31-Aug-18: Lessons learned from the world's moral-arbiter-in-chief

Prince Zeid in his official "exit" speech [Video grab from this source]

Owing to specific circumstances in our personal lives, we have a larger-than-usual sensitivity to the double-talk of self-important public officials.

Still, we try to stay polite, considerate and respectful. Sometimes we keep silent even when struggling with the overwhelming urge to speak a little bluntly and try to take those figures down a notch.

We're suspending the silence today to speak out about the man who has just ended a term as "the world's moral-arbiter-in-chief" (according to this US report at the time of his appointment) and one of the most powerful operators in the United Nations civil service.

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein's previous roles have included being Jordan's ambassador to the UN for seven years, and then Jordan's ambassador to the US and Jordan's ambassador to Mexico. And by the way, he's a cousin of Jordan's present ruler, King Abdullah II.

(Parenthetically, it may surprise some to Jordanian Prince Zeid is also the next in line to the throne of Iraq which doesn't currently have a king and probably never will again. The Hashemite clan of which Zeid is a member was granted royal domain over what we know today as Syria, Jordan and Iraq by the British in the 1920's. It hasn't worked out all that well for them: the last ruling Hashemite king of Iraq, Faisal II, was executed there in 1958. A USAToday commentary pointed out "the prince's lifelong ties to the Jordanian regime headed by his cousin... Zeid has not commented on Jordan's abuses, and some have questioned his suitability for the human-rights post". Is all of this relevant? Well, yes - it might be. Judge for yourself.)

Looking back at his four-year term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Jordanian prince went on the record a few weeks ago saying he will give his UNHCR successor the same advice his own predecessor, Navi Pillay, gave him: “Be fair and don’t discriminate against any country”. And “just come out swinging”.

Here's the encounter we had with him. We're not sure he's quite the swinger he thinks he is.

But first a word about us.

We are the parents of Malki, a child murdered at 15 in an especially savage Hamas terror attack on a pizzeria filled with children. For close to seven years and counting, we have been campaigning to have the mastermind of the massacre arrested where she now lives as a free citizen - in Jordan - and extradited to the United States. Why the US? Because our daughter held American citizenship. And under American law (18 USC Sec. 2332(b)), the perpetrator of an act of terror in which a US citizen is killed can be brought to justice in a US federal court.

The mastermind's name is Ahlam Tamimi. She has been on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list since March 2017.

Jordan, whose citizenship Tamimi (a close blood relative in multiple ways to the current Palestinian Arab "icon" Ahed Tamimi) holds, though she calls herself a Palestinian, refuses to extradite her even though it signed an extradition agreement with the US in 1995.

The US says the treaty is in full force and effect and there's no real doubt that's true.

On April 4, 2017, we emailed a personal letter to Mr Zeid in New York via three senior staffers each of whom who acts as his spokesperson and each of whom was separately addressed.

Re: Extraditing Ahlam Tamimi 

We were pleased to see the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, speak forthrightly [link] four days ago about how states must (a) honor their treaty obligations, (b) act on legitimate arrest warrants and (c) respect the great importance of the global struggle for justice and against impunity.  

Prince Zeid was addressing the failure of his own homeland, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in relation to a notorious fugitive from justice, the president of Sudan, who ought to have been arrested when he came to Jordan. 

We are the parents of Malki Roth who was murdered in 2001 in the horrific Hamas attack on women and children in a pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem. Malki was 15. Fourteen other people were killed and 130 terribly injured. 

The mastermind of the attack is a Jordanian woman. She was eventually arrested and confessed to all the charges. She was convicted on 15 counts of murder and was sentenced to multiple life terms. Her sentence was drastically commuted eight years later in the 2011 deal Israel made with the Hamas terrorist organization to secure the release of an Israeli captive. She has lived free in Jordan since then, proudly taking "credit" for the murders and basking in the status of celebrity. 

Our daughter was a US citizen. Under US law relating to acts of terror, her killer must face justice in the US. The US formally requested some time ago that she be extradited by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. But Jordan has refused. The woman, Ahlam Tamimi, is subject to a US arrest warrant and appears on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. 

We are respectfully asking that the High Commissioner speak as clearly and forcefully to the King and government of his homeland, Jordan, about Tamimi as he did four days ago in that other matter. We ask him to tell Jordan that, in relation to Tamimi, it must (a) honor its treaty obligations, (b) act on legitimate arrest warrants and (c) respect the great importance of the global struggle for justice and against impunity.  

We appreciate you conveying this to the High Commissioner.  

Sincerely
Frimet and Arnold Roth
Jerusalem, Israel

We expected the silent treatment from the spokespersons (yes, the irony of their job-titles versus their actual performance is not lost on us). And that's what we got. Instead an OHCHR staffer responded to one of our follow-up notes with these kind sentiments:

Thank you for your message and sorry for the delay in acknowledgement - I can assure you that all messages received by this office are taken seriously, with only one problem being that there are too many of them from across the world, with many serious crisis and violations still ongoing, and too few people and resources to handle all of them. Your message is of course well received, including by the Executive Office of the High Commissioner (where I belong) and the MENA section of the Office. It will be given proper attention - I can assure in this - and you will receive a response upon due consideration. With full understanding and sincere sympathy for your loss. 

