12-Sep-22: What, officially, does Jordan hear from the US embassy about the Tamimi extradition?

Source: Yesterday's Jordan Times

There are reports in the Jordanian media today about a Congressional Delegation ("a CoDel") visit to the royal palace in Amman yesterday.

The only Congressional name that appears in any of the numerous news items we saw is that of Senator Michael Rounds, a Republican and the junior senator from South Dakota. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He was accompanied by the American ambassador, Henry Wooster. Other American-looking visitors (possibly staffers) are seen in the accompanying news video but the Jordanian reports don't name any of them. 

The visit was clearly appreciated by the hosts. That's evident from seeing which Jordanians participated. King Abdullah II; his son Crown Prince Hussein; Jordan's Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Ayman Safadi; and the director of the king's office, Jafar Hassan. There may have been others.

As we have said in previous posts, official American delegations to Jordan's sumptuous Al Husseiniya Palace raise thorny, even disturbing, questions about how the United States views the Hashemite Kingdom's years-long breach of the 1995 Extradition Treaty between the two countries. 

See for instance

• "08-Oct-19: Again: Jordan's inscrutable US relationship"; 
• "19-Oct-19: House Speaker Pelosi led an official visit today to the chief protector of our child's killer"; and
• "16-Dec-19: Like talking to the wall" 

among others.

The 1995 treaty we mentioned is the one invoked by the US Department of Justice when it filed a criminal complaint on July 15, 2013 against the Jordanian woman charged with bringing a powerful and very deadly bomb - an exploding human being, a human bomb - to a central Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria thronged with a lunch-hour crowd of families and children. The children. as we learned later from the mouth of the monster who made the decision, were the target.

Our daughter Malki, 15, was one of the children murdered there that day. 

No official account reports what happened after the charges were signed off by Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. 

But from several sources, our understanding is that the DOJ promptly (we think in mid-2013) notified its Jordanian counterparts of the court order. And then delivered a request that the fugitive bomber be extradited under the treaty as other Jordanian fugitives had been extradited by the Jordanians before her each time Jordan was formally requested to do so by the Americans.

In the specific case of the Sbarro bomber - and on more than one occasion - Jordan rejected the request. 

* * *

Let's now fast-forward almost four years. The criminal complaint against the Jordanian woman, a Hamas agent named Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, was eventually made public on March 14, 2017. It had been kept secret under seal until then. 

Did the US make energetic efforts to get Tamimi extradited under the treaty through all those years? There's no way to know for sure. But the answer is almost certainly yes.

Then, just six days after the unsealing and the formal announcement [see Individual Charged in Connection With 2001 Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem That Resulted in Death of Americans] of the terrorism charges against Tamimi, Jordan's highest court sprang into action. In a stunning and brief ruling, it said Jordan had no obligation to hand her to the Americans because the then-22-year-old bilateral agreement suffered from flaws. 

On closer examination, it was clear they meant flaws created by Jordan, flaws that only Jordan could fix if -- and it's a large if -- they were indeed real. 

The Al-Husseiniya Palace in Amman 

But no one was giving their ruling closer examination. And no news report at the time cast any doubt at all on the soundness of the Jordanian judges' argument. That's a shame because to us it's clearly built on deception and inaccuracies. (We choose not to use blunter words.)

Tamimi herself, by then an icon in her homeland, was triumphantly hugged to Jordan's breast. 

Some excerpts from an Associated Press article under the by-lines of Karin Laub (AP's then Jordan bureau chief) and Mohammed Daraghmeh:

A Hamas activist on the FBI’s list of “most wanted terrorists” said she is relieved Jordan’s highest court has blocked her extradition to the U.S., where she faces charges in a suicide bombing that killed 15 people, including two Americans, at a crowded Jerusalem pizzeria.

Ahlam al-Tamimi, 37, who chose the target of the 2001 attack and guided the bomber there, told The Associated Press that she “lived in fear” for her life until this week’s high court ruling, in part because she had received threats, including from U.S. citizens, on social media. She said she can’t leave her native Jordan for fear of arrest if she travels abroad.

Al-Tamimi has been unapologetic about her role in one of the deadliest of scores of Hamas suicide bombings during the second Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. She said Palestinians have a right to resist by any means, including with such attacks, against what she portrayed as a brutal military occupation.

“We are an oppressed people defending ourselves,” al-Tamimi said in an interview this week in her home in the Jordanian capital, Amman. “We want Israel to leave our land so we can live in quiet.”

Asked about her role in the killing of civilians, including children, she said: “I don’t target children, but when the bomb goes off, it goes everywhere.”

The blast at the Sbarro restaurant in downtown Jerusalem went off on the afternoon of Aug. 9, 2001. The assailant detonated explosives hidden in a guitar case packed with nails. Fifteen people were killed, including seven between the ages of two and 16, and scores of people were wounded.

Al-Tamimi was arrested by Israel several weeks after the bombing and sentenced to 16 life terms. She was released in a 2011 Israel-Hamas prisoner swap.

Since then, she has been a familiar media presence, including at one point hosting a talk show on a Beirut-based Hamas-run TV station about Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

She has also spoken repeatedly about the attack, saying she was pleased with the high death toll.

On Monday, Jordan’s high court ruled that al-Tamimi cannot be extradited from Jordan to the United States because the two countries don’t have an extradition treaty.

[Source: "Jordan planner of 2001 blast relieved US extradition blocked", AP, March 23, 2017 - originally posted here and now archived]

There's much more to be said about whether the Jordan/US treaty is valid including very significant information we (Frimet and Arnold Roth) obtained when we sued the US government under the Freedom of Information Act. Note: sued. Simply applying under the FOIA law got us nowhere.

The US, at least for the record, has consistently said the 1995 treaty is as valid today as it was when new, and remains binding on the parties and in full effect. The treaty is listed in the State Department official online Treaties in Force compendium. 

In the course of many consultations and discussions we have had with officials of the US government and legal experts, not one of them has contradicted that or brought it into question.

On the other hand, getting US officials to state the obvious has proven incredibly frustrating. To say it plainly, if the treaty is valid, then the failure by Jordan to comply with its treaty obligation in the Tamimi case is a breach. And if it's a breach, why is no one saying so? The simple answer, friends and neighbors, and there is one, is that it's all about politics. 

Meanwhile, Tamimi lives free as a bird in Jordan as the Department of Justice prosecutors in Washington and the FBI agents charged with delivering her to US law enforcement cool their heels. 

It's been 2,008 days of that as of today. 

* * *

Henry T. Wooster, a career diplomat, was nominated in November 2019 to become the US ambassador to Jordan, a position that had remained unfilled since Alice Wells departed in March 2017. (A Foreign Policy article at the time said that soon after taking office, "President Donald Trump pushed out the US ambassador to Jordan after complaints from the country’s king, even though there was no evidence the diplomat had misrepresented Washington’s policies.")

The nomination was made by the Trump White House.

US ambassadors need to be confirmed before their appointments are official. The confirmation process involves public hearings in the US Senate. 

Our focus now shifts to what Mr Wooster said when going through that process in a video conference session of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on May 13, 2020 presided over by Hon. John Barrasso, (Republican, Wyoming). The candidate, according to the chairperson's introduction in the official protocol, is:

a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor. Mr. Wooster is currently the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Maghreb and—or Egypt in the Bureau of Northeastern Affairs. He has previously worked as the Deputy Chief of Mission and then Charge´s d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Jordan. Mr. Wooster has also served as Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Embassy in France.

