29-Apr-25: US leadership must secure justice in the Jordan/Tamimi case: A call to action

As an invited speaker on its Legal Affairs Forum, Arnold Roth addressed this week's Jewish News Syndicate 2025 International Summit in Jerusalem. Here's the speech he delivered.

Decades after becoming a lawyer, I find myself involved in a legal process that is spectacularly paralyzed.

This summit comes at a moment demanding moral clarity and courageous leadership from the United States. Today, I focus on a case that encapsulates these issues. It’s about Ahlam Tamimi, the Jordanian terrorist who orchestrated the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, murdering 16 innocents, including three Americans. One was my daughter Malki, 15.

The Jordan/Tamimi case exposes a troubling truth: Jordan, a US ally, has failed on two fronts—refusing to condemn Tamimi’s terrorism and violating a cornerstone treaty made with the US under President Clinton. This injustice has festered in silence for years. It’s time for the US to lead with principle and hold treaty partners accountable.

Tamimi is no repentant fugitive. She scouted Jerusalem for a target rich in families and children, settling on a crowded pizzeria during school vacation. She accompanied the human bomb to the site, then rushed back to Ramallah to present the evening television news. Since then, she has lived freely in Jordan, celebrated as a hero. She hosted a TV show, addressed rallies, and appeared on social media, bragging about the lives she ended—lives like my daughter Malki’s, an American citizen whose memory demands justice.

In 2017, the US Department of Justice charged Tamimi with terrorism and added her to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, offering a $5 million reward for her capture. Yet Jordan, bound by the bilateral 1995 extradition treaty, refuses to hand her over. Jordan’s courts claim the treaty is invalid—a technical argument contradicted by facts and disputed by the US. Meanwhile, Jordan’s leaders remain silent, unwilling to condemn Tamimi’s crimes.

This silence isn’t neutrality—it’s complicity. Jordan accepts billions in US aid, pledges cooperation against terrorism, and even outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood last week. Tamimi is aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jordan continues to harbor America’s most wanted female fugitive, prioritizing political convenience over principle. This makes a mockery of justice and erodes trust in international law.

The United States cannot afford ambiguity on terrorism. After 9/11, Washington demanded allies stand with the US or step aside. It’s time to apply that same clarity here.

My family and the families of other victims deserve more than sympathy—we deserve action. Treaties are not guidelines; they are solemn promises. Jordan has extradited other terrorists under this treaty. Why is Tamimi different?

Today, I announce that nearly 27,000 people have signed a petition urging the US Secretary of State to press Jordan to extradite Tamimi.

From this podium, I call on you—America’s thought-leaders, storytellers and conscience—to bring this painful affair into the light.

The White House, Congress, and State Department have tools at their disposal: diplomatic pressure, economic incentives, even aid conditions. They must use them. And the media must challenge them to act.

Terrorism thrives when nations waver. By insisting on Tamimi’s extradition, America would reaffirm that terrorists cannot escape accountability. When justice is shoved aside, the foundations of civilized society are undermined. But it’s not too late. We yearn for leadership that is principled, determined, and unwavering. And for media reportage that respects the doctrine of “neither fear nor favor”.

Justice for Malki and the other innocents must matter more than the savages who took their lives. Let us unite to make that happen.

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)

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.

22-Jul-22: The loneliest battle of my life

An edited version of the article that follows, written in English by Frimet Roth, was published in Hebrew in the pages of Haaretz and on its Hebrew website last week [here]. The title, translated into English: "The woman responsible for my daughter's murder remains free."

My husband Arnold and I never expected to be involved in political activities of any kind, and certainly not at this stage of our lives. 

We have raised children who are now raising their own children. By our own standards we have lived constructive lives. And we have kept away from politics and politicians the whole time.

Now, more than thirty years after we settled in Jerusalem as olim from Australia and the United States, we find ourselves in one of the loneliest battles it’s possible to imagine.

There is a woman who lives about an hour from here, a woman we have never met. We have spent years trying to get her imprisoned for the rest of her life.

On March 14, 2017, the Department of Justice in Washington charged Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi with “conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against US nationals outside the US, resulting in death.”

Her weapon of mass destruction was a human: a man with an explosives-and-shrapnel-filled guitar-case on his back. He detonated while standing at the counter of the crowded Sbarro pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem on August 9. 2001. The powerful blast decapitated him and destroyed the bustling premises and everything inside. Tamimi later called the massacre “my operation” in one of her many triumphant social posts.