We wrote again briefly, several more times with little to show for it. When our wait had stretched to three months, we sent this:

UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland

July 17, 2017

Sir,

The chain of correspondence below, initiated by my wife and me on April 4, 2017 and addressed to your office ended in silence.

Not silence from us, since we are vociferous in attempting to fight the apathy of international bodies who by their passivity and passive resistance contribute to injustice.

Silence from your High Commission.

Today being International Criminal Justice Day and having just read some lofty and inspiring words [here] issued on the occasion by your office, I am making this additional attempt at trying to penetrate the barrier.

I am not optimistic that this time, more than three months after our first letter, you will respond. But I feel the need to try once again. As the parents of a child murdered by a Jordanian woman who is, and is treated as, a national Jordanian hero and given safe harbor by the Jordanian government despite its valid 1995 extradition treaty with the United States, we are outraged by the injustice and even more by the silence of those who ought to be speaking out and joining with us.

Sincerely,
Arnold Roth
Jerusalem

cc Joaquín Alexander Maza Martelli
President, United Nations Human Rights Council
InfoDesk@ohchr.org

Eventually, on August 30, 2017, we got this response to our request for a small dose of human rights and justice from the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. It came from Prince Zeid's Chief of Office - Executive Direction and Management, in Geneva.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Roth,

I wish to acknowledge receipt of your various communications below to the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Most of all we wish to express our most sincere condolences on the death of your beloved daughter Malki Roth in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 2001.

Please accept our apologies for the time it has taken to respond to your request that the High Commissioner take action regarding extraditing Ahlam Tamimi to the United States. The Office’s legal department has reviewed this matter in detail. While we understand and appreciate your request for assistance, please be advised that the United Nations High Commissioner’s Office nor the High Commissioner himself do not have the mandate or jurisdiction to address the complex legal issues involving extradition between States and the extra-territorial application of US criminal statutes involved in your request. As such, the Office is most regrettably not in a position to intervene in the matter as requested.

It is our sincere hope that your persistent advocacy and commitment to the cause of justice, accountability and human rights will lead to a successful fight against impunity globally, and specifically in memory of your beloved daughter.

But we hadn't asked him to intervene.

What we did request was that he "speak as clearly and forcefully to the King and government of his homeland, Jordan, about Tamimi" as he had done just a few days before our first letter. Of course we understood we were flogging a dead horse.

We then had time to reflect.

How, we asked ourselves, does a seasoned diplomat who declines to get involved in international treaty matters that happen to put his own cousin in an unpleasant light use his exalted platform? What kind of apparently non-complex legal issues is he ready to address?

Well, how about these human rights issues for instance? Each of them is a case from the past few weeks and months where Prince Zeid did find it possible to speak out:

• Reminding "all states" to "abide by their treaty obligations" or else face "weakening the global struggle against impunity, and for justice" [source] - almost exactly what he refused to do for  our cause.
• Warning Israel not to use "excessive force, following the many deaths and injuries sustained by Palestinians, including children, in Gaza";  over the past month. For the record, the prince and his office have consistently ignored the central and critical role of Hamas in whipping up the rioters and their violence, physically bringing them to the Israeli border, encouraging women, children and infants to serve as human shields, using live weapons including incendiary devices and guns and bombs. 
• Sharing his deep concern over proposed Israeli legislation that would "violate international law" and "have far-reaching consequences" that would "seriously damage the reputation of Israel around the world” [source]. Nothing too complex there, right?
• Calling [here] for an "independent investigation" into the death, allegedly at the hands of Israeli forces of a Gazan Islamist amputee, Ibrahim Abu Thuraya. On any fair-minded view, the role of the terrorists in Thuraya's demise - as outlined in this CAMERA report - raises questions that ought to have been reflected in the UN official's efforts to seek justice but were not.
• Sending out a warning letter on his office's letterhead advising some 130 global and 60 Israels companies that they are "in breach of international law" because of their activities in Israel and liable to be added to a blacklist. The companies include Caterpillar, TripAdvisor, Priceline, Airbnb, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Israel Aircraft Industries and Ahava among many others. It's been called "the latest incarnation of the decades-long Arab boycott and yet another singling out of Israel by the UN... The intent and impact is anti-Semitic,” according to an expert in UN matters and legal advisor for NGO Monitor [here].

This depressing logo decorated the rejection letter
we received months after we made our request

Israel, as others have noted, takes a prominent role in his organization's activities. And not in a good way.

We noticed that the OHCHR letter to us must have been sent in the midst of one of its many self-promotion campaigns; a cheerful-looking logo (on the right) adorned the page.

Seeing it there reinforced the painful reality that, for the global human rights industry, many human rights are clearly worth standing up for. But the human rights of a beautiful Jerusalem girl of 15 to be alive, to live free of the crushing assault of Islamist terrorists like Tamimi and the vicious, nail-enhanced bombs that serve as their sound track, are not among them.

Getting ignored or being fed insulting, offensive and nonsensical responses by public officials is an experience we have come to know from up-close and intimate encounters in the course of our efforts to get Ahlam Tamimi sent to face justice in an American court.

We're not ready to go into details yet (there are efforts underway right now beneath the surface) but we have been exposed to exceedingly shabby treatment by several top-level US diplomats and by multiple officials in the US State Department including the head of an important and highly-relevant unit. On the other hand, we are grateful for the good support we are currently getting from certain other administration officials and offices.