The years Mr Wooster previously served in America's Jordan embassy evidently warmed him to the charms of the kingdom. He underscored this in answering a question about the possible impact on Jordanian feelings if the US were to cut back its financial support refugees:

Well, Senator, no one knows this better than the Jordanians—no one is a better friend to Jordan than the United States is. And we can say that with integrity. And I can look you in the virtual eye and say it. And that is true by orders of magnitude. It is not simply a debating distinction. It is true if you look at the record. And the record shows, again and again and again, and with orders of magnitude, there is no friend that is better to the Hashemite Kingdom than the United States. So, we do not want these people to be beleaguered, and we do not want them left out in the dark. I mean, these are allies and strategic partners, and we are going to stand by them. We are going to make sure that they are not left with a deal that is bad for Jordan, too. [Source: The official protocol]

Diplomats as effusive as Mr Wooster aren't all that common.

But let's compare that now with what happened in the non-face-to-face part of the confirmation hearing when questions for the record are submitted ahead of time by the Senators and the candidate responds after taking some time to prepare a written answer. This doesn't always happen - but it happened in the Wooster confirmation.

In the protocol, the exchange that follows is headed "RESPONSES TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD SUBMITTED TO HENRY T. WOOSTER BY SENATOR TED CRUZ". 

Question. Please describe the extent to which Jordan’s refusal to extradite Tamimi has affected U.S.-Jordanian relations?

Answer. We continue to ask that the Government of Jordan arrest Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi and agree to extradite her to the United States. The Government of Jordan has been unwilling to accede to our request due to the Court of Cassation’s ruling that our bilateral extradition treaty is not valid. We continue to dispute the court’s claim, as we exchanged instruments of ratification that brought the treaty into force on July 29, 1995 and the treaty has not been terminated. We continue to raise this issue at the highest levels in order to reach a satisfactory solution.

Question. What options and leverage does the United States have to secure Tamimi, including potentially withholding assistance to the Government of Jordan?

Answer. The United States has multiple options and different types of leverage to secure Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi’s extradition. We will continue to engage Jordanian officials at all levels not only on this issue, but also on the extradition treaty more broadly. U.S. generosity to Jordan in Foreign Military Financing as well as economic support and other assistance is carefully calibrated to protect and advance the range of U.S. interests in Jordan and in the region.

Question. Can you commit to using those options and leverage to secure Tamimi’s extradition?

Answer. If confirmed, I would explore all options to bring Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi to justice, secure her extradition, and address the broader issues associated with the extradition treaty.

It's the kind of forthright response a well-prepared ambassador ought to give. But we're left wondering how closely His Excellency Henry T. Wooster, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (as he has been since August 27, 2020), hews to the approach he outlined to the Senate.

* * *

As of today, Tamimi is still free and still making public appearances replete with messages encouraging terror. 

As for Jordan, its senior officials (with the notable exception of Foreign Minister Safadi) have maintained a policy by which they carefully avoid making public statements about the treaty even as they hold tight to the kingdom's celebrity terrorist. The principal principle seems to be: just don't get into spats with the Americans. 

The United States through three administrations (Obama, Trump, Biden) takes a reciprocal approach and is sticking to it. And justice be damned. 

The exception to the game-plan is Safadi. We have published two blog posts reporting how, on two occasions a year apart, he has asserted publicly in Arabic to domestic audiences that refusing to hand over the mass-murderer as required by the treaty is actually evidence Jordan respects the law: see "13-Nov-19: Thank you, Mr Foreign Minister" and "16-Nov-20: Justice, the Tamimi extradition and what Jordan tells Arabic media but not the world".

(We haven't yet written about the numerous occasions on which Jordan's king, speaking off the record in what are often closed-door meetings in the US, offers a range of near-plausible explanations for his Tamimi strategy.)

2001 The site of the Sbarro massacre (Peter Dejong, AP)

If Mr Wooster were the kind of person who answers letters, we would want to pose some questions to him based on what he placed on the record. 

For instance,

1. Has he or his staff in the Amman embassy explored all options to bring Tamimi to justice? Is there a plan to start exploring this at some point in the foreseeable future? 
2. Can he outline for us what "all options" might look like?
3. Those "broader issues associated with the extradition treaty" - can we get a preview of what they are? 
4. Can we count on them getting public exposure even as the FBI Most Wanted fugitive terrorist is hosted by Jordan? 
5. In continuing to dispute the Jordanian court’s claim about the validity and applicability of the treaty, and raising the issue "at the highest levels in order to reach a satisfactory solution", is there progress? It's been years, Your Excellency. Can we get some teeny tiny indication of how the process is going? 
6. And where the sticking points are?
7. Would the Ambassador like to know a little about our murdered daughter Malki? About her beautiful life and about the really fine non-sectarian, apolitical and tremendously constructive work done in her memory via the Malki Foundation?

From experience, we fear each of our questions would get the same answer.

12-Jul-22: No political dimension: Our letter to President Biden and his answer

Another AP story from a year ago [Image Source]

Associated Press began reporting last night (Monday) that the White House has already responded to the letter we emailed to President Joseph Biden on Sunday [we described that here: "11-Jul-22: President Biden is heading to Jerusalem and we're asking for a few minutes of his time"]. 

They say:

The U.S. said Monday it is still seeking the extradition of a Palestinian woman in Jordan convicted of aiding a suicide bomber in Jerusalem in 2001. But it declined to comment on a request from the family of one of the victims for a meeting with President Joe Biden... The Roths have been waging a campaign for the extradition of Tamimi since she was released by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap with the Hamas militant group and sent to her native Jordan, where she lives freely and has been a familiar face in the media... ["US seeks extradition of Palestinian attacker in Jordan", AP, July 11, 2022]

The AP report goes on to quote a high-level source that

“The U.S. government continues to seek her extradition and the Government of Jordan’s assistance in bringing her to justice for her role in the heinous attack,” the National Security Council said Monday.

Continuing to seek her extradition. It's a term that needs some context. And we're happy to provide it. 

The US has never made a single public call on Jordan to extradite Tamimi, beyond the formal request (under a 1995 extradition  treaty which is valid and in force) in 2017. 

It has also never publicly criticized Jordan for breaching the treaty. This despite the reality that Tamimi has lived free in Jordan since October 2011, traveling freely from Jordan throughout the Arab world to address rallies and make blood-curdling pro-terror speeches, while being the presenter of her own made-in-Jordan weekly TV program devoted to terror, terrorists and the need to support both. 

We're genuinely glad to be told that the US is continuing to pursue extradition. But after so many years of zero progress, is it not time to ask what those efforts are? And why they don't succeed? Jordan, after all, is a small but strategic ally, massively dependent on US largesse, the beneficiary of a whole raft of made-in-USA special facilities, programs and strategically helpful attention.

It's fair to say we are disappointed by the non-response. 

And allow us to be clear about this aspect: no one has been in touch with us from the President's staff, the State Department, the National Security Council or the US Embassy in Israel.

Jordan's royals and the Bidens - July 2021

But here's the point. Throughout the years of our immensely frustrating campaign to see the government of the United States respect and defend its own laws, criminal code and treaties in relation to the Tamimi case, poor - even absent - communication from US government officials has been an almost invariable constant.

The Tamimi case has special significance to us. 

That's in large part because the Jordanian fugitive planted the human bomb at the Jerusalem pizzeria in August 2001 whose explosive malevolence erased sixteen lives, one of whom was the life of our beloved fifteen year old daughter Malki. Another American woman, a tourist visiting from New Jersey, was murdered along with the unborn child in her womb. And another American woman was rendered so profoundly brain-damaged that she has remained in a comatose state from that summer 2001 afternoon until today.

