that it views the treaty as in force. We summarize them here: "29-Mar-23: The Sbarro bomber's thwarted extradition from Jordan: Where does the State Department actually stand?" 

It's a troubling chronology.

Treaties and legal obligations are. of course, only as effective as the people who enforce them. In the Tamimi case, no one answers to that description with the exception, as we know from our own experience, of the prosecutors and investigators of the Department of Justice and of the FBI. Almost all the obstacles we know about, and to a large extent have experienced, emanate from the Department of State.

How do State Department officials justify stepping into the path of US law enforcement? How can they explain taking measures to ensure Tamimi isn't handed over to US marshals? Why would they align their interests and those of the US government with a monstrous terrorist responsible for he deaths of sixteen innocents including three Americans?

They don't. 

In fact, in an unclassified October 2022 fax to the parents of Malki Roth, one of Tamimi's many victims, they assert that Tamimi

must be held accountable for her role in the terrorist attack that claimed the life of your daughter and 14 others [that became 15 in March 2023 with the death of an American woman who had been left in a coma in the pizzeria atrocity]... The U.S. government remains fully committed to bringing Tamimi to the united States to face federal terrorism-related charges in U.S. courts. The U.S. government is pursuing all viable options to hold Tamimi accountable, including ongoing engagements with the Government of Jordan. I can sure you that pursuing justice for American victims of terrorism, including Malki, is a formost priority for the United States...

and so on.

Nothing substantive has happened to bring this loathsome woman to US justice in more than a decade. Nontheless some of the most senior officials at the pinnacle of US power continue to say how much they want her, how hard they're working to get her, that their thoughts and prayers go out to the families of her victims. 

It's not a terribly complex picture. Most people can figure out the truth of what's actually going on.

* * *

But in the midst of this remarkable saga where America's lawmakers, senior government officials and - to a surprising extent - America's mainstream media all show a striking passivity, there has been a long-overdue positive development. 

One of American Jewish life's leading advocacy organisations made an announcement a month ago that marks one of the very few positive moments in the years-long struggle to prosecute the Sbarro bomber. They addressed the US government with a request that efforts be made to get this extradition done. This is good news.

Here's how Jewish Insider reported it on July 13, 2023.

02-Jul-23: A festival, a funeral and failed leaders

Tamimi is a featured interviewee on Al-Aqsa TV (and Facebook) June 30, 2023

America's most wanted female fugitive made a featured appearance on global TV again this past Friday. 

Ahlam Tamimi, a designated FBI Most Wanted terrorist since March 2017, looked jubilant as the centerpiece of a 25 minute interview on the Al-Aqsa TV network. It's been beaming programs daily from Gaza to Arabic-speaking audiences in every part of the world since 2006. 

The background is worth knowing. In 2010, the US Department of the Treasury, calling it "a television station financed and controlled by Hamas", designated Al-Aqsa TV as 

a primary Hamas media outlet [that] airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood. Treasury will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself... [link]

Treasury designations like this one are intended to freeze assets held by the station and to

prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with these parties. Executive Order 13224 targets terrorists, terrorist organizations, persons owned or controlled by or acting for or on behalf of designated terrorists or terrorist organizations, and those providing financial, material, or technological support to designated terrorists or terrorist organizations, or for acts of terrorism [Source]

Sounds fearsome. 

But for years, video programming that originates with Al-Aqsa TV has gotten a considerable part of its global distribution and exposure from Facebook. Could this amount to giving "financial, material, or technological support to designated terrorists"? It's a question that was posed in the past.

Ahlam Tamimi, who has long called her central role in the massacre of Jewish children in Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria in 2001 "a crown on my head", was interviewed live on Friday June 30, 2023 in a program marking the festival of Eid al Adha. 

The adulatory interview, entirely devoid of criticism and long on compliments and adulation, ran for 25 minutes on Al-Aqsa TV that day. It remains viewable now on Facebook [here].

Rambling and unfocused, with lengthy elements of theology, it calls for understanding of the greatness of what jihadists like Tamimi see themselves personifying. When Tamimi has the media's attention, it's generally about her dedication, her determination, her victimhood. And sometimes about her skillful cooking:

...I mean, I am a professional in making Jordanian mansaf [lamb cooked in fermented dried yogurt, served with rice or bulgur - considered the national dish of Jordan]... I mean, I make mansaf and feed everyone, God willing. I want to talk. Mansaf is also one of the dishes that Nizar and I love. Most Palestinian prisoners and editors also love this dish. On the other hand, I mean, if I want to compare to you, we used to make Mansaf in prison. No one asked me this question honestly. The method of making it in prison is completely different from the way it is made in. In freedom, God willing, in future episodes. If you want to talk about this talk, it is necessary, we would love it very much.

This, remember, is an interview with a confessed mass murderer.