Intending to kill as many children as possible, she came to Jerusalem on August 9, 2001, age 21 and dressed in clothes that made her look Israeli instead of the Islamist zealot that she really was. She had already chosen the pizzeria as her target and brought the bomb right up to its door. Instructing her young male companion on when and how to explode, she ran from the scene. By the time he did what she told him, she had already escaped to safety.

A few hours later, she was the reader of the evening news at a Palestinian TV station in Ramallah called Al-Istiqlal. We weren’t watching.

* * *

We buried our smiley, talented, much-loved Malki, 15, the next afternoon.

Tamimi descended into Israel’s military courts system and then prison in the weeks and years that followed. No one from the government ever contacted us; we knew only what the Israeli public knew. Our sources were the same as everyone else’s.

Then something incomprehensible happened. 

In October 2011, Netanyahu announced that he had done a deal to get back Gilad Shalit, a soldier held for ransom by Hamas. The price: freedom for 1,027 convicted terrorists, most of them killers. We turned to the media to express the incomprehensibility of what was being done and our rejection of the idea that the Sbarro bomber should ever be released under any conditions.

No one from the government of Israel informed us or asked us what we think – and Tamimi’s sixteen terms of life imprisonment ended just like that. Eight years after she was sentenced, the monster walked free.

* * *

Frimet was interviewed by Haaretz on the day
the Shalit Deal was consummated

The awful reality turned unbearable just a couple of months after Tamimi settled back in Jordan where she was born and educated: she was given her own shiny new weekly television show, beamed by satellite every Friday night into all parts of the Arabic speaking world via the Al-Quds TV channel operated by Hamas.

"Naseem Al Ahrar" (translation: “Breezes of the Free”), encouraged its audience to admire and support terror and those who do it. It became a hit that ran for five years.

The week it started to appear on television, my husband went to Washington. I couldn’t travel but I went with him in the form of a video clip we recorded at our home the night he traveled. Together the two of us tried to persuade a room full of senior Department of Justice and FBI officials that criminal charges should be brought against the Sbarro mastermind. No case of Palestinian Arab terror leading to the murder of Americans in Israel had ever been prosecuted by the US government before, though a law enabling this had been on the books for years. The key factor was that Malki had dual American and Israeli citizenship.

***

That Washington DC chapter happened in February 2012. We felt it went well, but no one told us that a federal judge signed the criminal complaint on July 15, 2013. We didn’t know US diplomats were negotiating with Jordan to extradite her. We were given no sign that the charges even existed.

We learned about them in a March 14, 2017 private meeting with DOJ representatives in Jerusalem. They came here to tell us. Tamimi became an FBI Most Wanted terrorist a few hours later, only the second woman ever to be put on that list. An arrest order and extradition request were delivered to the Hashemite Kingdom at about the same hour that we met with the Americans.

We imagined a road ahead leading to trial and imprisonment. In less than a week, we learned how naïve we were.

***

The five years that followed have been hard. The DOJ people making the Tamimi announcement in Washington seemed righteous and determined. But they very soon became unreachable, at least to us.

Jordan’s highest court ruled later that same week that the 1995 Clinton/King Hussein Extradition Treaty was invalid. The reasons were absurdly technical and as we have since learned, don’t hold water. We learned this by suing the US State Department two years ago. If we had any doubt before, we now knew that the Jordanian government was concealing the truth in order to keep this immensely popular figure safe from the Americans.

In the years since March 2017, the US has stated formally — but very quietly — that the treaty actually is valid. But they have never made a single public call telling Jordan to hand her over to US law enforcement. Meanwhile Jordan has become one of the three largest recipients of massive US foreign aid. Tamimi lives free in Amman, never in hiding for even a day.

It’s not only Washington that’s lost its voice. America’s major Jewish organizations have almost entirely failed to urge the US to enforce its own criminal code or its own treaty to bring Tamimi to justice.

Through writing, blogging, speaking via video conference wherever we are invited, we keep the campaign alive. We wrote to President Biden last Sunday asking him in a private letter to meet with us, to talk with us about how it can be that America’s most wanted female fugitive remains free to keep inciting other people, especially children and teenagers, to do more terror. The White House has not responded but told Associated Press on Monday that they have no intention of responding to the Roths’ letter.

In Israel’s power circles, our voices get close to zero attention, and not for lack of trying. Israel has done nothing to help bring Tamimi to American justice.

We understand the political calculus: terror bad, King Abdullah good, mustn’t undermine him. But if you see justice as a supreme value, it’s hard not to feel betrayed.