Now that the Biden team have explicitly blocked our efforts to press the case, we feel justified in sharing the letter we sent him to which no answer will ever come. 

Here it is.

July 10, 2022

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500-0005 

Dear President Biden,

Extraditing our child’s killer from Jordan

As you arrive in Jerusalem, we write to remind you of the open letter we addressed to you in the pages of the Wall Street Journal last summer. It appeared on the day you hosted Jordan’s monarch in the Oval Office of the White House: [“Jordan Harbors Our Daughter’s Killer | Biden should demand the extradition of Ahlam Tamimi”, Frimet and Arnold Roth, Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2021]. 

It was distressing to us that you did not respond in any way, not via the White House press spokesperson; not via any members of your staff; not in the months that followed; not even when you hosted the same king in the same Oval Office this past May.

Our letter then, and the thoughts we share with you below, have no political dimension to them. And in sharp contrast to the letter from the family of an Aljazeera reporter shot and killed as she stood in the midst of a firefight between Palestinian Arab gunmen and Israeli forces in Jenin, it’s not necessary for us to assert again and again – as they do about their case – what we believe to be the cause of the death for which we seek accountability. It’s tragically clear.

Our daughter Malki, a sweet American girl who never reached her sixteenth birthday, was murdered by a Jordanian reporter called Ahlam Tamimi. In contrast to the Shireen Abu Akleh case, no committees of enquiry, not the United Nations or the New York Times or the Washington Post or CNN or the Associated Press or B’Tselem or even the White House spokesperson are needed to lay the blame.

A massacre happened at a pizzeria in the heart of Jerusalem on a hot summer vacation day when it was filled with children. Tamimi, again and again, on television, via YouTube and in live appearances, has said she did it. She calls it “my operation”. She brags about what she did. In a viral interview, she said “I admit that I was a bit disappointed, because I had hoped for a larger toll.” 

Last October in a video conference to Turkish schoolgirls and young women [source] she called the bombing “a crown on my head. By the grace of Allah, I joined the annals of history by committing the best act, the best operation, the best path - the path of Jihad.”

Tamimi has never expressed a syllable of regret beyond saying of the children she targeted that she wishes more had been killed that day.

She has been an FBI Most Wanted terrorist since March 14, 2017, the day that long-sealed US federal terror charges were finally made public. And in all the time that has passed, she has lived free as a bird in Jordan. She is still there, shielded by Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

In the 5+ years since the charges were made public, the two of us have reached out to a depressingly long list of officials and lawmakers seeking to bring an end to the cruel game being played at our expense. It involves serious people with extraordinary power and influence telling us (those who bother to respond at all since most prefer to look away or pretend not to hear) that the US “continues to seek her extradition and will continue to work to ensure she faces justice” [source].

Years of this.

Jordan, to say it clearly, is not a free or liberal place. Its media are among the mostly tightly restricted of any country and its governments are assiduous in executing the will of King Abdullah. Yet for five years, Tamimi had her own terror-advocating TV show, made in Jordan and distributed from there to Arabic-speaking audiences throughout the world. The ruler whom you so admire, whom you praised lavishly last summer [“Biden calls Jordan king a loyal ally in ‘tough neighborhood’”, The Associated Press, July 20, 2021] must have approved it. On any view, he certainly did nothing to shut it down.

Five years, sir.

Something is obviously terribly wrong with how the pursuit of America’s most wanted female fugitive is going. If it’s accountability for her crimes that we speak – and accountability is what your press spokesperson has invoked over and again these past few weeks in the Aljazeera reporter’s case – then it’s worth asking whether five years is enough time to have achieved that.

Nothing in our handful of encounters with senior figures in your State Department and that of President Trump has given us even the smallest hope that the US wants this woman in chains, on a flight from Amman and extradited to a DC courthouse.

The opposite is true. When politicians and their bureaucrats want to justify their action or inaction, they rarely lack the words. But in our case, most by far of our approaches to Washington insiders have been answered with silence. We want to think it stems from shame and embarrassment but that’s speculative on our part. What is abundantly clear is that getting justice for the small handful of American lives, all of them Jewish, extinguished among a much larger number of Tamimi’s victims, is – in the cold calculus of today’s Washington – evidently not worth the political irritation it will cause.

We want to explain this to you better in a face-to-face meeting. We want you to look us in the eyes, Mr. President, and tell us how Jordan’s king can be a praiseworthy ally even as he cynically tramples –on narrow technical grounds that it turns out don’t hold water – a treaty made by President Clinton and King Hussein, his greatly admired father.

That treaty has for a quarter century been the essential tool that enabled US law enforcement to apprehend a string of Jordanian terrorists and bring them to trial and eventually prison in the US. It’s a valuable part of America’s constant, essential vigilance against the dark forces of jihad. There’s a much larger issue than simply justice for the life of an American child at stake when an ally – one who benefits from billions of dollars in US taxpayer funded aid each year – trashes a bilateral agreement at will.

In your Washington Post opinion piece on Saturday [“Joe Biden: Why I’m going to Saudi Arabia”, Washington Post., July 9, 2022] you mentioned King Abdullah of Jordan recently referring to the “new vibe” in the region with countries asking “How can we connect with each other and work with each other.” The answer in Jordan’s case is clear. It can honor the unquestionably valid treaty and extradite Tamimi.

We’re approaching the fiftieth yahrzeit of Abraham Joshua Heschel, a luminary in the world of Jewish thought and a prominent figure in America’s struggle for human rights who passed away in 1972. Rabbi Heschel observed that "...morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.”

We are bereaved parents as you are, sir. We have a burning sense that injustice in the wake of our child’s murder is winning. Years of experience tell us this is so. We ask that you address this as only the leader of the United States can and take the steps that will bring the Sbarro bomber to long-thwarted justice in Washington.

Respectfully,
Frimet and Arnold Roth
Jerusalem

You will have our sincere appreciation if you share this widely.  

21-Jul-21: In welcoming Jordan's king to Washington, we wanted him to be reminded of the ongoing Tamimi extradition scandal

From the Wall Street Journal website - details in the post

On Monday morning of this week, Jordan's ruler King Abdullah II, began the Washington chapter of his strikingly long current state visit to the US. 

According to the Jordanian media and his own official government press office, it's a journey that began at the start of the month with his departure from the royal palace in Jordan to the Sun Valley Economic Forum [You can see it reported here: "Jordan’s King Abdullah begins journey to US ahead of Sun Valley’s Economic Forum", Arab News, July 2, 2021]. 

And not just there. Reports of King Abdullah heading to the States so he could play an active role in the Idaho forum as he has done in the past were repeated widely in Jordan's Arabic media. 

Once the forum got underway, the authoritative Jordan Times which is close to the royal palace even disclosed that His Majesty 

"held a number of meetings with the chief executives of major US and international companies in the sectors of communications, information technology, tourism, transportation and insurance, according to a Royal Court statement. The meetings covered investment incentives in Jordan, its strategic location and free trade agreements with several countries, and the potential of tapping into the Kingdom’s qualified human resources."

Meetings? Investment? Chief executives? 

No details and no photos have been published of any of these anywhere as far as we can tell. And we do look. Perhaps it's all due to technical reasons.

But hold on a moment. 

One of the other details the Arab media have failed to share with their consumers is a real show-stopper: this year's Sun Valley Economic Forum in fact did not happen. 

You read that right. The fact is the forum that the king "attended" and where he held all those "meetings" never happened. It was cancelled - at least according to the organizers who probably know. The forum was discontinued some time ago but there's no sign the Arab media know this. Or that they told their readers and viewers. Or that anyone in Jordan from the king down cares.

