19-Jun-20: Aljazeera on the Tamimi extradition: Our commentary

Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria, minutes after the bombing led by Tamimi

It's an intense time for us on multiple fronts. We've been doing a lot of tweeting and ZOOMing and Whatsapping. But somehow not much - and not enough - blogging.

Time to do some catching up.

Over at Aljazeera, an English-language piece, "'Close the file': Jordan king urged to deny US extradition demand" by Ali Younes takes an inevitably sympathetic look at the efforts currently being made by a fugitive terrorist, Ahlam Tamimi, the most wanted female terrorist in the world (Fox News) to stop certain pesky efforts by US law enforcement to call her to account. And to escape being incarcerated in a US Federal prison for a very long time.

To the writer's credit, he offered Arnold Roth an opportunity to be heard on an issue that, it goes without saying, is at the very heart of our deepest concerns. In the end, and we'll get to this below, the article deals far more with viewpoints we don't like and think are lacking in accuracy and logic than with ours.

Quote:  Al-Tamimi - a Jordanian citizen who was convicted in Israel and sentenced to multiple life sentences after 15 people, including two Israeli-Americans, were killed in the blast - was released to Jordan in a prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel in 2011.

We say: The "multiple" in that sentence is 16. Sixteen. Six. Teen. One for each of her victims. Think back to the last time you heard about a prison sentence anywhere as large as that. But note that the "including two Israeli-Americans" isn't right. Two of the murdered were females with American citizenship: our daughter Malki, an Israeli citizen as well as a US citizen, who was 15 and had lived here in Jerusalem since she was two years old. And Shoshana Hayman Greenbaum, a beloved school teacher living in New Jersey, her parents' only child and pregnant for the first time. Shoshana wasn't an Israeli-American; she was simply an American who was visiting Israel. A tourist who is now buried a short walk away from our Malki. A third American female living in Israel, the mother of a two year-old child who was with her in the pizzeria but survived uninjured, has remained in a vegetative coma through all the years since the massacre. Tamimi doesn''t mention her. Nor do most news reports about how many people were murdered there that day. Because that young mother - whose daughter is now a mother herself - is alive. Only she's comatose. The tragedy of the human losses inflicted by Tamimi's evil get very little attention generally and especially in Aljazeera's stories.

Quote: Her family acknowledged that Jordan was under pressure by the US government to extradite her, but urged the king to work to "close the file" and "reject the US demands that are based on political considerations, not legal ones".

We say: Under pressure? That's a strange way to frame it. The US has been asking Jordan since 2013, meaning for seven years, to apprehend Tamimi and to make her available to US law enforcement. The US claim is based on the 1995 Extradition Treaty signed (but now repudiated) by the Jordanian king's father and the US government of Bill Clinton. Are those American demands based on political considerations? No, unless you're a Tamimi ally. Tamimi says without the slightest remorse or apology that she brought the bomb to the pizzeria and placed it there. She boasts about this and about the children she blew to pieces. She's proud of the things she did. They made her a VIP. She says [here] she wishes she had killed more than the mere 15 lives she extinguished that day. And this: Tamimi doesn't make any pretence to political considerations in the atrocity she calls "my operation". It wasn't about politics. Or occupied territories. Or Green Lines. What was it about? She tells it plainly here: "08-Oct-17: Why kill religious Jewish children? Because, says Hamas celebrity-jihadist, this is a religious struggle". Tamimi sees herself as a holy warrior. The US sees her as a fugitive from justice. And Aljazeera sees her as a victim of political trickery.

Quote: Seven members of the US Congress sent a letter to the Jordanian embassy in Washington DC last May demanding that Jordan "hand over" al-Tamimi to the US government.

We say: Actually, no. The letter was sent on April 30, 2020 by Representatives Greg Steube (R-Fla.); Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.); Ted Yoho (R-Fla.); Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.); Brian Mast (R-Fla.); Scott Perry (R-Penn.); and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). It personally addresses Jordan's ambassador in Washington, Dina Kawar. The text is reproduced here ["05-May-20: From Congress, concern about how Jordanians deal with the fugitive terrorist in their midst"]; the whole letter is online as a PDF here. And no, the words "hand over" don't appear as anyone who has read it would notice. The lawmakers refer to the treaty in their very polite and respectful letter and to those US requests of Jordan that started in 2013. And then they say this:

The Hashemite Kingdom refused. It continues to refuse until today. This is a matter of grave and growing concern to the Congress and to all Americans. 

Here's their "demand": 

We believe it is of the highest importance to US/Jordan relations that an outcome is found that honors Jordanian law while ensuring this unrepentant terrorist and murderer of innocent Americans is brought to US justice. Extraditing Tamimi within the framework of a long-standing, effective treaty is a powerful statement that Jordan will not tolerate terrorism nor its promotion. We reaffirm our appreciation for His Majesty King Abdullah II and his inspirational leadership and look forward to the further flourishing of our mutually important alliance.

Some demand. Some journalism.

Quote: Jordan's highest court ruled in 2017 that al-Tamimi cannot be extradited to the United States because a 1995 extradition treaty signed between the two countries was not ratified by Jordan's Parliament, making it unconstitutional for Jordanian courts to approve US requests.

We say: True up to a point but lacking in essential context and consequence. A more diligent journalist might have gone on to note that (a) the US, which has solid reasons for believing this, says the treaty is fully valid today and always was; (b) Jordan's rubber-stamp parliament could have ratified the treaty with the kingdom's most important ally every single day since June 1995 including today. But it chooses not to; (c) the Jordanians extradited fugitive terrorists to the US repeatedly right up until the Tamimi decison in March 2017. And there's this: if the Aljazeera reporter had asked us, we would have told him what a State Department official told us for the record last year: that the government of Jordan provided the US with instruments of ratification back in 1995 before the treaty went into effect. We wish American government officials cared a little less about hurting the feelings of the lying Jordanians and a little more about the damage that's being done to justice.  

Quote: Multiple US officials, however, told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, because they were not allowed to speak to the media, that Wooster's statement [our insert: that the US would consider "all options" to press Jordan to extradite al-Tamimi, including leveraging US aid to Amman] did not veer from traditional diplomatic language used at the State Department, and did not indicate the US government will withhold US aid to Jordan.