***

Four weeks from now, we will mark our precious Malki’s 21st yahrzeit, the anniversary of her murder. With time, it strangely becomes ever more painful to think about her. Perhaps this is because the list of milestones she has missed grows with each day for me.

I imagine her as a mother and wife. A musician perhaps - she played the classical flute exceptionally well already at the age of fifteen. As an occupational therapist – the field she told me she hoped to study.

Malki

I imagine conversations where I share personal experiences with her. She was not only my oldest daughter but a friend as well.

Kindness, empathy and generosity were second nature to her - towards her parents, her six siblings, her many friends. She even extended those traits to her youngest sibling, Haya, who was and remains profoundly disabled: blind, unable to speak, to stand, to sit, to respond in any way.

But Malki lavished love and attention on her and reached out as well to other children with disabilities in our neighborhood, at her school, in summer camps.

At school, she didn't excel but did passably well. Studying for exams only stole time from her other activities - artwork, heart-to-heart conversations at the youth group where she was an enthusiastic madricha.

I long to do more for her. But all that is left for me is to honor her by bringing her murderer to justice. With every letter my husband and I write to powerful and influential people, with every phone call we make, with every interview we give to the media, I feel that I am giving a gift to our Malki.

POSTSCRIPT: More than 20,000 justice-minded people from all parts of the world have already answered our request to sign our petition. It urges the Secretary of State in Washington to do what should have been in 2013 when a federal judge signed a criminal indictment against Tamimi: tell Jordan to hand her over to the still-waiting US law enforcement officials so she can be tried in a court of justice under US law as the Jordan/US extradition treaty explicitly requires. To sign the petition, go to change.org/ExtraditeTamimi. Thank you. 

11-Jul-22: President Biden is heading to Jerusalem and we're asking for a few minutes of his time

Associated Press has just reported ["Parents of slain Israeli-American girl seek Biden meeting", Josef Federman, July 10, 2022] that we - the parents of Malki Roth - have been in touch with the White House and requested a meeting with the US president during his visit to Jerusalem later this week.

JERUSALEM (AP) — The family of an Israel-American girl killed in a 2001 Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem is seeking a meeting with President Joe Biden in hopes of forcing Jordan to extradite a woman convicted in the deadly attack.

The parents of Malki Roth turned to Biden on Sunday asking to meet with the president when he comes to Jerusalem this week. They want the president to put pressure on Jordan, a close American ally, to send Ahlam Tamimi to the U.S. for trial.

“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,” Frimet and Arnold Roth wrote in their letter. “We ask that you address this as only the leader of the United States can.”

The Roths have been waging a campaign for the extradition of Ahlam Tamimi since she was released by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap with the Hamas militant group. Under that deal, Tamimi was sent to her native Jordan, where she lives freely and has been a familiar face in the media. Jordanian authorities have rebuffed calls to extradite her.

On Aug. 9, 2001, a Palestinian bomber walked into a Jerusalem pizzeria and blew himself up, killing 15 people. Two American citizens, including 15-year-old Malki Roth, were among the dead.

Tamimi, who chose the target and guided the bomber there, was arrested weeks later and sentenced by Israel to 16 life sentences. Since her release, she has expressed no remorse and even boasted that she was pleased with the high death toll. In a 2017 interview with The Associated Press, she said the Palestinians have a right to resist Israel by any means, including deadly attacks.

Roth has repeatedly called on U.S. authorities to press Jordan, which has received billions of dollars in American assistance, to turn over Tamimi for trial.

The United States has charged Tamimi with 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. Her name was added to the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists.

The U.S. and Jordan signed an extradition treaty in 1995. But in 2017, Jordan’s high court blocked her extradition, reportedly claiming the treaty was never ratified.

Two years ago, the Trump administration said it was considering withholding aid to Jordan over the case, but ultimately no action was taken.

Jordan is one of the United States’ closest partners in the Arab world, seen as a force of moderation and stability in the volatile Middle East. American officials appear to be wary of sparking a diplomatic crisis with a key ally.

“Something is obviously terribly wrong with how the pursuit of America’s most wanted female fugitive is going,” the Roths wrote in their letter, sent to Biden through the U.S. Embassy.

“We want to explain this to you better in a face-to-face meeting,” they added. “We want you to look us in the eyes, Mr. President, and tell us how Jordan’s king can be a praiseworthy ally.”

Biden is scheduled to land in Israel on Wednesday before traveling to a Mideast summit in Saudi Arabia on Friday. He has no plans to be in Jordan, though Jordanian officials are expected at the summit.