But this post is not about the Arab media or the king's spinmeisters.

What it actually is about is how, coinciding with King Abdullah's arrival in the US capital, we wrote an op ed and we are proud that it was published in the same morning's Wall Street Journal Opinion section. It appears there now under the heading "Jordan Harbors Our Daughter’s Killer | Biden should demand the extradition of Ahlam Tamimi." 

It also appeared online which means for a change that our views got some very welcome American attention.

In case you're not aware - and very unlike the journalism in certain Middle East countries - the WSJ's editors have a reputation for being firm and tough on opinion writers. But also thorough and careful, often asking for documentary proof of what's claimed, for detail of the background and for drastic brevity.

That's not a complaint. It simply explains that they work hard there to produce a readable high-quality product. We feel honored to have the privilege of addressing their global readership.

As happens often, our op-ed started out longer than the version that was published. We're obviously more relaxed here on our own blog about the number of words it takes us to communicate our message. So here below is a fuller version of the op ed that the Wall Street Journal published.

Biden can show dignity and decency by pressuring Jordan’s Abdullah

Tell the king to extradite our daughter’s murderer.

Frimet and Arnold Roth

Jordan’s King Abdullah II will visit the White House on Monday. We are urging President Biden to ask the visitor why our daughter’s murderer is safeguarded by his kingdom. And to press for her extradition to Washington.

Ahlam Tamimi is an FBI Most Wanted Terrorist charged with participating in a 2001 bombing that killed 15 people, including our daughter Malki, 15, and a second U.S. national. Tamimi, an unabashed advocate for terrorist attacks on Israelis, is living free in Jordan despite the kingdom’s extradition treaty with the United States.

Malki and her best friend Michal, 16, were en route to a planning meet for their youth group’s summer camp when they stopped for lunch at a Sbarro pizzeria in central Jerusalem. They were happily texting at the counter when a Hamas bomber, dressed like a tourist but with an explosive-and-shrapnel-filled guitar case slung over his shoulder, entered. Tamimi, the first female admitted to the terrorist ranks of Hamas, selected the site for the large number of children it attracted. She fled the scene minutes before he exploded.

Tamimi, arrested some weeks later, confessed in court to all the charges and in 2003 was sentenced to 16 life terms. But in 2011, she was among 1,027 convicted terrorists exchanged by Israel for an IDF soldier held hostage for five years by Hamas. We watched, stunned, as Tamimi arrived in Jordan, greeted with wildly celebratory receptions at Amman’s airport, in a court-house of Jordan’s legal system, at the kingdom’s most important university and in Jordan’s trade union headquarters. There followed a torrent of exultant media interviews. Tamimi emphasized her utter lack of regret.

Jordan notably restricts its media and closely monitors speech but has allowed social media and television to amplify her fame. For five years she hosted a made-in-Jordan global TV show promoting terror. She has made frequent appearances at public events and on Jordanian commercial TV. The students of the Arab world’s premier graduate school of journalism named her their “success model”. Just last month, she became a weekly columnist for a prominent pan-Arab news-site.

Weeks after Israel released her, we asked the Department of Justice in Washington to prosecute her. We pointed to two elements: a federal law that criminalizes acts of terror outside U.S. territory that result in American deaths, and Jordan’s extradition treaty with the U.S. A year later, in 2013, terror charges were issued but only made public in 2017 via a Justice Department announcement.

Jordan’s government moved quickly. Six days after the unsealing of those charges, and without a single public word from any Jordanian leader, the kingdom’s highest court ruled the 1995 Jordan/US extradition treaty invalid. The U.S. rejects that ruling and still considers it a Treaty in Force.

In a 2020 FOIA lawsuit, we obtained documentary evidence that undermines Jordan’s argument and its basis for shielding Tamimi. Now we want President Biden to explain to America’s Jordanian ally that the U.S. will not abide a treaty partner violating its obligations.

Widely seen as moderate and reasonable, King Abdullah II has never commented publicly on Tamimi’s freedom, fame or depravity. We find this appalling.

It’s said the prospect of Tamimi in chains being put on a Washington-bound flight worries the king because this could upset his country’s fraught political balance – and her Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Does that mean Jordan, massively dependent on US aid and support in multiple ways, can walk away from its bilateral obligations scot-free? Do the mass-murderer’s followers have that kind of sway?

We don’t presume to remind President Biden of the leverage in his hands. But the fact is Congress imposed powerful sanctions in 2019 and again in 2020, clearly aimed at Jordan and its treaty default - and which the Trump administration failed to enforce. We know that milder sanctions have been suggested but also never implemented.

No less disturbing to us than Jordan’s recalcitrance is the de facto acceptance it appears to have gotten from the two most recent administrations. In all the years of our pursuing justice, no one has said anything explicit to us or, publicly at least, to the Jordanians about Tamimi. Our questions have been deflected and not always elegantly. We only too familiar with getting the silent treatment.

We hope President Biden — a grieving parent himself — can reverse that pattern. He has pledged to write “an American story of decency and dignity.” Is any dignity greater than the one that comes from doing justice? Where’s decency when an ally demeans an established treaty to appease popular bigotry of the most murderous kind?

Allies shouldn’t have to be arm-twisted into compliance with bilateral obligations. Tamimi, who has never denied her role in orchestrating the massacre that stole our child’s life, should be tried in Washington on the pending charges.

Any other outcome, any further delay, empowers and encourages the dark and dangerous forces at work in this complex region.

--- 

Frimet and Arnold Roth live in Jerusalem. With friends they established a non-sectarian charity, The Malki Foundation, in 2001 to support families raising a child with extreme special needs.

The royal visit to Washington continues with a string of high-level meetings today in the Congress after the warm personal reception extended by President Biden, by Secretary of State Blinken, by Vice President Harris and by the strangely quiescent White House Press Corps which could have asked - but strikingly did not - some important questions during question time on Monday. 

The editors at Mediaite, noticing this, gave them a backhanded acknowledgment in the Tuesday edition of their widely-watched Media Winners & Losers page:

MEDIA LOSER:
White House Press Corps

The White House press corps had multiple opportunities on Monday to ask President Joe Biden if he would raise the issue of a terrorist wanted by the United States that Jordan is harboring.

Ahead of Jordanian King Abdullah II’s meeting on Monday at the White House, the press failed to ask Biden, following his remarks about the current state of the economy, about Ahlam Tamimi, who was behind the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 civilians, including two Americans, and injured approximately 122 others, including four Americans.

Tamimi was serving 16 life sentences in Israel when she was released as part of a deal Israel made with Hamas in exchange for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Now living in Jordan, Tamimi is treated like a celebrity.

The White House press corps failed to even ask White House press secretary Jen Psaki ahead of the meeting whether Biden would press the king to extradite Tamimi, whose indictment by the United States was unsealed in 2017.

No one even shouted a question following-up about Tamimi.

Again, it's important for the press to hold those with power to account.

Thanks, ladies and gentlemen of Mediaite. We certainly agree.

16-Nov-20: Justice, the Tamimi extradition and what Jordan tells Arabic media but not the world

Jordan's foreign minister speaks: We quote him in this post

We track Jordan's Arabic-language media closer than many outside observers. Still, we missed the exchange below until it was highlighted in an Arabic-language Twitter post [here]. Now we're catching up.

The tweet itself is dated October 6, 2020, a few days after Jordan forcibly expelled Nizar Tamimi to another country (evidently Qatar) with very little advance notice. We'll get to him in a moment. 