We say: The vagueness of this claim is damning. Jordan's problem isn't the language being used by the Americans. Their problem is with US law. The reporter could have said something about the "all options" terminology because to anyone paying attention it actually means something with meaningful punch. Congress enacted a law that President Trump signed into effect on December 20, 2019. That law, which has widely analyzed these past few weeks in Jordan's media, provides a powerful sanction that while it doesn't mention Jordan clearly targets it. The details are here.

Quote: Extraditing her to the United States is impossible from a Jordanian legal perspective, said Laith Nasrawin, a constitutional law professor at the University of Jordan. "The 1995 extradition treaty, having not been ratified by the parliament, does not carry the weight of the law and is invalid from the court's perspective," Nasrawin said. "The extradition treaty may carry weight on an international level between the US and Jordan, but domestically and legally, the treaty is unconstitutional."

We say: We don't know Professor Nasrawin. We do however know more than most people about the legal claims being put forward to argue how and why Jordan "cannot" extradite Tamimi. None of the legal experts we have consulted thinks there's any merit at all in Jordan's position. As for the quote from Nasrawin, the way it's reproduced in the article, we think it's gibberish. What he said might even be something different from what he said. We don't know. But it certainly doesn't have the sound of serious legal expertise. Perhaps the reporter ought to be asked to clarify it. What for instance does "invalid from the court's perspective" mean? Is it invalid or just sort of? What's more, the US lawmakers' letter to Ambassador Kawar asks questions about other current and valid Jordanian extradition treaties. There are many of them. If those questions get answered frankly, this whole charade will be over. So far, Jordan's Ambassador Kawar has stayed silent on the letter. And when we asked her essentially the same questions in a December 2019, she never bothered to respond. Galling but it's a strategy.

Quote: In 1995, Jordan extradited Eyad Ismail Najim, a Jordanian citizen implicated in the 1993 New York City bombing, immediately after the two countries signed the treaty. But Najim was extradited only after he signed documents agreeing to stand trial in the US, not because of a court ruling, according to Jordanian officials familiar with the case.

We say: This is a bizarre piece of reportage. The 1995 treaty was signed because of the US insistence on bringing the 1993 World Trade Center bombing suspect to justice. Here's how the LA Times reported it at the time: "U.S. intelligence has long known where to find Najim but the FBI was unable to request extradition until a treaty was worked out with Jordan in March, the sources said. The final instruments of extradition were completed and exchanged last Saturday, allowing the FBI to proceed. The indictment had been sealed to ensure that Najim would not learn that he had been identified and try to flee again." The notion that he consented to being convicted in the US is homorous but absurd. And by the way, does Aljazeera know of any other Jordanians who were extradited to the US under the treaty? We certainly do. Happy to share that information with them. If they care to know.

Quote: In an interview with Al Jazeera in 2017, Ahlam al-Tamimi said she never knew American nationals were killed in the bombing and the Israeli government never mentioned that during her trial. "The first time I ever knew that Americans were killed was when the Interpol in Jordan told me about the charges filed in the US against me," she said.

We say: Actually we carefully analyzed - and tore to pieces - that 2017 interiew here: "24-Mar-17: Our daughter's grinning killer is shocked the US is pursuing her and for no obvious reason". It happens to be written by the same reporter as this one. But here's the point. Does anyone care what Ahlam Tamimi says she knew about her victims and their citizenship? Why does the man from Aljazeera? The matter has no consequence and interests no one. It's irrelevant to the law and it ought to be irrelevant to his analysis.

Quote:  The article quotes Arnold Roth saying this: "None of the lawyers with whom I have discussed it thinks the Jordanian claim has any real basis. Jordan has extradited terrorists to the US again and again ... As the father of one of the children she targeted for murder, I don't need much explaining by Jordanians about what makes extraditing Tamimi so different," he said.

We say: And that's all. But Arnold Roth actually said much more than that in the letter he sent to Aljazeera's Ali Younes this past week, after being invited to offer a comment. We don't complain about Younes quoting him briefly - that's legitimate. But for more serious-minded readers, here's the whole Roth quotation:

Terrorism charges were filed by US Federal prosecutors against the confessed Sbarro bomber, Ahlam Tamimi, a Jordanian, in 2013, years before we knew about their existence. 

They were kept sealed by law. Meaning no one, not even the US Congress, knew about them until they were announced four years later. 

But from my conversations with American law enforcement officials, I believe they were not an absolute secret. That's because Jordanian government officials certainly knew about them. Multiple rounds of futile negotiations took place secretly between the US and its close strategic ally Jordan during those four years. The US goal was to get Tamimi extradited and brought into a Federal court to answer to the very serious charges that are still facing her.

And the Jordanian response was to keep her safe and in Amman.

Less than a week after the unsealing of those charges against Tamimi, Jordan's Court of Cassation ruled for the first time that the King Hussein/Bill Clinton 1995 treaty was constitutionally invalid and she could not be handed over to the Americans. 

That area of law is not my personal field. [Roth is a lawyer.] But none of the lawyers with whom I have discussed it thinks the Jordanian claim has any real basis. Jordan has extradited terrorists to the US again and again. Tamimi is different. As the father of one of the children she targeted for murder, I don't need much explaining by Jordanians about what makes extraditing Tamimi so different.

Jordan's brazen refusal to comply with a treaty that undoubtedly was valid until Jordan decided it could not remain valid has gone on for years. The demand to see her handed over is not new. The $5M reward on her head is also not new.

As a technology entrepreneur, I have spent time in Jordan building commercial relations that would have benefitted both sides. I had friends there and enjoyed my visits. I will not be going there again. Today, like many others, I look on aghast at Jordan's celebration of Tamimi as a figure of national admiration, as an inspiration to more and larger acts of terror, as a reason to deny justice and as a cause worth imperilling Jordan's relations with the United States. It all amounts to a colossal lost opportunity for Jordan, for the US and even for Israel.

The Congress enacted a sanction targeting Jordan this past December. Like most rational people, I think it will be a terrible shame if that sanction has to be applied. But I believe in the logic of carefully applying sanctions in specific situations. The Tamimi case underscores how Jordan has lost its way. It needs to rediscover the role that justice plays in every decent society.

We look forward to seeing much more coverage on the Aljazeera site of ongoing US efforts to bring Tamimi to justice in a Washington court. And we're ready to help them get their facts less wrong every time they ask.

