05-May-20: From Congress, concern about how Jordanians deal with the fugitive terrorist in their midst

A meme we have used on Twitter to focus attention on how the world's
most wanted woman (as Fox News recently called her) is a celebrity
and hero in Jordan

A group of Republican members of the US Congress has despatched a letter to Her Excellency Dina Kawar, Jordan's ambassdor to Washington. It's reported by JNS in a May 4, 2020 syndicated article headlined "Congress members push for extradition of wanted terrorist Ahlam Tamimi from Jordan".

The law-makers who co-signed it are Reps. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) who took the lead; Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.); Ted Yoho (R-Fla.); Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.); Brian Mast (R-Fla.); Scott Perry (R-Penn.); and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

Ahlam Tamimi, whose obscene freedom in Jordan is at the heart of the letter, is the Hamas terrorist who repeatedly confesses proudly to her central role in the massacre at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzera on August 9, 2001. Our daughter Malki, 15, was one of Tamimi's victims.

US Federal charges against Tamimi were announced in Washington by the Department of Justice on March 14, 2017.

Some extracts from the letter:

• [Tamimi] has been showered with acclaim by the students of the Arab world’s most important graduate school of journalism, the Amman-based Jordan Media Institute, who declared her to be their "success model"... For five years, she traveled widely and often to deliver public speeches throughout Jordan and in numerous Arab countries beyond Jordan’s borders. Her theme has always centered on promoting terror and terrorists.
• Today, appallingly, Tamimi is a media celebrity, the subject of wide popular admiration. She has appeared publicly side-by-side with prominent political figures and received extraordinary recognition in Jordan’s mainstream press and television media as a respected commentator and as an object of Jordanian national pride...

Referring to Jordan's blunt refusal to extradite Tamimi as required by the 1995 Jordan/US Extradition Treaty, the letter says

• This is a matter of grave and growing concern to the Congress and to all Americans. The American view concerning the treaty is that it is certainly valid. It continues to be listed in the U.S. government’s authoritative Treaties in Force document... 
• Up until the Tamimi case and its Israeli victims, Jordan had extradited terrorists to the United States multiple times.

It goes on to refer to sanctions legislated by Congress and signed into law in December 2019 which, in the words of the JNS article

• subject to certain conditions, will apply to ‘a country which has notified the Department of State of its refusal to extradite to the United States any individual indicted for a criminal offense’ [certain details follow], and is ‘a country with which the United States maintains diplomatic relations and with which the United States has an extradition treaty,’ and ‘that country is in violation of the terms and conditions of the treaty.’
• The potential seriousness of these sanctions provisions reflect the deep concern of the Congress, the administration and the American people...

The Washington-based Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) was one of the prime movers behind the letter. EMET and its founder and president Sarah N. Stern have for years been raising awareness about the Tamimi case and were instrumental in Arnold Roth, one of this blog's writers, giving testimony to the House Oversight Committee of the US Congress four years ago. See
"08-Feb-16: Terror is now a legitimate career option in Pal Arab society but its enablers barely notice".

Mrs Stern has a statement in the JNS piece that we think bears emhasizing - that "as long as the United States turns a blind eye to the murderers of American citizens, we will be reinforcing their resolve against the United States".

She's certainly right.