The tweet refers to a scene that played out in what appears to be a conference room of the Foreign Ministry of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Amman, the capital. A 50 second long video (here) captures the interaction. Here's the brief dialogue in Arabic-to-English translation arranged by us:

Unidentified Jordanian journalist: 

“Regarding the freed detainee Ahlam Tamimi, there are American pressures on Jordan...”

Ayman H. Safadi, Foreign Minister of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: 

Once more, sir, we are a country which respects the law. Jordanian law does not allow handing over a Jordanian citizen to a third country unless there are agreements. There is no agreement between Jordan and the US to hand over Ahlam Tamimi. Consequently there is no legal basis for handing her over as we adhere to the law in this case. There were requests from several parties in America to hand her over since there is a pending lawsuit against her. We say, because we act according to law, the law does not permit us to hand her over and consequently we shall not hand her over.”

Our Arabic-to-English translator thinks this was "some kind of periodical briefing. Both the flags at the foreign minister's sides are Jordanian. So it's unlikely this exchange was part of a formal visit of, say, some foreign dignitary. But it's hard to be certain."

The journalist who posed the question

Keep the foreign minister's assertion in mind - that Jordan, in safeguarding a confessed terrorist bomber, keeping her out of the reach of US justice, Federal criminal charges and a date in court, is acting in accordance with "the law" - while we expand the discussion.

This happens not to be the first time he has said this. 

We wrote about it almost exactly a year ago in an open letter to Mr Safadi ["13-Nov-19: Thank you, Mr Foreign Minister"] based on a report we spotted on the popular Jordanian news-site JO24. That, in our view, was the first-ever public statement by any Jordanian government official that the kingdom will not hand over to US law enforcement the woman who spearheaded the Sbarro massacre.

And if you're wondering: no, of course he gave no response to our November 2019 open letter. In the bitter reality of our experience, no Jordanian government official has ever responded to any of the communications we have directed at them in the wake of our daughter's murder. 

Our Malki, in case the narrative in unfamiliar to you, was one of many Jewish children blown up in the bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria filled with Jewish children. 

The Jordanian terrorist who selected the target site, who brought the bomb, a human bomb, to the door of the pizzeria, who fled the scene after telling him to wait with detonating his exploding guitar case until she was safely distant, and refers publicly to what she did as "my operation" and to the Jewish children inside as the reason she selected Sbarro Jerusalem for destruction, is today living in Jordan. She was born and educated there and is sheltered by Jordan today. She had her own made-in-Jordan TV show for five years until September 2016 and has lectured throughout Jordan and the Arab world for years, spreading a message of support for terror and lethal bigotry. (There's a great deal more background in an epic David Horovitz article that appeared in Times of Israel earlier this year.)

Back to the Jordanian politician. 

Mr Safadi is a figure of some significance. He has held the portfolio of foreign minister since early 2017. To judge by the fact that he has kept it through a succession of recent governments that have briefly come and gone, he has the king's confidence. He is also Jordan's current deputy prime minister. 

US-educated Safadi's claim, at least in the form it was published last year, is untrue. What he said then is that "several US authorities asked Jordan to extradite Jordanian citizen Ahlam Al-Tamimi" and that "Jordan respects and abides by the law" and "the law does not allow it... Jordanian law does not allow the extradition of a citizen to a third country and there is no legal basis for the delivery of Ahlam al-Tamimi." 

The truth is Jordan not only does allow extradition; it has in fact extradited Jordanians repeatedly to the United States. 

Like most nations, Jordan has treaties that regulate how this is done. It has one with the United States that was signed in 1995 and that the United States says is valid, in effect and binding. 

This is made clear (though it was never in serious doubt) by an announcement of the State Department that we quoted here a year ago: "12-Nov-19: On Jordan, the US and the children killed in a pizzeria". It s also listed in a public document with the eminently appropriate name "Treaties in Force". The 2020 edition of TIF lists the Jordan/US treaty at page 245. There it records that it was signed on March 28, 1995 and entered into force on July 29, 1995. For purposes of American law, the TIF is authoritative.

Less than a year after that November 2019 clarification, the US re-stated somewhat more forcefully its official view on the validity of the Jordan treaty. It did this on June 24, 2020 using language that people in the know have told us was intended to send a clear message.

Here's some background to that. 

Every year, the Bureau of Counterterrorism at the US State Department issues a public document called Country Reports on Terrorism. This is done by way of complying with a Federal law ["22 U.S. Code § 2656f - Annual country reports on terrorism"]. The annual reports are meant to give Congress a detailed, country-by-country yearly update on how global efforts to defeat terror are faring. 

The 2020 edition of the Country Reports [online here] addresses Jordan and its years-long thwarting of the Ahlam Tamimi extradition. Here's what it says:

In 2019, Jordan did not extradite Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, who has been charged in the United States 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 the August 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a pizzeria 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.  Following publication of the 2018 Country Reports on Terrorism, Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi confirmed that U.S. authorities asked Jordan to extradite Tamimi, and he expressed the view that Jordan’s constitution does not allow the extradition of a Jordanian citizen to a third country.  The United States regards the extradition treaty with Jordan as valid and in force.

People sensitive to the lexicon of diplomacy say the choice of words indicates the US is communicating that it has gotten fed up with Jordan's baseless claim that “there is no legal basis for the delivery of Ahlam al-Tamimi”. It wants the Tamimi extradition to happen. 

Some more background:

In the summer of 2019, we entered into correspondence with State Department officials about the Tamimi extradition and the slightly bizarre biting-the-hand-that-feeds-you game Jordan plays. 

We reminded them of how Jordan's highest court, the Court of Cassation, had handed down its ruling in the Tamimi case less than a week after the US announced charges against her ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"]. The kingdom's senior jurists decided the treaty was invalid, basing that on one ground: that it ought to have been ratified by the parliament. And wasn't.

In addressing the State Department, we were conscious of how the Jordanian jurists could have said but did not that (a) there were additional grounds for invalidating the treaty. In fact, they referred to just one. And (b) that additional legal claims - such as the doctrine of double jeopardy - applied and would operate to prevent Jordan from handing over Tamimi. They referred to none.

Double jeopardy comes up from time to time as a reason not to extradite when it's raised by Jordanian reporters with no legal training. Also by Jordanian diplomats in private, but never public, statements about which we have been briefed. Not one of the several experts on the law of extradition whom we have consulted sees double jeopardy as having any relevance at all in the Tamimi case. It has no relevance to the Jordan/US treaty. It's been explained to us that the treaty itself indicates the doctrine has no application.

Some additional dimensions to consider:

• The treaty could have been ratified that very day. Or the day after. Or any other day in the quarter of a century since it was signed and put into effect. 
• The US believes every i was dotted and every t crossed - that all the technical requirements were complied with and satisfied. But even if there had been some parliamentary lapse, the ratification could have been dealt with after the fact. Where there's a will etc. 
• Jordan's relationship with the US is super important for Jordan. It's arguably far more important than say Jordan's ties with Ukraine. The Jordan/Ukraine extradition treaty is treated by both sides as a valid legal obligation. In fact, we asked Jordan's ambassador in Washington about it by email last year. She ignored the points we made. She ignored us. She ignored a letter [the JTA's syndicated report, and our blog post] from seven US law-makers who raised similar issues. (To us, something is seriously wrong when the official representative of a purportedly-close ally on the payroll of US taxpayers treats respectful and important questions with disdain.) The judges did not turn their minds to this aspect. But we should. And so should friends of Jordan. 
• The US is by far Jordan's largest supplier of funding. Jordan is the third-largest recipient of US aid in the world. A reasonable person might imagine that in such circumstances, Jordan would make really serious efforts to honor its obligations to the US. It appears a reasonable person would be wrong. And the judges made no mention of the issue. One might argue it’s not their job. But the same certainly cannot be said about Jordan’s parliament, not to mention its king. 
• Jordan has numerous extradition treaties with countries other than the US. Were those treaties all ratified before they were put into effect? From our research, the answer is definitively no. The judges didn't ask but it is a matter that would surely trouble anyone concerned with the "rule of law" aspect of long-thwarted Tamimi extradition.