13-Mar-20: It's been three years

Exactly a year ago, here on this blog, we posted a rueful summary of events that had taken place since the unsealing of US Federal charges against our child's killer on March 14, 2017, two years earlier.

You can view that post at "14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?"

While it describes important speeches by US justice officials, along with some meaningful decisions (that were years in coming), the bottom line is the justice process was - and certainly still is - stuck.

In an affront to elementary notions of how justice should work, Ahlam Tamimi remains today, as she has since October 18, 2011, free in Jordan.

There, with the open and active support of the government and its legal system, she lives a dream life. She's unrestricted in her movements and able with ease to publish her terror-advocacy views widely. She and her many supporters are undisguisedly, even triumphantly, openly contemptuous of the efforts made by the United States and her victims to see her brought to American justice. She faces terrorism charges in Washington.

The grotesque savagery of which she openly boasts and to which she confesses has had not the smallest negative impact on her celebrity. Without doubt, the fame, celebrity and - yes - adulation Tamimi enjoys today in Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world today is because of the innocents she brutally killed - and not in spite of those killings.

That so many of her victims are children, our daughter among them, appears to have enhanced her fame and standing.

Three years have now passed. Here are some of the events of this past year as reflected in our blog postings:

• "21-Mar-19: The Secretary of State is in Jerusalem": We made efforts to draw Secretary Pompeo into a discussion about the lack of material progress in bringing Tamimi into a US Federal court to face charges. We were rebuffed.
• "21-Mar-19: The Sbarro Massacre mastermind worries she isn't getting enough sympathy": A US official, Jason D. Greenblatt, who has never responded to any of our attempts to communicate with him, saw fit (we don't wonder any more about public officials and their values) to personally address Tamimi via Twitter. This provoked her to respond via a lengthy op ed in the Arabic media. We fisked her piece which we called a mixture of "outright lies, self-aggrandizing exaggerations and a small handful of intriguing revelations". Here's how we ended it: "The real take-away here is her toxic influence. This dedicated murderer, now living free as a bird, not in hiding, not on the run, in the capital of an Arab kingdom reckoned to be a US ally, has standing, celebrity and access to the media. What Tamimi says in her explosive region of the world has the potent and quickly-out-of-control flammable impact of a lit match in a field of tinder-dry brush. And even though much of what she has to say is plainly distorted, dishonest and provocative, we have not yet seen even a single instance where her appearance in the Arabic-language media includes criticism or even any serious analysis of the woman, her narrative or her views. We wish this would disturb other people as much as it disturbs us."
• "25-Mar-19: On justice and decency for American victims of terrorism: When US indignation leads to a troubling comparison" This is about extradition. We delved into a little-reported but enraging story that involves a Turkish terrorist who had just been freed from his German prison cell and then, despite US efforts to take him into custody in Germany and then extradite him to Washington, was promptly flown to Turkey where he of course disappeared. The part that interested us more than  the preamble was the fury expressed by the State Department of the US at what Germany did. The parallels with what Jordan is doing are strong. The Anti Defamation League in New York took up the matter and wrote what we think is an inspirational letter to the State Department.
• "02-Apr-19: Setting facts, ethics, context aside, Aljazeera salutes a couple of murderers" We wish people paid more attention to what Aljazeera is and does. Its chairman Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani served as a minister in Qatar's government in the eighties and nineties and he is a member of Qater's ruling family, the House of Thani. Aljazeera has some 80 bureaux and more than 100,000 employees distributed around the world. And when they decided to go market a mass murderer like Tamimi, there is major impact.
• "30-May-19: Paris, Amman, Washington: Extradition and what it can reveal about governments and terror" The legal basis on which Jordan claims it is free to ignore the US request to extradite Tamimi is highly problematic. We don't believe those claims get much respect among lawyers or experts in extradition. France's experience with Jordan's legal system underscores this and makes for disturbing reading.
• "11-Jul-19: Keeping Ahlam Tamimi safe: A Jordanian case for double jeopardy?" If you're looking for arguments that bolster the Jordanian case, they're not here. It's puzzling to us that Jordan's claims are taken apart by the news industry so rarely (meaning never). A Jordanian journalist called Kuttab exemplifies how ineffectually the thwarted extradition effort is handled by the media.
• "21-Jul-19: Jordan, peace and how little has actually changed" Jordan gets lots of good press and, on the whole, is greatly admired by many of the good and open-minded Jews we know. But our involvement with the Tamimi extradition makes us feel they're ignoring a great deal of the evidence. In this lengthy post, we include this: "When they want to, Jordan's official representatives can be quite talkative. A shame that on the subject of extraditing Ahlam Tamimi, they have not uttered a single official word as a government, leaving it to the media and their highest court to say the relatively little that has been offered to explain their indefensible policy. As for their official spokesperson in the United States, Ambassador Dina Kawar of Jordan's Washington embassy blocks us on Twitter. That of course doesn't change very much and certainly doesn't mean we will stop our efforts to be heard. But along with plenty of other evidence of Jordan being today very far from its moderate image, it contributes to the sense that they haven't really come a great distance since the days of [Jordanians] blowing up ancient synagogues on a massive scale and maliciously denying Jewish history."
• "02-Aug-19: Arnold Roth speaks about what the media don't report - about what has and what has not been done to bring Ahlam Tamimi to justice (YouTube)": "Ahead of the August 9th commemoration of 18 years since the horrific Sbarro Pizzeria terrorist massacre in Jerusalem in which 15 people were murdered, eight of whom were children, this is an interview with the father of one of those children, Malki Roth, age 15." (We're grateful for the fine work done by The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), a Washington DC-based think tank and policy center headed by Sarah N. Stern who conducts this interview. 
• "11-Aug-19: What money can do: The Sbarro terrorists and the children of Ramot": Not much politics in this, but some serious thoughts on how money and the way it's used tells us a lot about where people stand on terrorism.
• "12-Aug-19: The pain of a child's murder: A burden of grief and injustice": Frimet Roth writes on the anniversary of the Sbarro massacre about how the pain of a child's murder is so inconceivable in our society that it is down-played. Swept under the carpet.
• "25-Aug-19: A rising sense of something awful started settling in": An excerpt from an interview of Arnold Roth conducted by Varda Meyers Epstein and published by the ElderofZiyon blog.
• "05-Sep-19: On thwarted justice and bearded women": A serious but rare article about our extradition efforts appeared in Israel's Haaretz newspaper, the paper edition. With a bizarre twist.
• "18-Sep-19: With Jordan's King Abdullah II visiting the United States again, things worth knowing": The first thing is to know just how often, and with how much respect, the absolute ruler of Jordan is received by his Washington hosts. 
• "29-Sep-19: As we prepare for the High Holy Day season": King Abdullah had breakast with a serious group of Jewish American leaders in New York. We have lots of questions. Most Americans don't because although this event, which has happened several times, got wide coverage in the Arabic media, it got almost none in the US. There are reasons for every aspect of what happened. But discovering what they are is a challenge.
• "03-Oct-19: What lies behind a decade of "progress" at an influential Jordanian graduate school": Knowing what has gone on at the Jordan Media Institute has been instructive to us but then we're troubled by so many aspects of how Tamimi stays free and Jordan remains in large measure uncriticized and unchallenged. Reporters and editors in the West seem both oblivious and uninterested. Read this if only to know where CNN's Richard Quest fits in.
• "08-Oct-19: Again: Jordan's inscrutable US relationship": Why do delegations of US politicians turn up every so often to make official visits to Jordan's king in his deluxe palace? This time it's principally about US Representative Jason Crow whose staff ignored us totally.
• "19-Oct-19: House Speaker Pelosi led an official visit today to the chief protector of our child's killer": Again: Why do delegations of US politicians turn up every so often to make official visits to Jordan's king in his deluxe palace? This time it's principally about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; whose staff ignored us totally. Along with Ranking Member Mac Thornberry, House Armed Services Committee; Chairman Eliot Engel, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Chairman Bennie Thompson, Homeland Security Committee; Chairman Adam Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Congressman Ron Kind, House Ways and Means Committee; Congresswoman Susan Davis, House Armed Services Committee; Congressman Stephen Lynch, Chairman, House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on National Security; Congresswoman Elaine Luria, House Armed Services Committee. They all ignored all our questions.
• "03-Nov-19: In Washington, a step towards bringing the Sbarro bomber to justice": This is important. It starts with this opening: "We report here on an unexpected, modestly encouraging development in our efforts to bring to justice the fugitive Hamas savage who bombed a Jerusalem pizzeria because of the children inside it. Jewish children, as it happens. Exactly whom the bomber was targeting."
• "12-Nov-19: On Jordan, the US and the children killed in a pizzeria": Worth reading if you want a taste of the diabolical evil being shielded via the thwarted Tamimi extradition. But here for the first time, we write about the US explicitly rejecting Jordan's view of the extradition treaty. It's a major step forward.
• "13-Nov-19: Thank you, Mr Foreign Minister": An important article, if we say it ourselves. Almost totally ignored by the world's media (but not by the Arab world), Jordan now says openly and proudly (after dodging the issue for years) that it has no intention of respecting what the US calls a valid treaty. It will take the side of the Sbarro bomber, and it doesn't care who knows. Or objects.
• "16-Dec-19: Like talking to the wall": Once more: Why do delegations of US politicians turn up every so often to make official visits to Jordan's king in his deluxe palace? This time it's principally about Chairman of the House Armed Forces Committtee, Representative Adam Smith. And yes, his staff - after appearing to be ready to dialogue - ignored us too.
• "17-Nov-19: Jordan's king to be honored for profound commitment to peace and moderation" We remained as flabbergasted today as when this happened.
• "15-Dec-19: The Sbarro bomber trashes the ruler who protects her from the FBI" No part of the Western media reported this public insulting of Jordan's king by the Sbarro bomber. Why is that? 
• "31-Jan-20: Fox News break ranks with the mainstream media on Tamimi and Jordan" Starts with this: "For us, it's something of a milestone. On Wednesday, over on the heavily-trafficked Fox News website , there's an informative long-form piece that in large measure deals with our efforts to see Ahlam Tamimi, the Jordanian Islamist who masterminded the massacre at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria in 2001, finally brought before US justice. Written by Hollie McKay, the article is..." Please read.