We wish people, including Prince Zeid himself, would ask themselves whether his deliberate silence about Jordan's refusal to extradite Tamimi to the US improve the chances that wall-to-wall support for lethal terrorism in Jordan will diminish? Or has it contributed to terrorism's steady growth in that hotbed of Islamist passions?

We were reluctant to go public with our thoughts on Prince Zeid's politicized non-response. But then he chose to launch a public relations offensive in the last moments of his time in office: 

• He said earlier this month, for instance, that "When we feel we need to speak, we will speak". For us, however, he did not. 
• His exit speech video on the UN WebTV site starts out with some dramatic music and sober-sounding words from Zeid: "If you don't sometimes speak out, if you don't threaten to speak out, you don't grab their attention. I would rather err on the speaking out part than staying silent... Our job is to defend the individual victims..." But we can observe that it's not all the victims.
• A Gulf State paper wrote yesterday that bitter criticism directed against the prince from some states was something he wished "to wear with pride, convinced that there is no honour to be found in silence". We agree: none at all.
• He declared [here] to wide media coverage that the silence of Myanmar's leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi over the oppression of Burma's Rohingya Muslim minority was "deeply regrettable". And so is his unwillingness to pick up the phone and remind his cousin in Jordan's royal capital that sending the mass murderer of Jewish children to face trial is not a political issue but a straightforward moral and legal imperative. And in the case of the cousin, it's a decision he can take with the snap of a finger. But doesn't and hasn't.

We regret Prince Zeid doesn't see matters that way. That's why we are writing this today.

13-Jun-17: We think we now have a deeper understanding of the human rights industry

The UN official previously known as His Highness Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein

When it comes to politicians, being the parents of a child murdered in the name of a political ideology can make a person, trust us, something of a cynic.

We're more sensitive now to how public figures like to get up on their soap-boxes and preach to others about what they ought to be doing. When they do, our strong inclination is to take a look behind the scenes and see whether the values of the speaker match the high rhetoric of the speechifying.

Take the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein as an example.

Once Jordan's ambassador to the UN and to the United States, he was appointed by acclamation to the HCR role by all 193 members of the UN General Assembly in June 2014, amidst flattering compliments and expressions of unbridled optimism. We have seen it described as a unanimous appointment but even if some people had their doubts, no one spoke out against.

He happens also to be a member of Jordan's royal family - a prince, in fact - as well as the pretender (an actual title) to the throne of Iraq. (Arab kingdoms tend to be both more complex and less complex than most people realize.)

Mr Ra'ad al-Hussein is busy this month as the notorious United Nations Human Rights Council over which he presides meets for its latest three-week-long gathering in Geneva. The HRC is made up of "47 States responsible for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe".

Sounds worthy, of course. But the reality tends towards the shabby. As one report noted in March 2017:

According to the U.N.'s top human rights body, Israel is the worst human rights violator in the world today. That’s the result of the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council which wrapped up in Geneva on Friday by adopting five times more resolutions condemning Israel than any other country on earth... The Bush administration refused to join the Council when it was created in 2006. On March 31, 2009, President Obama – fully aware of its entrenched anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias – made jumping on board one of his very first foreign policy moves. Moreover, in an unscrupulous attempt to control his successor, the former President obtained yet another three-year term for the United States on the Council that began on January 1, 2017... The Council plays a leading role in the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state by the United Nations. In its history, the Council has condemned Israel more often than any other of the 192 UN states. Comparative totals after this session’s pogrom tell the story:  Israel – 78 resolutions and decisions, Syria – 29, North Korea – 9, and Iran – 6.  As for Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China, there’s nothing at all.

Lately, some member states have noticed. The British, for instance:

The UK has put the United Nations Human Rights Council "on notice" over what it called its "disproportionate focus on Israel". On the final day of the council's 34th session the UK mission to the UN said it would vote against all resolutions about Israel's conduct in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories if things did not change... [Independent UK, March 25, 2017]

The Americans have too:

Washington has long argued that the Geneva forum unfairly focuses on Israel's alleged violations of human rights, including war crimes against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The United States "remains deeply troubled by the Council’s consistent unfair and unbalanced focus on one democratic country, Israel", Erin Barclay, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, told the U.N. Human Rights Council. Barclay said that no other nation had a whole agenda item devoted to it and that "this obsession with Israel" threatened the council's credibility... "In order for this Council to have any credibility, let alone success, it must move away from its unbalanced and unproductive positions," Barclay said. "As we consider our future engagements, my government will be considering the Council's actions with an eye toward reform to more fully achieve the Council's mission to protect and promote human rights." The United States is currently an elected member of the 47-state Geneva forum where its three-year term ends in 2019... ["U.S. seeks end to U.N. rights council's 'obsession' with Israel", Reuters, March 1, 2017]

That was in March. What's changed since then? Not that much. Here's a report from just 6 days ago:

…In a speech opening a three-week session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein observed the 50th anniversary of when he "first heard the sound of war" as a boy in Amman, Jordan. He said Palestinians were now marking "a half-century of deep suffering under an occupation imposed by military force" and marked by "systematic" violations of international law. Israelis also deserve freedom from violence, Zeid said, adding: "Maintain the occupation and for both peoples there will only be a prolongation of immense pain..." ["End of Israeli occupation would benefit both sides: UN right chief", Reuters, June 7, 2017]