• 

  The October 2020 media event at the Jordanian Foreign Ministry
  

  Now this important observation: Just because the Jordanian court was told that no ratification was done, it still might not be true. As we describe below, the truth appears to be that there was indeed an act of ratification. Or more precisely, that Jordan may have been able to give the US what are called "instruments of ratification" - and no one cares to talk about it. 
• In fact, we were told by a US Department of Justice source that the US was neither asked to advise on this; nor was it raised in the very brief Jordanian court hearing. It appears no representative of the United States was present in court when the Court of Cassation handed down a ruling on the validity of a vital agreement between the two countries. We of course weren't there, know nothing about Jordanian rules of procedure and are left to rely on what US administration officials with knowledge of the matter say. And that's what we heard from them. Call us surprised. 
• No one is going to argue that Jordan is one of the world's paragons of democratic practice. Its media, in particular its newspapers, are famously unfree. The king appoints the prime minister and may dismiss him or accept his resignation. He has the sole power to appoint senior military leaders, justices of the constitutional court, all 75 members of the senate, cabinet ministers, dissolve both houses of parliament. The king must approve laws before they take effect and can issue royal decrees which are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny. He commands the armed forces, declares war and ratifies treaties [Source: Jordan: Background and U.S. Relations, Congressional Research Service, Updated to June 18, 2020]. To state the obvious, in Jordan, what the Hashemite king says, goes. In any tension between constitution and realpolitik, no one should be in doubt about how the Jordanian outcome is determined.

But what if there were documentary evidence that the ratification did in fact happen at the relevant time? What if the claims made by (and perhaps to) the judges of the Court of Cassation and on which their decision was based are factually incorrect?

The following quote resulted from one of those email exchanges between us and a State Department official who we understand was authoritative in the context of US/Jordan relations. That official told us

In the specific case of Ahlam Tamimi, we continue to advocate that the Government of Jordan arrest her and agree to extradite her to the United States. To date, the Government of Jordan has been unwilling to accede to our requests because they have claimed the bilateral extradition treaty we signed in 1995 is null. We continue to dispute the Jordanian government’s claim, as we exchanged instruments of ratification, bringing the treaty into force on July 29, 1995, and the treaty has not been terminated. I hope the information I provided above answers your question. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

We asked whether this statement could be quoted publicly. Yes was the answer.

This week, November 14, 2020, to be specific, marked the 85th birthday of King Abdullah II's widely respected father, King Hussein. The Arabic media - both conventional and social media - are replete even now, two days later, with tributes to the older king's nobility, leadership and so on. We have been thinking about all of that this weekend as we ponder the misleading and mostly unchallenged assertion by one of Jordan's most influential figures that the treaty is a nullity. 

Front page of New York Times, August 4, 1995

The New York Times in an August 4, 1995 article on Jordan tracks the pursuit of one of the plotters of the first lethal attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, the one carried out in 1993. 

That was when a rented truck filled with explosives was driven into the complex's underground parking garage and "killed 6 people, injured more than 1,000 and shook America's sense of immunity from foreign terrorism" ["Suspect Is Said to Be Longtime Friend of Bombing Mastermind"]. 

Eyad Ismoil, a Palestinian immigrant working in a grocery store in Dallas, was the driver. The Times report says Ismoil fled to Jordan on a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight that same day, a few hours after the bombing, "prompting a two-and-a-half-year manhunt". He was eventually tracked to a "refugee camp" 30 miles north of Amman and though "the F.B.I. knew his whereabouts last winter, the Americans could not arrest him until King Hussein of Jordan signed a new extradition treaty with the United States last week... Local authorities in Jordan arrested Mr. Ismoil on Sunday as he left a class at a university, and they turned him over to F.B.I agents at a military airfield on Wednesday night." He was promptly flown to New York City, tried, convicted and three years later sentenced to a term of 280 years in prison. He remains behind US bars.

So now, some speculation. 

If he were alive today, what would King Hussein, who died in 1999, say to the way his kingdom has put arguably the most strategic of its strategic foreign relations at risk? 

Jordan has done that by (a) denying that a milestone treaty personally championed by him is now being impugned by his successors and (b) standing in appalling, incomprehensible solidarity with a woman, arguably the most wanted female fugitive now alive, who is a celebrity chiefly because of the bombing she carried out in order to kill as many children as possible.

When we say "at risk", we're thinking of a December 2019 law enacted by the US Congress and immediately signed into law by the President of the US. Sarah N. Stern's fine analysis in the Israel Hayom newspaper that same month ["A long-awaited holiday gift for terror victims"] cogently lays out the issues. 

In effect, that sanction law says Jordan's demeaning of its treaty with the US puts at meaningful risk the massive foreign aid it has gotten annually over recent years from the US - amounting to some $7.3 Billion for the period 2016-2020. As little as most American news-readers know about this (since there has been virtual no media coverage in the West), the story is widely followed in the Arab world where it's considered alarming.

Is there a realistic chance of the sanction being applied, given the transition now underway in Washington? It was not applied last year; it has not been applied so far this year either. The prospects for next year are unknown but probably low.

But there are other signs - for instance, the forced expulsion of Tamimi's husband, Nizar Tamimi from Jordan just six weeks ago ["04-Oct-20: The Sbarro bomber's husband has been forced to leave Jordan: A snapshot of developments"]. We mentioned him at the start of this post.

These suggest Washington has an interest in seeing Jordan confront its inner demons that somehow make it acceptable to safeguard and even celebrate a woman famous principally for the Jewish children she boasts of killing.

With due respect to Jordan's foreign minister, the rule of law is not a simple matter of adhering to parliamentary procedure and protocol. It is also about the moral and ethical precepts that a nation's laws are intended to implement. 

 

Malki at the heart of a family celebration some weeks before

the end of her life. She never reached her 16th birthday.

Given where we have been these past several years, we don't expect to find justice waiting at the door, though of course we remain quietly optimistic. We would be more optimistic if the news industry showed some small degree of interest in our pursuit of justice. But the de facto embargo on most reporting of Ahlam Tamimi's incredible career - her charmed life in Jordan, the way a strategic ally of the United States sticks its finger in American eyes - is a painful reality in our lives and in our efforts. 

We believe we would have seen Tamimi in leg-chains and orange overalls in a Federal court house long ago if not for Jordan's tail-wagging-the-dog determination to keep her safe and famous. Ask yourself, having gotten this far into our post, if you already knew any of these details from mainstream news sources. (Not everyone will have read the paragraphs before this one so spoiler alert: No, you haven't seen, heard or read almost any part of the analysis above in the mainstream media because in an astonishingly broad consensus the mainstream media bury the story and suppress those details. Those words aren't polemical or argumentative but simply state the facts. There is no alternative view; as odd as this may seem, we're simply right.)

We're determined to press forward. 

The right way to view our efforts is as a quest by bereaved parents in search of justice following their child's murder. It is not at all a political crusade. Nor does it stem for any appetite for vengeance. 

Meanwhile watch this space and please sign our petition. 