Tamimi's freedom, celebrity and high public profile in the Arab world serve as a public and extraordinarily brazen encouragement to more acts of terrorism. The indefensible role of Jordan's leadership in clear violation of the country's treaty obligations to the United States magnifies the impact.

Our efforts to see Tamimi brought to US justice go on.

To stay in touch, we have a private (no one will ever see it except us) mailing list we use irregularly to keep supporters informed. To be on it, send your name, city and email address to thisongoingwar@gmail.com (click). And follow us on Twitter @ThisOngoingWar

Thank you.

11-Dec-18: Near Hevron, another thwarted Arab-on-Israeli vehicle ramming

Idhna [Wikipedia]

The hunt for the drive-by shooters in the attack we reported on Sunday ["09-Dec-18: A shooter in a passing vehicle seriously injures several Israelis tonight near Ofra, north of Jerusalem"] goes on. Meanwhile there are fresh reports today of similar Arab-on-Israel violence.

In the less dramatic of two Tuesday reports, a Palestinian Arab driver in a village called al-Jiftlik, 33 km north of Jericho in Israel's northern Jordan Valley, drive directly at officers of the Border Guards who were securing the work of Civil Administration personnel engaged in demolishing illegally-constructed buildings. The village is part of Area C, meaning it is subject to full Israeli military and civil administration. The driver, a 30-year-old male from the village

allegedly accelerated his car toward a group of Border Police officers. The troops fired warning shots into the air, and the suspect stopped and was arrested, police said... He was handed over to the Shin Bet security service for further questioning [source]

In a separate incident, Times of Israel says a Palestinian Arab driver was shot dead by Border Police mid-morning today (Tuesday) in Idhna, an Arab town of about 20,000 people, located 13 km west of Hevron with an out-of-the-ordinary background.

The circumstances point to a failed vehicle-ramming attack:

The Border Police officers... were standing guard as members of the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, which oversees day-to-day activities in the West Bank, were taking part in an effort to crack down on the illegal burning of garbage. According to police, the Palestinian suspect drove through a checkpoint the border guards had set up, hit a security vehicle with his car and then “accelerated toward a Border Police officer.” The border guards opened fire at the vehicle, fatally wounding the suspect... No Israeli troops were injured.

The driver was later identified by the Palestinian Arab Red Crescent authorities as Omar Hassan al-Awawdeh, 27.