And this from yesterday:

“The High Commissioner notes the repeated failure to comply with the calls for accountability made by the entire human rights system and urges Israel to conduct prompt, impartial and independent investigations of all alleged violations of international human rights law and all allegations of international crimes,” the report said. Zeid's report also noted “the State of Palestine's non-compliance with the calls for accountability and urges the State of Palestine to conduct prompt, impartial and independent investigations of all alleged violations of international human rights law and all allegations of international crimes.” The report looked set to ignite further debate at the U.N. Human Rights Council, where the United States said last week it was reviewing its membership due to what it calls a “chronic anti-Israel bias.” ["Israel, Palestinians have failed to prosecute war crimes: U.N.", Reuters, June 12, 2017]

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein first got our attention in April 2017. It was one of those cases we described above - a public figure lecturing others, in this case the authorities in Jordan where Prince Zeid (his other name) is (as we mentioned a few paragraphs up) a member of the royal Hashemite family.

We emailed a cluster of his senior staff people - this is the unedited full text:

April 4, 2017

Re: Extraditing Ahlam Tamimi 

We were pleased to see the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, speak forthrightly [link] four days ago about how states must (a) honor their treaty obligations, (b) act on legitimate arrest warrants and (c) respect the great importance of the global struggle for justice and against impunity.

Prince Zeid was addressing the failure of his own homeland, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in relation to a notorious fugitive from justice, the president of Sudan, who ought to have been arrested when he came to Jordan. 

We are the parents of Malki Roth who was murdered in 2001 in the horrific Hamas attack on women and children in a pizzeria in the center of Jerusalem. Malki was 15. Fourteen other people were killed and 130 terribly injured. 

The mastermind of the attack is a Jordanian woman. She was eventually arrested and confessed to all the charges. She was convicted on 15 counts of murder and was sentenced to multiple life terms. Her sentence was drastically commuted eight years later in the 2011 deal Israel made with the Hamas terrorist organization to secure the release of an Israeli captive. She has lived free in Jordan since then, proudly taking "credit" for the murders and basking in the status of celebrity. 

Our daughter was a US citizen. Under US law relating to acts of terror, her killer must face justice in the US. The US formally requested some time ago that she be extradited by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. But Jordan has refused. The woman, Ahlam Tamimi, is subject to a US arrest warrant and appears on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. 

We are respectfully asking that the High Commissioner speak as clearly and forcefully to the King and government of his homeland, Jordan, about Tamimi as he did four days ago in that other matter. We ask him to tell Jordan that, in relation to Tamimi, it must (a) honor its treaty obligations, (b) act on legitimate arrest warrants and (c) respect the great importance of the global struggle for justice and against impunity.

We appreciate you conveying this to the High Commissioner.

Sincerely
Frimet and Arnold Roth
Jerusalem, Israel

What happened next? Nothing. So we wrote to the same people a second time on April 6, 2017:

In case this slipped by. An acknowledgement of receipt would be appreciated. 

Then again:

Third try - sorry to note that we have no acknowledgement from any of you. In our view, the issue we have raised is a serious one, and the sort that ought to be addressed by the High Commissioner's office. With great respect to your roles and responsibilities, unless we have something from you today, we will assume no response is going to come and proceed accordingly.  

A few days later, this nice reply arrived:

Dear Ms and Mr Roth,
Thank you for your message and sorry for the delay in acknowledgement - I can assure you that all messages received by this office are taken seriously, with only one problem being that there are too many of them from across the world, with many serious crisis and violations still ongoing, and too few people and resources to handle all of them.
Your message is of course well received, including by the Executive Office of the High Commissioner (where I belong) and the MENA section of the Office. It will be given proper attention - I can assure in this - and you will receive a response upon due consideration.
With full understanding and sincere sympathy for your loss.
Kind regards,
Anton Nikiforov
Human Rights Officer
EDM
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

We waited until April 12, 2017 - a month and a half later - and sent this:

Dear Mr Nokiforev,
Consistent with your OHCHR's slogan, we sincerely support the idea of "Stand up for someone’s rights today" [that's the business slogan that appears on the OHCHR's website]. We hope today will be the day the High Commissioner conveys to Jordan the message we outlined in our letter to the Office of the High Commissioner of April 4. As you know, it has still gotten no response.
Sincerely,
Frimet and Arnold Roth
Jerusalem, Israel
(Grieving parents of Malki Roth) 

The kind Human Rights Officer didn't have an actual answer but replied nonetheless, and promptly - in fact the same day:

Dear Ms and Mr Roth,
Thank you for your support to our campaign worldwide. Your message is acknowledged and my response to you still stands. There is really no need to send reminders, all messages are taken seriously but they require proper consideration among many, many tasks and urgencies with inadequate resources to handle them all at the same time.
Sincerely,
Anton Nikiforov 

We felt sorry for the OHCHR whose annual budget for 2017 is US $253 million and which is beset with "many, many tasks and urgencies with inadequate resources to handle them". So we sat patiently and then sent this on May 28, a month and a half later, with copies to the same senior OHCHR people whom we had originally approached on April 4 and who were all otherwise engaged:

Dear Mr Nokiforev,
Six weeks after your last memo assuring us that we are not overlooked or forgotten, we think we are now privileged to have a fuller understanding of what OHCHR means by the word "someone" in your slogan "Stand up for someone’s rights today".
We again express the sincere hope that eventually, the High Commissioner will convey to Jordan the message we outlined in our letter to him of April 4 even though it has gotten no response.
But perhaps you or your colleagues copied on this email will acknowledge that OHCHR's silence until now speaks eloquently for itself.
We see ourselves free to now air this issue in public places.
Sincerely,
Frimet and Arnold Roth
Jerusalem, Israel
(Grieving parents of Malki Roth) 

No response so far from any of them. Those "urgencies" and the "many, many tasks" - which happily did not get in the way of the prince chastising his Jordanian friends over the matter of the Sudanese butcher all the way back on March 31, 2017 - seem to still be keeping the OHCHR team pre-occupied.

The bright side is we think we have a better gasp now of how the human rights industry sorts out its priorities. Bringing the murderers of Israeli children to justice does not rank all that high up, it turns out. We're very surprised by that.

If we're wrong, we hope Prince Zeid (in case he's reading this) or one of his staff people will still get back to us. But to be really frank, we're not holding our breaths.

01-Aug-16: At the crossings and road junctions: Scenes from a war

Vehicles line up for security inspection at Huwwara
(not yesterday) [Image Source]

Israel's internal security arrangements tend to get very bad press despite the fact that - or is it because? - they frequently prevent acts of terror from taking place.

We happen to believe strongly in security arrangements. When we say "human rights", we actually mean to be thinking, first and foremost, about the human right to stay alive. It's a right that was denied our daughter Malki, murdered in a Hamas attack when she was fifteen, and a right the breach of which aroused, in simple terms, terribly little outrage by the human rights industry.

Yesterday (Sunday), a balmy summer day when much of the country was vacationing, provided several insights into how security works and who benefits. This is true not because yesterday was a special day but because it actually was not. And what's striking is that for all the arguing that security barriers are pointless, worthless, useless, ineffective because terrorists can easily avoid them, and a torture for those forced to endure them, the uncomfortable fact remains: those are exactly where malevolent people with weapons of death on their bodies or in their bags or cars keep turning up and keep getting caught.

• At the IDF security checkpoint at Huwwara, south of Shechem (Nablus), an Arab male driving a vehicle stopped shortly before reaching the soldiers manning the barrier, got out of his car and came running at them with his knife brandished. The soldiers acting on orders opened fire in the face of a hostile action with clearly-articulated intentions, and the attack ended. The assailant, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, quoted by Israel National News, is a 31 year old resident of Shechem. Ma'an News Agency gives his name as Rami Muhammad Zaim Awartani. The circumstances suggest he was intent on launching the sort of interaction for which knives are needed, and not - as is frequently claimed - en route to some other peaceful purpose when assailed by hostile IDF personnel. The attacker is now dead - assassinated, in the words of parts of the English-language Palestinian Arab media [click].
• Also on Sunday, a little later in the day, Israeli police stopped a Palestinian Arab taxi cab at the busy Tapuah intersection in the Samaria district. Such searches are common and routine, and often triggered by suspicions stemming from indicators for which the security people are trained to identify. In this case, their search turned up parts of M16-type weapons in the cab. The driver is now helping the authorities with their enquiries. He is unharmed.
• Then last night (Sunday) at the Trans-Samaria Crossing, a vehicle driven by an Israeli Arab with Israeli citizenship papers was stopped and in the course of a search was found to have four pipe bombs on board. The driver was heading back across the Green Line from the communities of Judea and Samaria. A police sapper was called to the scene to neutralize the bombs. While that was underway, the very heavily-traveled east-west Route 5 highway was temporarily shut down to traffic in both directions. The driver turns out to be a resident of the Bedouin city of Rahat in the Negev. He is now arrested and he too is helping the authorities in their enquiries.

The Trans-Samaria Crossing on Israel's east-west Route 5 [Image Source]

Closely related to that last intercept - just the evening before (Saturday night) at the same Trans-Samaria Crossing - a different Palestinian Arab driver was was arrested when a security check turned up a stock of weapons, including two large knives, two axes and a cache of 25 nine-millimeter bullets, inside his vehicle. Times of Israel said his car had Israeli license plates.

It's safe to assume that in the absence of the security arrangements in each of the locations we just described, very different outcomes would have eventuated.

That's a reality that has played a central role in the posts we wrote over the years. Take a look at "5-Jul-06: Preventive Measures... Work" from more than a decade ago. We noted there that

There are many aspects of the news coverage of this war that infuriate us. One of them is the dishonest and cowardly way some reporters and photographers distort how the Israeli authorities carry out preventive security. Among the favorite cliches of agenda-driven reporters and photographers... is the Israeli security check. Nothing captures quite so well their perception of an asymmetrical war. You can count on words like "forced to stand in the heat", "treated rudely by Israeli troops", "seething anger", "humiliation" and "demeaning" sprouting from each sentence. But never the unbearable truth that this is the strategy of last resort and it saves lives on both sides...