There was no immediate comment from either the White House or the Jordanian Royal Hashemite Court.

Roth’s letter was sent days after the family of a Palestinian-American journalist killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank lashed out at Biden over his administration’s response to her death.

Relatives of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh expressed “grief, outrage and (a) sense of betrayal” in a letter accusing the U.S. of trying to erase Israeli responsibility for her death.

A U.S. investigation concluded that Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire, but also said there was “no reason to believe” she was deliberately targeted. Israel says Abu Akleh was killed during a gun battle with Palestinian militants, and it is unclear who fired the deadly shot. The Palestinians say Israel intentionally killed her.

The White House declined to comment on the letter or the family’s request for a meeting during his visit.

The letter we wrote isn't published yet. We will post it here soon.

26-Apr-22: New legislation seeks to hold Jordan accountable for failure to send the Sbarro bomber for trial in Washington

From our Twitter time-line

The US Congressman at the heart of a welcome initiative we described here some four weeks ago ["30-Mar-22: Lawmakers to Secretary of State: What measures are available so that Sbarro bomber is extradited to Washington?"] has just made an important announcement.

Important, that is, to those - like us - who want to see US justice finally catch up with America's most wanted female fugitive. That's the confessed bomber of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria, a Hamas terrorist zealot who brags of the children whose lives she ended. One of those children was our daughter Malki, a US national, murdered in the Sbarro atrocity at age 15.

Here's the text of  the media release [archived] that Congressman Greg Steube's office issued yesterday.

Steube Introduces Legislation to Hold The Government of Jordan Accountable for Failure to Extradite Hamas Terrorist

April 25, 2022 | Press Release

WASHINGTON— U.S. Representative Greg Steube (R-Fla.) recently introduced The Recognition of the 1995 Jordan Extradition Treaty with the U.S. Act to limit U.S. assistance to Jordan until the Government of Jordan recognizes the validity of the 1995 extradition treaty between the two countries.

"Our U.S. tax dollars will not continue to flow to a country harboring a Hamas Terrorist with American blood on her hands," said Congressman Greg Steube. "The Government of Jordan is failing to comply with a 1995 treaty which requires them to extradite individuals like Ahlam al Tamimi who faces trial for terrorism under U.S. law. My legislation will ensure our foreign assistance to Jordan is abruptly halted until Jordan is in compliance with our extradition treaty."

The U.S. and Jordan signed a Memorandum of Understanding on U.S. foreign assistance to Jordan which committed the U.S. to providing $1.2 billion per year in bilateral foreign assistance over a five-year period for a total of $6.3 billion between 2018 and 2022. This MOU represents a 27% increase in the U.S. commitment to Jordan above the previous agreements.

Ahlam al Tamimi lives freely in Jordan despite orchestrating a horrific 2001 terrorist attack in Israel which killed 15 innocent people, including two American citizens, and injured 122 others. Ahlam al Tamimi is on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Most Wanted Terrorist List. 

The text of the bill itself (here at 117th Congress, 2d Session, H. R. 7527) was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives on April 14, 2022. 

The language of the proposed law notes that the Extradition Treaty between the governments of the US and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was signed at Washington on March 28, 1995. It entered into force on July 29, 1995. The US view is that it is clearly still in effect.

As we noted a month ago [here], Jordanian fugitive terrorist Ahlam Tamimi has lived a public life - undisguised and in full view of Jordanian society and its media - throughout the years that the US has been pursuing her. She has never been in hiding, not even for even a day. And she has been regularly interviewed, has given speeches, has written opinion columns throughout that time. Despite all of this, the multi-million dollar State Department Rewards for Justice prize on her head remains in effect, never yet paid out to anyone. No part of the US news industry has ever raised any questions about this. But we have and we do.

From our own tracking of events, we know Jordan - via its various diplomats and officials - has avoided addressing the treaty and Jordan's breach of it in any direct way. It has preferred instead to allow a decision of its Court of Cassation from March 2017, less than a week after the US charges against Tamimi were unsealed in Washington, to speak for itself.

One notable exception to that policy of ostentatiously ignoring the breach of a bilateral agreement with its most significant ally is a speech in Arabic, never reported in any US media, made by Jordan's then and present foreign minister and deputy prime minister. 

We wrote about it a day later in an open letter to US-educated Ayman Safadi, a key Jordanian insider. The following brief extract is from "13-Nov-19: Thank you, Mr Foreign Minister":

...You and virtually the entire political leadership of Jordan have been careful to avoid all public mentions of the embarrassing and self-humiliating way Jordan harbors the confessed Sbarro bomber and FBI Most Wanted fugitive terrorist Ahlam Tamimi.