An Iranian news source frames today's events in ways that will be familiar to consumers of Israel-bashing reports:

The Israeli military regularly opens fatal fire on Palestinians, accusing them of seeking to attack its personnel. Human rights groups have repeatedly slammed the Tel Aviv (sic) regime for its shoot-to-kill policy as a large number of the Palestinians killed at the scene of attacks did not pose any serious threat to Israelis.

A December 2017 Aljazeera report from Idhna where today's
thwarted attack took place [Source]

In the wake of the thwarted vehicle-ramming, we have yet to see any Arab media attention on what Times of Israel noted - that what brought the Israeli police into the town today was "an effort to crack down on the illegal burning of garbage".

Sounds prosaic. But it turns out to be a classic instance of the Israeli authorities trying to prevent the Palestinian Arabs from doing even more harm to themselves and their own backyards.

Idhna was once a thriving agricultural town. Today, it's notorious for being one of the most polluted places in the region. The environmental damage the residents have done to their land is massive and lethal, much of it resulting from the illegal burning - in order to extract resalable components, especially metals - of televisions, fridges, computers, air-conditioners and other appliances. The result is massively large and damaging levels of heavy metals, especially cadmium and lead, damaging crops and aquifers and making life hazardous

Almost exactly a year ago, Aljazeera gave it some attention in a video report: "Palestine's Idhna struggles with e-waste". Though the word 'dumping' is used, it's evidently the town's people who go out looking for the dangerous and the toxic because that's where the money is.

A quick survey of Arabic-language news media shows that the shot driver is invariably called a "martyr", with zero mentions of why the Israeli police where there, of the thwarted ramming [Al-Madinah; Al-Fajr; Ad-Dustour (Jordan); Safa; Panorama] or of the crushing pollution.

10-Feb-18: Two more Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attacks thwarted; both perpetrators are just 15

Totally unrelated to today's report, this product of the UN-operated
UNRWA school system has learned valuable skills involving household
tools which many of his age-mates have applied - under the influence
of inspiration from multiple levels of their society - to their daily lives 

Just yesterday, we posted ["09-Feb-18: At the Tomb of Patriarchs, yet another thwarted Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack"] about what we called the sixth thwarted attack in and around the ancient and sacred Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron during the past two months.

Today there's yet another. Times of Israel reported around 4:00 pm this afternoon:

For the second day in a row, Border Police arrested a Palestinian suspect in the West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday, after finding a knife hidden under his clothes at the entrance to the Tomb of the Patriarchs holy site. After the 15-year-old boy set off the metal detector at a checkpoint outside the holy site, officers cocked their weapons at him and asked him to slowly raise his shirt. Upon recognizing the knife underneath, security forces detained the teen and took him in for additional questioning... ["Palestinian stopped outside Hebron holy site with knife", Jacob Magid in Times of Israel, February 10, 2018]

Times of Israel reports that in a separate thwarted attack yesterday (Friday), Israeli security forces arrested another armed Palestinian teenager at the entrance to the West Bank community of Hashmona'im, located just off Route 443 and a short stroll away from the city of Modi'in.

The 15 year-old from Bil'in had this knife on his body when arrested
at the entrance to Hashmona'im on Friday

Service personnel from the Border Guard (Mishmar Hagvul) police were alerted and ordered the suspect to stop. He ignored their command and was soon overpowered, arrested, searched and taken into custody. The would-be attacker, a resident of nearby Bil'in, was found to be armed with a knife. No one was injured though it's apparent to any intelligent observer that this, like today's attack, could easily have ended very differently.

With its easy access - located near major highways and half-way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Bi'in is host to an ongoing media-focused cottage industry of holding weekly "protests" to which members of the reporting industry have made their way on Friiday's throughout the past thirteen years [see Al Jazeera for background]

The underlying story, which is egregiously ignored by the mainstream media, is the way fifteen year-old Palestinian Arab children are front-line troops on behalf of the Palestinian Arab cause, having undergone a relentless and ongoing process of weaponization in their schools, social media and mosques.

31-Jan-18: There's now a $5 million reward for bringing the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to justice

The English version of yesterday's announcement. It also appears in
Arabic here.

Established in 1984, Rewards for Justice, a program of the US State Department has the goal of bringing

international terrorists to justice and prevent acts of international terrorism against U.S. persons or property... Since the inception of the Rewards for Justice program in 1984, the United States Government has paid more than $145 million to over 90 people who provided actionable information that put terrorists behind bars or prevented acts of international terrorism worldwide. [The program's website]

Federal criminal charges were announced last March against Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria massacre. Our daughter Malki, 15, was one of the people, mostly children, killed in that Hamas-driven terror outrage. Tamimi described herself as Hamas' first woman agent.

If you follow our blog, it won't be news to you that Tamimi has been living a celebrity's life in Amman, Jordan since her extorted release from an Israeli prison cell in the 2011 Shalit Deal. She was the only one of the 1,027 terrorists freed in that catastrophic transaction who was sent into "exile" in Jordan. Since she was born in Jordan in 1980 and lived in Jordan, getting her education there until a couple of years before executing the Sbarro attack and went back to living in Jordan today with a cousin who is now her husband, it's not really exile and never was.

There is one practical result of the decision to send her to Jordan that's worth noting: as we wrote earlier this week:

No fewer than 420 of the 1,027 let loose in the Shalit Deal are again engaged in the satanic work of doing more terror. 210 of the 1,027 have already been re-arrested by the IDF. Some 100 are currently back in the Israeli prison system...  ["29-Jan-18: Freeing unrepentant terrorists and the horrors it has brought"]

Tamimi is as active as ever representing Hamas and inciting to more terror. On any view, she is an active terrorist again and therefore is in breach of the terms of the condition that attached to her commutation of sentence and everyone else's in the Shalit Deal: go back to terror and your sentence is reinstated. But unlike almost all the other Shalit Deal beneficiaries she lives in Jordan where the Hashemite Kingdom identifies with her and shields her. Bottom line: Israel cannot touch her.

We have campaigned to have the US step up its efforts, first announced in Washington on March 14, 2017, to have Jordan hand her over to the US authorities so that she can be brought before a judge in Washington to face trial.

It's beyond doubt that Jordan has had an extradition treaty with the United States since 1995 ["26-Jul-17: We listened carefully to Jordan's foreign minister and we have 10 questions"] and that Jordanian citizens have in fact been extradited to the US within its framework.

