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| The scene outside Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant, a few minutes after 2 pm on Thursday August 9, 2001 |
Terrorism: Portrait of a happy murderess
By Huguette Chomski
Magnis,
General Secretary of the Movement for Peace and Against Terrorism (MPCT),
France
Translation: Bernice Dubois
On June 16, 2012, a wedding was celebrated in grand style in Amman,
Jordan. The couple was famous, and the festivities were widely transmitted
by television well beyond Jordan’s boundaries. So far, everything is ordinary. People’s
weddings are media events. But, these people are somewhat special. Their
fame comes from their terrorist careers.
Ahlam Tamimi
She is the star. Born in Jordan in 1980 in a Palestinian family
from near Ramallah, she went to study journalism at the Palestinian University
of Bir Zeit[1].
There, she joined the Al Qassam Brigades of the Hamas and became a journalist on
Palestinian Authority television. After carrying out a first bombing attack on
a supermarket in July 2001, she was the lynch-pin of the attack on the Sbarro
pizzeria in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001 that resulted in 15 murdered[2] and 130 wounded, several very
seriously, destroying the lives of all those families.
She selected the site, always crowded, as a choice target and led
the terrorist who committed the “suicide” attack. Her mission accomplished, she
then went to announce it on the televised news she presented.
Her relative notoriety as a television presenter was nothing
compared to the fame she acquired as a smiling and satisfied terrorist, speaker
of Hamas prisoners. Medias throughout the world devoted articles and programs
to her.
In 2009, Arte [a French television channel] devoted a
program to the “terrorist journalist”. Interviewed in her Israeli prison, she freely answered
questions. To the journalist who asked her if she did not regret having killed
families, children, she replied,”No”. When he asked her if she knew how many
children had been killed in that attack, she guessed “three”. And when he told
her that in fact she had killed eight children, she smiled, pleasantly
surprised at her good score. No, she certainly regretted nothing. Quite the
contrary, and she congratulated herself at having charitably allowed the young “suicide”
bomber to achieve supreme happiness.
Nizar al-Tamimi
He is her elder, both in age and as a terrorist, since he was
condemned to life imprisonment in 1993 for having kidnapped and murdered a
Jewish resident of the West Bank.
Ahlam once visited him - her distant cousin, a member of Yasser
Arafat’s Fatah - in prison. In 2001, Nizar learned of his cousin’s prowess.
That was the start of the correspondence between the two prisoners. It ended
virtuously in a marriage by proxy.
October 2011, the two cousins were among the 1,027 prisoners
claimed by Hamas as the price for freeing the hostage, Gilad Shalit.
France 24 did a
program on the happy pair, married in Israeli prisons but still separated despite their
liberation. They only saw each other twice. She was sent back to Jordan and he
was assigned to residency in the West Bank. “The story of Ahlam and of Nizar
Tamimi became as symbolic in Palestine as Romeo and Juliet in Europe”, said the
commentator, but in a much “trashier” version.
Trashy or not, the comparison is senseless, as far removed from
Romeo and Juliet who chose innocence, loving each other beyond prejudice,
hatred and death, while the wedding of the Tamimis was that of death and of
hatred, a marriage based upon for shared criminality, both asserted and
glorified.
The Triumph of Impunity
A triumphant welcome was accorded the ex-prisoners. Hamas in Gaza
and the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank competed with one another in their
praises for the terrorists. In Amman, the Muslim Brotherhood did their best for
Ahlam. She was also received by Hamas’ Khaled Meshaal in Cairo. And far from
languishing for her Nizar, she is hyperactive, travelling and organizing. She
has her own weekly program on Hamas television in which she incites others to
follow her example. In March, during a meeting in Jordan, she announced the
launch of a huge hunger strike. This cleverly organized campaign was
successful.
They lived happily ever after and had many little terrorists?
In early June, in violation of the conditions under which she was
released, Nizar arrives in Jordan. The celebration of this second wedding
ceremony is her apotheosis.
For the parents of her victims, it is a new heart-rending stroke.
Among these parents, are the parents of Malki Roth who petitioned in vain to
prevent this sinister “happy ending”.
Malki Roth
Malki was 15 when she was murdered in the Sbarro pizzeria in
Jerusalem, together with her best friend, Michal, next to whom she is buried.
She was radiant, as are girls of 15. With that something extra
that strikes one on her photographs that can be seen on the Keren
Malki website, the
foundation her parents, Frimet and Arnold Roth, created in her name to help
handicapped children. Malki, very close to her gravely handicapped little
sister, devoted herself to accompanying children in very difficult situations.
Malki’s luminous smile, her love of music, her kindness, all was wiped out in a
few seconds by a priestess of Islamist hatred.
Malki, forever innocent, Anne Frank of our time, was condemned to
death with no appeal. Ahlam was condemned to 16 life imprisonment sentences,
but she lives free, thanks to the hostage-taking blackmail that makes a mockery
of justice.
As terrible as this is, it is less so than the tacit tolerance of
such impunity. One might expect the reprobation of universal conscience to
crush the Tamimis with shame, but that is far from the case.
No one questions the Palestinian Authority when it celebrates
assassins and calls for all Palestinian prisoners to be
freed en masse.
We can hardly be surprised when Hamas itself is upheld by Stéphane
Hessel, the very incarnation of virtuous indignation.
This signifies that terrorism is not seen as a problem and that
universal values are suspended. This implies that an identity, Palestinian in this case, provides
immunity, legitimizing even crimes against humanity[3] and guaranteeing impunity to
those who commit them.
As long as this situation lasts, declarations in favor of peace in
the Near East, can be nothing but empty formulas, as are UN commitments to
combat terrorism.
The condemnation of terrorism must be universal or it does not
exist.
It does not exist and Ahlam Tamimi is a happy murderess.
Paris, 2 July 2012
[1] Lionel Jospin, then Prime Minister of France, was
stoned there in February 2000 for having dared to say the Hezbollah were
terrorists.
[2] The fifteen victims of the Sbarro
pizzeria. http://www.kerenmalki.org/images/Sbarro_Victims.jpg On the Website of the pro-Hamas movement ISM, the words “15 Zionists”
can be read. This movement shares with Dieudonné the clever use of this term to
replace the word “Jew”. Refer to http://www.ism-france.org/temoignages/Accueil-triomphal-pour-Ahlam-Tamimi-en-Jordanie-article-16196
[3] Three NGOs published reports declaring attacks
against Israeli civilians as crimes against humanity: Amnesty international and
Human Rights Watch in 2002 and Doctors of the World in 2003.
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