For those of us not infected by the Fiskean approach to this war, the role of active, preventive security is probably better appreciated. A classic of the genre is Robert Fisk's memorable article with the unmemorable title "How Pointless Checkpoints Humiliate the Lions of Palestine, Sending Them on the Road to Vengeance" [reviewed here - we are still hunting for an online version of the Fisk piece]. If you click the link to read it, please keep in mind it was written several weeks before the murder by Hamas terrorists of our fifteen year-old daughter. Ponder also on the fact that Malki's killer hid his explosives inside a guitar case on his back. Under current Israeli security procedures (but not at that time), he would have been stopped and our daughter would be twenty and alive. (The death toll that day was 15, plus 130 injured, plus a young mother left unconscious and still unconscious today.) 

The appalling Fisk, and perhaps also his editors at Britain's Independent newspaper, would find it hard to see what that has to do with him and his writing. But for us the connection is clear. 

Eliyahu Asheri Hy"d: Murdered a decade ago

Not everyone sees things as we do. That's because not everyone sees security as a significant factor in keeping their own lives and those of their loved ones safe and intact. But those of us who do are very serious about it and very appreciative of those who make it happen.

Incidentally, if you visit Tapuah Junction (mentioned above), you will find a brand-new rest facility there for travelers. It was inaugurated very recently by the Asheri family in honor of their son, Eliyahu Hy"d, to mark ten years since he was abducted and murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists. 

We wrote about them at the time of their terrible loss: see "29-Jun-06: The face of the enemy" and "4-Jul-06: Saving Hostages". 

Though we felt drawn to the tragedy of their son's death and took part in his funeral in Jerusalem all those years ago, we don't know the Asheris and have never met them. Still, we're confident they have not spent the past decade plotting revenge, stewing in their anger or incubating hatred. We are confident of that because of our close familiarity with that powerful urge in Jewish tradition to connect really bad events - personal and communal tragedies - to positive responses: acts of charity or of chesed - acts that bring a little more goodness into a world that needs as much as we can possibly provide.

The Asheris understand that. Mr Fisk and his editors, we assume, surely do not. And nor will the families of the violence-minded individuals in yesterday's three jihadist near-misses.

22-Mar-16: Speaking human rights truth to power at UNHRC

The Human Rights Council in Geneva
[Image Source: UN/Jean-Marc Ferré]

Kay Wilson had two minutes to speak to an assembly of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva yesterday (Monday). Here's the text, slightly modified from an article on the Israel National News website today, and a video below it.

I’m Kay Wilson, an Israeli Jewish tour guide and educator for StandWithUs. In December 2010, I was gagged, bound and held at knife-point for half an hour by two Palestinian terrorists, then butchered 13 times with a machete while watching my American Christian friend, Kristine Luken, hacked to death before my eyes because her executioners thought she was Jewish. The United Nations Human Rights Council immorally whitewashes terrorism as helplessness and frustration. As a survivor, I know that to be shackled in perpetual victimhood is not kind, helpful, moral or true. Personally, I’ve not also taken out my frustrations by holding Arabs hostage, tying them up and hacking them to death. Through the likes of their social media and educational institutions, the Palestinian Authority incites people to believe that Jews are unworthy of life. The incentive: American and European taxpayers’ money given to the Palestinian Authority, who rewards incarcerated murderers with monthly execution stipends.
Avoiding duty, and with pathological bias, you blame Israel, a Jewish democratic state of thriving coexistence, in which an Israeli Arab Muslim surgeon saved my life. Gagged with prejudice, bound with bigotry or held hostage by hate, and ineffective to do the goodness that will enhance people’s lives, may this council be set free, liberated to embrace both the integrity and impartiality needed to make our region a better place.

Here's the two minute video:

We have had reason to comment in the past on how Kay "passionately and articulately walks her audience through the before, the during and the after of being murdered - and surviving." See our post: "16-Jun-15: Kay Wilson's revenge". Also this: "30-Dec-13: Pretend walls, twisted messages: praising evil, condemning the innocents". 

The UNHCR defines its role as being

responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them [UNHCR website]

Around the globe might be an extravagant way of describing its actual focus. Since UNHCR's creation in 2006, it had managed to condemn one country, Israel, 62 times; that's more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined [source]. The council's monthly agenda includes one specific item - what it terms the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied territories” - every single month. That makes it the only region in the world getting that kind of attention. How well this safeguards "human rights around the globe" is a mystery.

Its membership is currently Albania, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Botswana, Burundi, China, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Maldives, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, South Africa, Switzerland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Togo, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Venezuela, Viet Nam.

Ponder the list as you note that, in the UNHCR's own words, the members

are elected by the majority of members of the General Assembly of the United Nations through direct and secret ballot. The General Assembly takes into account the candidate States’ contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard.

Note also that Saudi Arabia, a chronic abuser of human rights, a place where 47 people were judicially beheaded in a single day some weeks ago, a seat-holder at the UNHCR because of a secret vote-fixing deal with the United Kingdom, and (absurdly) the elected head of UNHRC's Consultative Group, sees itself as the UNHCR's next president and no one within the organization seems to see that as a bitter joke.

And a reminder to all of us that the very most basic of human rights is the right to stay alive.