More than most people, and related to what we lost in the Sbarro atrocity, we know how willing you are to discuss Jordan's disavowal of its treaty obligations to the US in private meetings about which we have gotten reports. And how unwilling you are to talk about this important issue in public.

It is quite a balancing act.

You might recall how we tried to draw out your response in an article we published more than two years ago, addressed like this current post, to you personally: "26-Jul-17: We listened carefully to Jordan's foreign minister and we have 10 questions".

And as you may remember, you ignored us totally. (So did and do your staff.) 

Special mention of Jordan's ambassador to Washington who right up until today blocks us on Twitter. We assume this is what feeling really embarrassed about an issue will cause even a polite and cultured person like Ambassador Dina Kawar to do...

Congressman Steube initiated a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 23, 2022. Concerning the Tamimi case, it asks meaningful questions and was co-signed by ten additional Members of Congress. All of them are from the GOP side of the Congress. Do we have concerns about this? You bet we do. ["19-Apr-22: To our friends in the Democratic Party"]

So far as we are aware, no response to Mr Steube's letter has yet been received by his office.

19-Apr-22: To our friends in the Democratic Party

Twitter is where much of our messaging appears these days. It has lots of advantages - you can say things briefly, it gets immediate attention, the audience is large. But once your tweet appears, it's often a matter of a few days at most and sometimes just hours before the attention and the audience move on.

Last week, we posted a thread of tweets that addressed supporters of the Democratic Party. The introduction said this:

We're not involved in US political life. We don't favor GOP over Dems or vice versa. And as parents of a murdered American child, we know our fight for justice is non-partisan. But if you stand with @TheDemocrats, please take 2 mins to read the heartfelt appeal in this thread:

The thread got gratifying attention. 

But it's an important message, one which so far has not attracted any response at all from the people we especially want to reach: the decision-makers among US Democrats. So here it is as a blog post.

____________

To our friends in the @TheDemocrats:

The extradition of @Sbarro monster, @FBIMostWanted fugitive #AhlamTamimi, has been blocked for years by Jordan. It obscenely opposes US efforts to prosecute her and says the 1995 extradition treaty obliging them to hand her over is invalid.

/2

The Sbarro pizzeria is where our daughter Malka Chana Roth was murdered along with many other innocents, most of them children, in a 2001 Hamas outrage spearheaded by Jordanian fugitive Ahlam Tamimi. Click for background.

____________

But it is valid. #Tamimi doesn't deny her key role in the murder of our daughter Malki, 15. Since 2012, my wife and I have pressed the relevant parties to end this charade and get the fugitive into @FBI custody. That we haven't succeeded isn't for lack of trying. 

/3

Malki's fresh grave, the day after her murder. Beside it, the grave of

her closest friend Michal [Image Source: Getty Images]

____________

To our dismay, the @StateDept keeps wanting what we want - #Tamimi in US court facing US justice as US law requires - but says it via what we view as pointless mantras... while routinely praising and rewarding Jordan at every opportunity. Clearly something's wrong.

/4

____________

In the past four months, helped by devoted allies, we asked Members of Congress to sign a letter asking fair and respectful questions about this. It's published here: https://thisongoingwar.blogspot.com/2022/03/30-mar-22-lawmakers-to-secretary-of.html

It's one of the few ways we can draw US gov't officials' attention to the injustice.

/5

____________

There's nothing about the murder of our child and the other American victims in the @Sbarro massacre that ought to divide Americans. This can't be a partisan issue - not if justice means anything. And yet not a single Democrat lawmaker consented to sign. This stuns us.

/6

____________

We also reached out to prominent Democrat figures who aren't in Congress. We have no wish to embarrass them but they could hardly have been less helpful. We're now afraid @TheJusticeDept effort to bring #AhlamTamimi to US justice is becoming a US domestic football. 

/7

____________

We must not let that happen. Doing justice is a sacred mission. But if half the US political spectrum is acting as if it's opposed but never saying so, that's alarming. We ask you to stand up and support this important cause. And we're asking your voters to sign our petition:

/8

Screen shot source: The New York Times, July 19, 2021

____________

To express support and to stand with us as we keep urging the government of the US to explain to Jordan what the 1995 treaty requires it to do, please sign here: change.org/ExtraditeTamimi

Together we will make this happen.

* * *

If you know people who are decision makers in the Democratic Party, people who have a passion for making justice happen, we would very much appreciate you passing our message along to them. Thank you.