Jordan now formally denies that the signed treaty is valid and in effect ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"].

The full-size Arabic language reward poster
can be downloaded from here

The US does not agree with Jordan on this, and says the treaty is in effect, that it is perfectly valid and that Jordan should just hand her over.

Tamimi was named to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list that same day last March. There are currently 28 terrorists on the list. None of them was added to it later than 2013 except for Tamimi. (About this, we're not drawing any conclusions.) And none of those wanted terrorists is hiding in Jordan. For that matter, neither is Tamimi though it's where she lives and principally operates when she's not traveling around the Arab world on celebrity visits and pro-terror rallies.

Which brings us to yesterday's important and welcome announcement ["Information that brings to justice | Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi | Up to $5 Million Reward"] made in Washington:

The Rewards for Justice Program is offering up to $5 million for information leading to al-Tamimi’s arrest or conviction for her role in this [Jerusalem Sbarro] attack, as part of the 1993 Violence in Opposition to the Middle East Peace Negotiations reward offer... Hamas has been designated by the Department of State as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under the Immigration and Nationality Act and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity under E.O. 13224. [Source]

So how hard will it be to track down this confessed murderer?

Not as hard as you might imagine. Within Jordan, for reasons worth pondering, she's not thought of as a jihadist felon at all but more as a national hero of "resistance". To illustrate: she shared a prominent speaking platform just a few weeks ago in Amman with no less than a former Jordanian prime minister and several current and former national level politicians. [The details are in our post: "05-Jan-18: In Jordan, the FBI fugitive Ahlam Tamimi (among others) pays tribute to her slapping/taunting/kicking Tamimi cousin"].

Note that this occurred nine months after the United States called on Jordan to comply with its long-established treaty obligations going back to the Clinton Administration, and to hand her over to them for prosecution on some of the most serious charges that ever arise.

To some people, it will seem like a pungent message, even an insult, to the US from its heavily-dependent Jordanian client and partner in the battle against terrorists that Jordan said - and has stuck to saying - "no".

What might the Rewards for Justice development now do? Well, the Amman bureau chief of Associated Press had no difficulty arranging an interview in Tamimi's Amman home last March, filming a video clip (to our fury, we are in it too) that was then posted to YouTube. Many additional media organizations, among them Aljazeera, have managed to somehow find her and give her coverage and publicity in the past 9 months without struggling to locate her home. She might even be listed in the phone directory. Our understanding is she has not been in hiding at any stage since re-establishing herself in her Jordanian homeland in October 2011. And still is not.

We have questions about how the new reward works, including how it's going to be advertised. We have shared some of our concerns with the US authorities about aspects of the hard road to here and what's ahead. But we will save those matters for another time.

08-Oct-17: Why kill religious Jewish children? Because, says Hamas celebrity-jihadist, this is a religious struggle

▲ "And from here [in Ramallah, on August 9, 2001 in the middle of the day] we started the operation..." [that led a couple of hours later to the murder of 15 innocent people, most of them children, all of them Jewish]

We're posting this here and now because the Arabic-speaking world is currently in the grip of a spate of Arab media articles defending, supporting and celebrating the murders done by Ahlam Tamimi, the woman who masterminded the murder of our child. In fact, they're protesting the very notion that Tamimi is now wanted by the FBI. (Here's one of many examples from the past three days.)

The self-confessed murdering jihadist, interviewed by the ever-eager media (take a bow Associated Press and Al Jazeera) has lately been responding to their questions by saying she's innocent, she did nothing wrong, she's shocked that the American authorities, the Department of Justice, the FBI are going after her "for no obvious reasons".

(Those are all direct quotes. Don't just trust us. Check.)

There's an unusually large body of readily-accessible video material in which Ahlam Tamimi, the sociopathic Hamas terrorist, boasts of the murders she executed, reinforcing again and again that she has no regrets and why should she.

Here are some screen shots from just one: it's available via YouTube [here] for anyone wanting to see the whole clip.

▲ "Izzedine al-Masri [the human bomb whom she personally brought to the central Jerusalem site she had chosen to destroy] asked me just one question..."

▲ "I had been to the area before [meaning she had scouted central Jerusalem during the previous week for target-rich sites]..."

▲ [And so] "I knew there  was a Jewish religious school near there..." [making it an ideal target for a bombing]

▲ "That was his question and I said yes, there are religious Jews there, and also other people..."

▲ "[Why did he ask?] Because the base of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is a religious struggle..."

The video from which these images were extracted is "For the Sake of Allah", produced by the Center for Near East Policy Research headed by investigative journalist David Bedein. 

The words are those of Ahlam Tamimi who spoke them in Arabic. In the years that have gone by, no one has pointed to any problems in the Arabic-to-English translation. (Such alleged problems are a popular strategy for defenders of the Palestinian Arab terrorists.) They are, and ought to be taken as, an accurate reflection of what this self-confessed murderer says is her motivation.

For the past 16 years, Ahlam Tamimi has had ample opportunity to state her case publicly. Far from denying any of the mass-murder charges against her, she has basked in the glow of the adulation they have brought her. Those killings are what made her famous, have given her a great, well-funded life, have granted her the status of a pan-Arab celebrity, have made her one of Jordan's precious national treasures and the Tamimi clan's idol. And, for its youngsters, their role model.

To suggest that terrorism like the murderous kind she so proudly practices and encourages is all about "occupation" and "territories" and "national rights of the Palestinians" is to ignore what this deeply and violently hateful woman says to anyone who will listen. 

Don't ignore what she recently said to Al Jazeera [here on March 23, 2017]: 

"We only wanted freedom for our country, not to kill Israelis or others for the sake of killing," 

but realize it's contradicted by other well-documented public standpoints of hers like the one in the paragraphs above. Her pretensions to having noble motivations are cynical and purely for effect. 

Be aware of some of her better-known public statements, like this one broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV (operated by Hamas, whom she has faithfully served since 2001) on July 12, 2012

"While I was sitting on the bus, the driver turned on the radio. But first, let me tell you about the gradual rise in the number of casualties. While I was on the bus and everybody was congratulating one another, they said on the radio that there had been a martyrdom attack at the Sbarro restaurant, and that three people were killed. I admit that I was a bit disappointed, because I had hoped for a larger toll. Yet when they said 'three dead,' I said: 'Allah be praised.' ...Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn't. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding. They didn't even know that I was among them. On the way back [to Ramallah where she was due to read the news on the Istklal TV station that evening], we passed a Palestinian police checkpoint, and the policemen were laughing. One of them stuck his head in and said: 'Congratulations to us all.' Everybody was happy."