29-Sep-15: In the Bay Area? Boston? Washington DC? Help us claim back the real meaning of human rights

Why is this candid snapshot of Bassem Tamimi (left) getting zero exposure by his well-funded roadshow publicity machine? And whose shoulders is he hugging? The answers are definitely worth knowing; see "07-Sep-15: Peace, human rights, the sheer joy of killing people"

The US roadshow arranged by Bassem Tamimi's 'activist' friends (including Amnesty International, a once-principled organization that for at least three years has been deeply invested in sanitizing the Tamimi clan's blood lust and race-based hatred of Jews) is half-way done.

It has just rolled into the San Francisco Bay area where it will be performing several times during the next few days: San Francisco, Berkeley, Stockton, Hayward, then on to Albuquerque, NM; Medford, MA; Boston; Cambridge, MA; Pittsfield, MA; South Florida; and winding up in Washington DC in the middle of October. [Full published schedule here: "BASSEM TAMIMI 2015 US SPEAKING TOUR"]

Since we have readers and friends in some of these places, here's a message we very much want to share with them. Please feel free to send this post wherever you think something good and life-affirming can be achieved.

First, despite our efforts to get the Bassem carnival's promoters to address our uncomplicated questions, they remain unanswered:

"Bassem Tamimi, tell us in simple words: are you as delighted by your cousin Ahlam Tamimi's massacre of Jewish children as she is? Have you criticized it ever, anywhere? Will you condemn it here and now?"

It's obviously far easier to ignore the grieving parents of a murdered child (which is what we, the writers of this blog, are) than to relate to our discomforting questions. And especially when that murder - a massacre, actually - was masterminded by Bassem Tamimi's cousin, the little village of Nabi Saleh's most celebrated daughter, a woman singularly proud to have killed so many Jewish children.

But how ethical or principled is that?

Secondly, we wonder again how perturbed a laundry list of American fighters for a very-narrowly defined version of human rights are when confronted with the undisguised hatred and open blood-lust of their star performer and his extended family. Their views and deeds are a matter of public record - at least, to those who pay attention.

Ignoring all of this is easily done as we, more than most people, have learned over the years to our sorrow. But once you know about it, and understand how the Tamimi tour is calculated to provide a 'human rights' fig-leaf for prejudice, hatred and the killing of innocent people, what kind of person does ignoring it make you?

Bassem Tamimi's celebrated teen daughter ("Shirley Temper") in the hands
of the PA Minister of Education earlier this month. See
"06-Sep-15: The making of a pigtailed provocateur"

Thirdly, as we saw in Ithaca, New York, two weeks ago, Bassem Tamimi's American handlers want this calculating man exposed to US elementary school-children, and in Ithaca they succeeded. This is appalling on multiple levels.

But there's one aspect (even more than the many others) that ought to have stopped them - and did not.

Bassem Tamimi manipulates little children, starting with his own. It's key to what he does. Watch him (it's all on video: see "02-Sep-15: Lights, action, camera, bite: Scenes from a cognitive war") coldly engineering a clash with heavily-armed Israeli soldiers, knowing that one tiny slip on the part of the soldiers - a momentary loss of temper or discipline, or some accidental slip - and his pre-teen son and teenage daughter would be in a very, very bad place. Having consciously put them there, Bassem Tamimi, busy directing the cameras and stage-managing the action, does nothing to intervene. Neither do the brawny village men with rocks and firebombs in their hands. They, including Bassem Tamimi, stay carefully away, just out of video-camera range. Mrs Bassem Tamimi candidly confesses here that this is all part of the plan. (We translated her Arabic responses, via Hebrew, into English. Totally ignored by mainstream media so far.)

And it happens every Friday: same time, same place, same kids. Is it possible they actually want serious harm to come to their children? That this is not just brinkmanship but a calculated effort to showcase and exploit injured (or worse) child victims? These are remarkably evil, Machiavellian people. 

All of this has been well-enough documented for the various roadshow sponsors, backers and fans to have seen enough and to have bowed out in embarrassment. (Yes, we certainly do mean you, Amnesty International, along with the numerous other groups we listed here.) Ideological activism makes some people stupid and irresponsible. 

And keep in mind this is what the Tamimis' do to their own children. You don't need to be the Jewish parents of a murdered child to understand how very little those rights groups care about the human rights of our families. They are complicit in serial acts of evil - some already done, some still ahead. 

This is not the first time we are writing about the Tamimi clan. If you will help us share this with people in the SF Bay Area, there's a small chance (given the ideological fervor that accompanies the Tamimi/Nabi Saleh phenomenon) that something modestly good might come from our collective efforts:

First, these insightful essays by the contemporary historian Petra Marquardt-Bigman:

• What you won’t read at the Guardian about the exploitation of the Tamimi children (September 25, 2015)
• The Tamimi masterclass on media manipulation (September 9, 2015)
• Bassem Tamimi and the Use of Children as Political Props (September 3, 2015)

Then these recent posts of ours:

• 28-Sep-15: Vegans and a passion for blood
• 13-Sep-15: A roadshow and its groupies
• 11-Sep-15: How devoted to non-violence are the villagers of Nabi Saleh really?
• 10-Sep-15: It takes a village: The passion for violence of the peace-loving Tamimis
• 07-Sep-15: Peace, human rights, the sheer joy of killing people
• 06-Sep-15: The making of a pigtailed provocateur
• 04-Sep-15: Mr. Human Rights Defender, a question if we may
• 02-Sep-15: Lights, action, camera, bite: Scenes from a cognitive war
• 01-Sep-15: A tale of two villages: one devoted to non-violence, another that actually exists
• 29-Aug-15: Revisiting a Palestinian Arab village and its monsters
• 17-Mar-13: A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns 

24-Sep-15: In the name of human rights, silencing those discomforting voices

Bassem Eid [Image Source]

It's the day after Judaism's Yom Kippur. In some ways, it's a shame the Jewish practice of focusing energy and thoughts on wrong-doings on one long (very long) day once a year - no eating, no drinking - and sincerely repenting for them has not been adopted outside the Jewish world in the way that we Jews do.