26-Jun-20: Private meetings with His Majesty and the injustice they conceal

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a private audience with Jordan's monarch
via video link June 16, 2020 [Source: Jordanian media]

A series of meetings over two days last week in the US Congress enabled Jordan's King Abdullah II to "brief" (that's the word that was used) American lawmakers on His Majesty's views about a variety of issues. Turns out these were chiefly about Israel and not in a flattering way.

Obviously Jordan's ongoing efforts to thwart the extradition of a Jordanian fugitive from US justice, Ahlam Tamimi, was not top of the king's talking points list. Since March 2017, Jordan has been aggressively blocking Department of Justice efforts to have Tamimi taken into custody in Jordan and brought to trial in Washington. That's when formal US criminal charges against Tamimi were first unsealed and she became an FBI Most Wanted fugitive. 

We laid all of this out in a dossier we produced overnight and then distributed to as many of those attending as we could reach by email in the 24 hours before the event. (Our dossier is here.) 

Here is how Associated Press described the Jordanian plan. in a report published ahead of the meetings. There's a lot packed into this syndicated story, so read carefully. Notice that they quote us:

US considers withholding aid to Jordan to force extradition

By MATTHEW LEE and JOSEF FEDERMAN

June 16, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is considering withholding aid to one of its closest Arab partners, Jordan, in a bid to secure the extradition of a woman convicted in Israel of a 2001 bombing that killed 15 people, including two American citizens.

The administration says it’s weighing “all options” to press Jordan to extradite Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, who is wanted by the U.S. on a charge of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against American nationals. The charge was filed under seal in 2013 and announced by the Justice Department four years later.

The extradition issue is likely to be raised this week when Jordan’s King Abdullah II speaks to several congressional committees to voice his opposition to Israel’s plans to annex portions of the West Bank.

Al-Tamimi is on the FBI’s list of “most wanted terrorists” for her role in the suicide bombing at a crowded Jerusalem pizzeria. It was one of the deadliest attacks during the second Palestinian uprising.

She has lived freely in Jordan since Israel released her in a 2011 prisoner swap with the militant group Hamas. Jordanian authorities have rebuffed U.S. requests to turn her over, despite an extradition treaty. Jordan has a large Palestinian population, and it’s unclear if a threat over aid would cause it to rethink its position.

Ahead of King Abdullah’s video congressional appearances, scheduled for Wednesday with the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees, the State Department said that billions of dollars of foreign assistance to Jordan could be used as leverage to get Jordanian authorities to extradite Al-Tamimi.

The threat came in written answers submitted by the administration’s nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Jordan, Henry Wooster, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in response to questions posed by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

“The United States has multiple options and different types of leverage to secure Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi’s extradition,” Wooster wrote. “We will continue to engage Jordanian officials at all levels not only on this issue, but also on the extradition treaty more broadly. U.S. generosity to Jordan in Foreign Military Financing as well as economic support and other assistance is carefully calibrated to protect and advance the range of U.S. interests in Jordan and in the region.”

Asked specifically if aid to Jordan would be part of that leverage in the Al-Tamimi case, Wooster replied: “If confirmed, I would explore all options to bring Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi to justice, secure her extradition, and address the broader issues associated with the extradition treaty.” Wooster’s responses to the questions were obtained by The Associated Press.

The reference to aid in Wooster’s response was unusual. Previously, the Trump administration, and the Obama administration before it, had taken a low-key approach to Al-Tamimi, bringing it up in private conversations with Jordanian officials but shying away from a public fight with a rare Arab country that recognizes Israel and has been a dependable source of intelligence information about the region, including in neighboring Syria.

The U.S. has long been a major provider of aid to Jordan. In early 2018, the Trump administration signed a five-year, $6.4 billion aid agreement with Jordan that increased the annual amount of aid by $275 million to $1.3 billion. That boost “highlights the pivotal role Jordan plays in helping foster and safeguard regional stability and supports U.S. objectives such as the global campaign to defeat ISIS, counter-terrorism cooperation and economic development,” the State Department said then.

Al-Tamimi was arrested by Israel weeks after the bombing and sentenced to 16 life terms but released in the 2011 Israel-Hamas prisoner swap and moved to Jordan. She has made frequent media appearances, expressing no remorse for the attack and saying she was pleased with the high death toll.

Among the victims of the attack was Malka Roth, a 15-year-old Israeli American girl, whose father, Arnold Roth, has led a campaign seeking Al-Tamimi’s extradition.

In an interview Monday, Roth said his attempts to speak to Jordanian officials, including a letter sent to the ambassador in Washington last year, have been ignored. “The Jordanians have been egregiously rude and unhelpful in every possible way which we’ve tried to engage with them,” he said.

Roth said he has begun to make progress with members of Congress, citing an April 30 letter signed by seven Republican lawmakers to Jordan’s ambassador seeking Al-Tamimi’s extradition.

“My wife and I have been battling since February 2012 to see the United States charge, extradite and prosecute this horrifying fugitive from justice who proudly boasts of murdering so many children,” he said.

The blast at the Sbarro restaurant in downtown Jerusalem went off on the afternoon of Aug. 9, 2001. The assailant detonated explosives hidden in a guitar case packed with nails. Among those killed were seven between the ages of 2 and 16, and scores were wounded.

Al-Tamimi, a Hamas activist who chose the target and guided the bomber there, said in a 2017 interview with the AP that Palestinians have a right to resist Israeli rule by any means.

In 2017, Jordan’s high court ruled she could not be extradited, reportedly saying the 1995 extradition treaty had not been ratified. She has also claimed the U.S. has no right to charge her because she was already tried and sentenced in Israel.

In Jordan on Tuesday, Al-Tamimi’s extended family sent a letter to the king urging him to resist the American pressure and to “close the file” against her. It said the extradition request was “political.” “Jordan, under your Hashemite flag, has not and will not accept any compromises that detract from its human dignity and national sovereignty over all its national soil,” the letter said.

There was no immediate comment from the palace.

Federman reported from Jerusalem. Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan, contributed.

AP's story got wide syndication. We saw versions of it in the New York Times, Washington Post, US News, Haaretz, Jerusalem Post (under the heart-warming headline "Abdullah getting some rare heat from DC"), Ynet Israel, Insider.com, Gulf News (United Arab Emirates), on radio news right across the US and on other news platforms.

We know - but only because people who were there told us - that the hearings, sorry, briefings, took place. No news industry source has reported on it. And from friendly sources in Washington, it was said (though not in very concrete terms) that the Tamimi extradition was raised in questions. 

What else was the king, sitting in his palace and communicating via video link, asked? We know almost nothing. What were the questions? Who asked them? What answers did they get? How did the king react? All our efforts to find out have been met with dark suggestions that everyone who knows the answers is sworn to secrecy.

These were virtual meetings, conducted via Cisco Webex, since the king was in Jordan and not Washington when he delivered the "briefings". Staffers, we're told, were not allowed in. Which is amazing. Bordering on the incomprehensible. Where are the media? The staffers? The leaks?

But it turns out the meetings (OK, briefings) aren't actually confidential at all. We found a published report of what happened and details of at least some of those who participated. It's on the web. Any one interested can see it.

It's a report that comes from Jordan's Royal Hashemite Household.

Pause to think about that before we go further. The head of a state against whom substantial sanctions were recently legislated and signed into law by the President of the United States, and whose deployment are currently being threatened ["How Jordan’s refusal to extradite a convicted terrorist could imperil $1.5 billion in US aid", Al-Monitor, May 14, 2020] asks for and gets permission to meet directly with lawmakers inside their parliament over a period of two working days and involving multiple committees.