Only wanted "freedom"? 

Didn't want to kill Israelis? 

What actually drives this woman is not so hard to figure out.

In reality, Ahlam Tamimi is as guilty as sin.

19-Jul-17: The Al-Aqsa factor: Rats, snakes and chickens

Jerusalem: Al Aqsa, Old City walls and new Jerusalem [Image Source: AP]

The police helicopter flying over our home as we type this is a reminder of where the attention of the security services here in Jerusalem is focused tonight.

We're in the middle of another official Palestinian Arab temper tantrum. They call it something else, of course. And while foreign news media are paying scant attention, the reality on the ground here as well as throughout Israeli and Jewish news media is heavy enough to cause a rising sense of anxiety about where the Palestinian Arabs are going to take this.

Here's what we knew last night:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party called for a “day of rage” to take place in eastern Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday.
Additionally, Fatah’s military branch, Tanzim, determined that Friday prayers this week would be conducted in Palestinian public squares, and that sermons would be devoted to supporting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and protesting Israel’s bolstered security at the Temple Mount. The calls follow clashes that broke out in Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday when Muslim worshipers blocked a road in protest of new metal detectors placed by Israel at the entrance gates to the Temple Mount, three days after Arab terrorists killed two Israeli police officers near the flashpoint holy site. The protest was prompted by the Islamic Waqf, which together with other Muslim groups issued a statement calling on Muslims “to reject and boycott all the Israeli aggression measures, including changing the historical status quo including imposing the metal detectors.” ["Fatah Incites ‘Day of Rage’ in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories" | Algemeiner/JNS.org | July 18, 2017]

Image Source

From the same source, reports during the day today speak of serious disturbances and a rising drumbeat of officially-instigated Arab-on-Israeli violence:

Clashes erupted between Muslim rioters and Israeli police officers in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday for the fourth consecutive day. Around 200 protesters convened near the Old City’s Lions’ Gate and performed Islamic prayers to protest the bolstered security implemented at the Temple Mount following last Friday’s terror attack that killed two Israeli police officers near the holy site.
Several of the protesters began shouting chants in support of the Temple Mount complex’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, and were asked by police to leave the area. When one of the protesters refused to comply with the police order, several other protesters began rioting and throwing water bottles at the officers. The police responded by implementing crowd control measures and arresting the man who defied the police order.
Wednesday’s protests came after Muslim rioters clashed with police in the Old City Tuesday night, after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party called for a “day of rage” to take place in eastern Jerusalem and the disputed territories. Riots also broke out in Jerusalem’s Old City Sunday when Muslim worshipers blocked...["Riots Continue in Jerusalem Amid Heightened Temple Mount Tensions", Algemeiner/JNS.org | July 19, 2017]

It's not hard for an observant bystander to detect just how calculated the whipping up of the current violence actually is. The larger challenge is in seeing how this is part of a much longer narrative - an effort over generations to depict the Arabs, then later the Palestinian Arabs, and the Islamic world in general, as being under attack by Israel and the Jews.

We tweeted earlier today about the importance of looking at history and understanding the deep old roots of this week's violence. It may have been triggered by three similarly-named, murder-minded clansmen - all Mohammeds from the Jabarin clan - traveling up to Jerusalem on Friday to have themselves a shooting attack. But it started a lot earlier:

Attn news editors: Before your reporters fall prey to this notorious Pal Arab shell game, insist they read https://t.co/HZguqXN3F0 pic.twitter.com/f2lVXsxEPe

— This Ongoing War (@ThisOngoingWar) July 19, 2017

Making that point more concisely is one specific caricature - this one:

Evidently posted by Fatah during 2014 and still online here

The website hosting it is an official one: the "Fatah Information and Culture" website and snapshotted for an analytical piece [here] on November 16, 2014 by Israel's Foreign Ministry. Fatah is headed by the president-for-life of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. That's his portrait next to his predecessor's in the screen-shot's top-left corner.

Many will see the drawing as a revolting piece of bigotry but it's more than that: Their sacred Al Aqsa under attack by ravenous, insatiable rats. Jewish rats. It's the work of a noted Palestinian Arab cartoonist, Mousa Ajoa whose bio emphasizes that he holds a BA in history (yes!). His work and career are profiled here on the Arab Cartoon Award website. He's a celebrity.

But the malevolence runs deep. The fact it's still online three years later indicates this cartoon touches a responsive, angry and - above all - useful spot in the Palestinian Arab psyche. (If they do take it down for some reason, we took the precaution of perma-archiving it here for future reference.)

Cartoons have a unique way of being the fuel for fires that ignite passions, violence and wars: this archive illustrates the point.

We're indebted to Gregg Mashberg (@gregg_mashberg) for alerting us to the existence of this hideous piece of agit-prop. Gregg downloaded the screenshot himself from the Fatah site in November 2014 and noted that, in his words, "It covers all the bases":

• Published by Fatah, not Hamas
• With the “moderate” Abu Mazen’s face on it side-by-side with that of the ultimate Palestinian hero
• Depicts Jews as rats, as vermin, clearly marked with Stars of David for ease of identification as they swarm around, gnawing hungily away at the religious site's foundations
• And, by the way, what is it that people do with vermin?
• Particularly with vermin eating away at your key religious symbol?
• This is Fatah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas calling for an “exterminator” to stop the Jews from destroying the Muslim shrine.

Not fake news - just ask the editors [Source: Al Jazeera]

(There's Palestinian Media Watch commentary on it here.)

Given what’s happening now - along with the reality that a picture often is worth 1,000 loud and vicious words – the conscious, systematic resort to inflammatory messaging and imagery like this is not an encouraging sign.

That's especially true given the long history that Al Aqsa's so-called "defenders" have of warning it's about to be defiled or destroyed or worse.

On that point, we recommend reading Nadav Shragai's comprehensive review of a century of "Al Aqsa is in danger" lies, libels and incitement to murder. It's online and downloadable from the JCPA site. It will help many readers get a better understanding of the scurrilous process that lies behind Al Jazeera's signature articles blaming Israel and warning against Israeli plots. When confronted with malicious witch-hunts and lethal journalism, as we all are at this moment, being equipped with facts and factual analysis can be its own reward.