* * *

Until a month ago, the death toll that resulted from Tamimi's August 9, 2001 execution of an act of violent savagery on behalf of Hamas was 15. 

Two of those killed were Americans. Our daughter Malka Chana Roth, 15, was one. And a young American Jewish tourist (and her parents' only child) visiting Jerusalem briefly while pregnant for the first time, was the other. Sveeral American nationals were injured.  

The number of murdered rose to 16 on May 30, 2023. Chana Tova Nachenberg had been profoundly injured in the Sbarro bombing when a splinter of shrapnel penetrated her skull, rendering her comatose - but sparing her toddler daughter. A month ago, she died in a Tel Aviv hospice, having never recovered consciousness throughout the nearly twenty-two years that ensued. 

Chana Finer Nachenberg's grave

Her closest family - parents, husband, only child - visited her for years, praying, hoping, weaping, wishing for a miracle that never came. 

Then the vigil came to an end.

We hope none of them ever hears Tamimi wail, as she did on Al-Aqsa this past Friday, about how

I am trying to be happy and get joy. But I mean, the family entity has been shaken because of this forced distance, because of constant demands, constant pursuit. However there is no listening ear to our cause as if [it were we who] committed the massacres of the whole world. They want to put the blame on my back and Nizar's back. [Source]

Her family entity has been shaken, says Tamimi, the proud murderer? It's a reference to how Nizar Tamimi, her husband and cousin, an unrepentant convicted murderer imprisoned for life and freed, like Ahlam Tamimi, in the notorious Shalit Deal in 2011, now lives free in Qatar after Jordan declared him persona non grata in 2020 ["Jordan deports Sbarro bomber’s husband, also a convicted terrorist, to Qatar", Times of Israel, October 13, 2020]

But the presenter, like every presenter of every interview Tamimi has done in all her years of obscene celebrity, doesn't once mention the children this barbarian blew to pieces. 

In the Arabic-language media, there is zero interest in addressing the humanity of Tamimi's murdered victims. Tamimi herself has said repeatedly she has no regrets. She would do it again if she could. 

In a startlingly large number of Arab media outlets, our beautiful fifteen year old daughter is repeatedly called "zionist rapist". So are all the other Sbarro pizzeria victims, some of whom never reached their teens. 

The horror is not limited to Tamimi.

* * *

The dedication ceremony at the fresh graveside of Chana Tova Nachenberg this past Friday included no references to more violence. No calls for revenge. No bitterness or anger. But much heartbreaking wistfulness, deep longing, love.

The FBI issued a Most Wanted Terrorist poster for Ahlam Tamimi in March 2017. It says she's dangerous and likely armed. You can see the English and Arabic versions here.

In the past week, evidently triggered by the increase after so many years of the number of dead, and of the Americans among them, the FBI with no fanfare has just issued an updated version which shows Tamimi looking 43 years old. It also updates the death toll.

King Hussein and President Clinton

What it doesn't say, at least not in the way we think should be said, is that Ahlam Tamimi remains free, a celebrity, safe under the illicit protection of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. 

Why illicit? 

Because a 1995 extradition treaty made between the William J. Clinton administration and the late King Hussein of Jordan, the father of today's Jordanian ruler, gives Jordan no discretion in the matter. 

If pursuant to the treaty America asks for the handover of a fugitive wanted by the US justice system which Tamimi certainly is, Jordan can really only ask "Which flight?" 

Jordan has issued a host of alibis and made-up rationales to conceal the truth of why it refuses to extradite Tamim to Washington where she began facing terror charges under seal in July 2013. (The charges were made public only on March 14, 2017 after years of unproiductive efforts by the United States to induce Jordanian compliance with its undoubted treaty obligation.)

From speaking with a wide selection of authorities, it's clear to us that Jordan's self-excusing acrobatics aren't taken seriously by anyone. 

It's also worth noting that in the formal ratification document signed back in 1995 (we obtained the documents by personally suing the State Department), King Hussein expressing himself in formalized language (and understandably using the Royal "We") says that Jordan pledges

to carry out its provisions and abide by its articles and... shall not allow its violation. Accordingly We have ordered that Our Seal be affixed to it and We have signed it properly 

Jordan did in fact observe the provisions and articles of the treaty appropriately and conscientiously every time the US requested an extradition, as a treaty partner of course must. That however came to an end with the Tamimi case, years after King Hussein's death.

* * *

It's hard to ignore how Tamimi's continued freedom, her encouragement of more terror, her glorification of the murders she carried out, her inciting of others to do the same, all get buried again and again by those who ought to have taken action years ago. 

Since this is about justice, there's plenty of disgrace to go around.

* * *

This post, like many others before it, has been translated into the Polish language ("Święto, pogrzeb i nieudane przywództwo") by 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.