What's more, the participants - among the most influential and powerful politicians in the entire United States - agree (or so it appears) to keep the whole affair secret. Not a word of the substance of those two days of meetings is released.

If we're misinterpreting, maybe someone can straighten us out. 

Only one US lawmaker appears to have acknowledged that he "met" (meaning via video conference) during the Jordanian king's two-day blitz and that's the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee [here]:

CHAIRMAN RISCH HOSTS SFRC VIRTUAL COFFEE WITH KING ABDULLAH II OF JORDAN

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today hosted a virtual committee coffee with King Abdullah II of Jordan to discuss the strong, strategic relationship between the United States and Jordan.

“The United States and Jordan share a long history of mutual cooperation on issues ranging from security to trade. This relationship is one based on shared values and regional objectives,” said Risch. “Jordan has been central to promoting peace in the Middle East, and I look forward to our continued work together to achieve stability in the region.”

“We also thank our Jordanian partners for their generosity in hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees, as well as their assistance in fighting extremism,” continued Risch. “While we have made significant progress, continued counterterrorism pressure is required to ensure the Islamic State is never again in a position to destabilize the region. I look forward to continuing to build upon this important relationship in the months and years ahead.”

Unfortunately not a word about Jordan continuing to harbor confessed bomber/terrorist Ahlam Tamimi. No mention of Congress' decision to legislate sanctions directed at Jordan. Polite silence on Jordan's flagrant disregard for is 1995 Extradition Treaty with the US. And once again the case of our murdered daughter Malki is ignored.

Is there a dispute in US government circles about whether or not Jordan is in breach of its Extradition Treaty? No, none at all. As it happens, the State Department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism for 2019, underscored that when its latest version emerged earlier this week. This year's is pretty clear on the question of the treaty's validity. See page 126 of the 304 page tome under Jordan:

In 2019, Jordan did not extradite Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, who has been charged in the United States 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 the August 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a pizzeria 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. Following publication of the 2018 Country Reports on Terrorism, Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi confirmed that U.S. authorities asked Jordan to extradite Tamimi, and he expressed the view that Jordan’s constitution does not allow the extradition of a Jordanian citizen to a third country. The United States regards the extradition treaty with Jordan as valid and in force.

So now, with all those thoughts in mind, here is the one and only report to have emerged so far about what happened when Jordan's king delivered his briefings last week to a gathering of America's most powerful. It's published [here] by Jordan's Washington Embassy last week. Essentially the same content can be found on the Jordan Vista website as well as the government-mouthpiece newspaper Jordan Times. The yellow highlighting below is ours:

KING DISCUSSES JORDAN-US STRATEGIC TIES, REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS WITH CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS, COMMITTEES 

His Majesty King Abdullah on Tuesday warned that any unilateral Israeli measure to annex lands in the West Bank is unacceptable and undermines the prospects of achieving peace and stability in the region.

At meetings held via conference calls with US Congressional leaders and committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, attended by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II, King Abdullah stressed the importance of establishing an independent, sovereign, and viable Palestinian state on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In calls with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, US House of Representatives’ Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Appropriations Subcommittees on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programmes at the Senate and the House, His Majesty discussed the strategic partnership between Jordan and the United States, and the latest regional developments, foremost of which is the Palestinian cause.

The King reaffirmed the strength of Jordanian-US relations, and keenness to enhance cooperation across various sectors, expressing appreciation for the support provided by the United States to Jordan in development and defence.

Discussions covered efforts to reach political solutions to crises in the Middle East, as well as regional and international efforts to fight terrorism within a holistic approach.

International efforts to counter coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and cooperation to mitigate its humanitarian and economic repercussions were also discussed.

The US lawmakers described His Majesty as the voice of moderation in the region, expressing keenness to hear from the King on developments in the Middle East.

They also commended Jordan’s handling of COVID-19 and the measures taken to ensure public health and safety.

Moreover, they expressed appreciation of His Majesty and his ongoing outreach to Congress leaders and committees, despite the circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, Adviser to His Majesty for Communication and Coordination Bisher Khasawneh, Adviser to His Majesty for Policies and Media Kemal Al Nasser, and Jordan’s Ambassador in Washington, DC, Dina Kawar attended the meetings.

Royal Hashemite Court 

16 June 2020 

So in summary: Which US lawmakers did Jordan's king have the rare privilege of addressing inside the Congress during two busy working days of closed-door, unpublicized meetings? At minimum, according to the Jordanians - 

• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
• Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
• The members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• The members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee
• The members of the House Armed Services Committee
• The members of the Senate Armed Services Committee
• The members of the House Appropriations Committee
• The members of the Senate Appropriations Committee

(Click the links above to see the lists of members.)

Jordan's Royal Household also took the liberty of publishing photos [here] of some of the Congress members who took part in these confidential gatherings - people who now act as if they cannot even confirm they were there! And who quite possibly don't even know their participation was made a matter of public record by the briefing side.

Here are just a few of those photos, all of them - to be clear about this - from Jordanian online sources:

Rep Brad Sherman (D-CA) is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government] 

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government] 

House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep Nita Lowey [D-NY] is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government] 

Rep Barbara Lee (D-CA) is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government]  

Rep Hal Rogers (R-KY) is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government]

Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government]

Rep Marcy Kaptor (D-OH) is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government]

Rep Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) is briefed by the king [Via Jordanian government]

We downloaded and saved more photos than just these. It seems the Jordanians wanted to make a splash. As the images show, their influence is genuinely daunting.

Most members of Congress probably don't read this blog. If they did - and frankly even if they don't - we would want them to know how we feel. So:

Ladies and gentlemen of Congress, in giving honor and respect to Jordan's king last week and then complying what we think is his request for the interaction to stay secret, you do a tremendous dishonour to the life and memory of our daughter Malki.

The absurdity of complying with a Jordanian request to keep things quiet is underscored by how that confidentiality was breached within hours by the king and his retinue. The confidentiality was one-sided and humiliating. Other than your compliments, they didn't publish a single word of your comments or questions.

They didn't mention our murdered child or the Jordanian woman who admits she carried out a massacre that targeted children just like, and including, our daughter who was 15. They exploited your silence so that they could put out a one-sided piece of propaganda, half of a dialogue carefully edited to exclude whatever they cared to exclude, complete with photos of some of you listening on in awe.

Trying to see justice done in a situation like the one we - Frimet and Arnold Roth, parents of Malki of blessed memory - have been living through in the years since our child's life was taken from us is strange. We haven't run into anyone who denies that justice is a supreme value. It's subject on which there's broad agreement.

But we have encountered people who understand justice in ways we simply can't recognize.

Our task, our fate, has turned out to be that we need to remind people of some of the basics in life. The woman who confesses happily to planting the bomb at Sbarro tells her audiences this was a fine act, a divine act. Where she lives (Jordan, to be clear) this is true, as they see it. 

For the rest of us, that's a horror. Killing children? Regretting that you didn't kill more? And becoming a national celebrity? What's terribly, indescribably wrong with this picture?

We have to talk to reporters or their editors or sometimes politicians or commentators or experts who, by their lack of interest and occasionally by their hostility, convey to us that the bomber might be right. That there are actually two ways to look at this.

We hoped the senior American lawmakers who we knew (because Associated Press revealed it ahead of time) were meeting last week with the Jordanian king would remember the basic values of the society that gave them their position and influence. Sadly, we don't know if any of them did or if they will. 

We need them to become re-acquainted with justice and with the moral courage to stand up for it.