Interestingly, we see, and you might have noticed, the absence of foreign leaders and leading figures in the peace-making movement and analysts of complicated world situations who are turning to Palestinian Arab civic and religious leaders with appeals to tone down the fury and rage. In other words, for a more proportionate response.

You might imagine that at least some of those personages - who in the past decried what they termed Israel’s “indiscriminate,” “heavy-handed” and “intentional” measures - might have had something equally helpful to offer Abbas and his raging cronies.

Evidently not.

Perhaps they have learned not to mix in when the subject is, you know, about religion and sensitive stuff. Or perhaps there's a current shortage of courage and backbone?

04-Jul-17: Guess whose forgiveness Qatar is seeking for its latest steps on Islamist terror

Al-Arouri

Given

1. how widely Qatar's captive, fabulously-well-funded Aljazeera satellite news channels are watched, how massively influential they are on public opinion in places that get very little uncontrolled access to news and views and how extraordinarily well-resourced they are (with "more than 4,000 staff around the world" and 70 globally-dispersed bureaux - only the monstrously large and powerful BBC has more)
2. the utter hideousness of Hamas' terror-centric actions, ideology, history, views, plans and ethics; and
3. that Qatar is soon - unless stopped - going to be the host of the world's most watched sporting tournament, the 2022 FIFA World Cup

it's a shame the news report below is getting so little coverage.

But first a little background:

One week after hosting U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Qatar will be hosting a conference by Hamas. Is there a better symbol of Qatar’s two-faced foreign policy?
Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is officially designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the Europe Union, Canada and Israel. Its human-rights abuses have been condemned by by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. It earned its "terrorist" title the old-fashioned way, through decades of killings and kidnappings. Hamas has rained rockets into Israel, causing death and destruction, since 2001. Its shower of Fajr-5 and other rockets have struck Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv. Hamas deploys suicide-bombers who kill Americans visiting Israel, as well as our Israeli allies. Its 15-member governing body, which it calls without irony its politburo, has been based in Qatar since 2012.
Likewise, Qatar’s support for terrorist groups, like Hamas, is not in doubt. Hamas’ head lives in a hotel in Qatar’s capital, where he moves about freely. Qatar’s sheikhs have poured billions in the Brotherhood and its offshoots, including Hamas, over the years, according the U.S and EU reports. What's more, the Qataris don't deny their support for Hamas... ["Why Is Our Ally Qatar Hosting Terrorists Like Hamas?", Richard Miniter in Forbes Magazine, April 28, 2017]

Doha, Qatar [Image Source]

Now the news.

According to Times of Israel, which focuses sharply on Qatar and Hamas and thank goodness for that,

One of the most wanted Palestinian terrorists, believed by Israeli intelligence to have planned the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in the West Bank in the summer of 2014, has moved to Lebanon after being expelled last month from Qatar.
Lebanese terror group Hezbollah is hosting Saleh al-Arouri in its Dahieh stronghold in southern Beirut, Channel 2 news reported Monday. Citing unnamed Palestinian sources, the television station said that Arouri and two other senior Hamas figures have relocated to the Hezbollah-dominated neighborhood in the Lebanese capital, an area heavily protected with checkpoints on every access road...
On June 4, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt decided to cut ties with Qatar and force it out of an Arab coalition fighting in Yemen, claiming that it supported Iran and Islamist terrorism. Yemen joined the boycott a day later...
On June 5, Palestinian sources confirmed that Qatar — which is embroiled in a boycott by Saudi Arabia and four other Arab states — had asked several top Hamas officials to leave for Lebanon, Turkey and Malaysia...
In its report Monday, Channel 2 said that Arouri may have chosen Beirut because the list of countries willing to host him are now limited and he fears Israel may try to exact revenge for the murder of the teenagers...
The list of Hamas officials Qatar has asked to leave its territory — reportedly gleaned from interrogations of Palestinian security prisoners in Israel — included Arouri, who is said to be the group’s military commander in the West Bank and the founder of the West Bank branch of its military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
Israeli intelligence officials believe that Arouri helped plan the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens — Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel. That event was followed by a sharp crackdown on Hamas operatives in the West Bank by Israel, to which Hamas responded with heavy rocket fire. The rocket fire was answered, in turn, by Israel’s launching of a major operation against Gaza, which turned into all-out war between Hamas and the Jewish state during that summer...
Qatari officials have reportedly apologized for having to expel Hamas officials, but said it came as a result of “external pressures.”
["Top Hamas commander, booted from Qatar, said hiding with Hezbollah", Times of Israel, July 3, 2017]

Those last words highlighted in yellow-marker are enraging.

Qatar, a family-owned business operation camouflaged as a country, expects to be - and for the most part is - treated as a regular sovereign entity. Its royalty is received as your average noble rulers. But the bottom-line reality is that Qatar operates just like a thuggish Mob family and its Mafia culture does. Their principal allegiance is to fellow thugs. Do the appropriate people in the White House, the Department of Defense, the State Department comprehend this?

As for Arouri, we have had reason to bring him into our commentary numerous times in the past few years. For instance

• "11-Sep-14: Freeing terrorists: The price in human lives lost and in justice perverted keeps getting clearer" where the thug's central role in the brutal 2014 kidnapping and murder of three young Israeli seminary students turned this country inside out
• "18-Sep-15: Jerusalem Watch | Ongoing violence" which examines what we knew then about his central role in fomenting - from his safe haven in Turkey - the vicious Arab-on-Israeli violence that ebbs and flows in Israel's capital where we live
• "11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising" where we traced Arouri's trajectory as a founder of Hamas' so-called military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades: 18 years behind Israeli bars, then freed in the run-down to the catastrophic Shalit Deal in 2011; then Jordan, then Syria, then Turkey.
• "22-Dec-15: Has a Hamas terror insider just been thrown out of Turkey?" which starts with this: "If the name Saleh Mohammad Suleiman Al-‘Arouri is not familiar to you, it should be."

The man is a monster.

And Qatar's "aristocratic nobility" - a key American strategic ally - have just begged forgiveness for having moved him along to another safe haven? They must be praying hard that their beloved comrades in Hamas don't hold a grudge.