Even those not very observant of Judaism's detailed code of conduct do this both as individuals and as a community. Does this make "us" holier than other people? No, of course not, though observant Jews do have a fairly concrete sense of the sacred and what holy means. and strive to bring it into our lives. And are we doing better now that the Day of Atonement is behind us? Only time will tell, but the day does end on a distinctly optimistic note.

We're thinking about this after reading a little-noticed report about a proud, eloquent Palestinian Arab with a passion for human rights and the courage (as we have seen from up close ourselves) to speak out in defence of the values in which he believes even when his audiences are not too sympathetic.

He has just been visiting New Zealand. And according to a seriously disturbing report we have just seen from there, Bassem Eid was treated despicably.

Some readers might be surprised to know that the sharpest of the disgraceful responses to which he was treated came from some of the very people who posture and trumpet themselves as respectful defenders of free, open speech.

His bio says that Bassem Eid spent the first 33 years of his life, starting from birth, in the UNRWA-run Shuafat refugee camp on the edge of Jerusalem. His formative years probably resembled those of hundreds of thousands of other Palestinian Arabs. He went on to work for B'Tselem, an Israeli NGO that claims to "document human rights violations in the occupied territories, combat denial and help to create a human rights culture in Israel". B'Tselem is one of the perennial darlings of the hypercritical "activists" who obsess over Israel's shortcomings. Then he left them to create his own human rights body to advance the interests of his people.

The article [here] by a New Zealand friend of Israel, Miriam Bell, is upfront about the challenge of bringing a man like Eid to the South Pacific. He has a history of being outspokenly critical of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) "movement" "and all that it represents". This, she says at the outset, "may have played a part in the hostility that greeted his recent visit..." The evidence suggests she's right.

The Astor Foundation, named for a prominent New Zealander whom we met in the 1970's, and focusing on human rights issues, sponsored Eid's trip to New Zealand. It's a worthy new body that seeks to promote "human dignity for people of all faiths, cultures and ethnicities", and addresses "issues that threaten the peace and harmony of New Zealand" including "extremism and ethnic and religious hate".

As frequently happens when zealots grab the steering wheel of social movements, the local NZ advocates for the Palestinian Arabs got alarmed at the idea of an independent thinker - even one raised in a Pal Arab refugee camp - and reached for the mute button. What could have worried them?

Eid's perspective on Palestinian affairs is a bit different to most Palestinian activists. He is very critical of the Palestinian leadership - citing corruption as one of the leading causes of ongoing Palestinian suffering - and believes it is wrong to focus solely on the Israeli side of the conflict. These views are not embraced by pro-Palestinian groups. One in New Zealand accused Eid of "hysterical, anti-Palestinian ranting" and of being an "asset for racist, Zionist organisations dedicated to undermining Palestinian rights." [AIJAC, September 22, 2015]

Plainly seeing themselves as the guardians of the Palestinian Arab mission in that far-off island nation, they busied themselves with undercutting, demonizing and silencing the voice of a Palestinian Arab for whom human rights is considerably more than a political slogan. And while they successfully demand for themselves and their cause the right to be heard at every possible opportunity, they had no difficulty pulling insider strings and aggressively hostile rhetoric to silence Eid's unique voice.

Bell quotes Dr. Love Chile, an associate professor of sociology at Auckland University of Technology, a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria, and previously a consultant to the New Zealand government's Human Rights Commission. He spoke out against Eid getting an audience because he disagreed "with Eid's philosophical/political position and was not prepared to expose his students to that sort of individual."

We think a person could write a thesis about the condescension and hypocrisy of that viewpoint.

Perhaps the students are supremely grateful for Dr. Chile's fatherly concern. or perhaps AUT, which describes itself as a place where they "challenge routine thinking", a "university for the changing world", "committed to global engagement" with "a culturally diverse community", simply doesn't know how much of an opponent of the right of culturally-diverse people to be heard they have in Dr Love Chile.

Eid's lectures at the University of Auckland were going to be co-hosted by AUT's Mira Szászy Research Centre for Māori and Pacific Economic Development and the New Zealand Fabian Society (that exists to "be at the forefront of education and debate about progressive ideas and policy reforms" though, to be fair, it doesn't specify when):

Then, just two days before the first lecture, the Fabian Society pulled out, citing "the degree of tension in this issue and how the Palestinian view is represented." The Fabian Society's tradition is one of promoting free and open debate. Its vision is "the advancement of New Zealand Society through progressive education and debate." How its actions in this situation support these goals is a mystery. [AIJAC]

Eid's university campus lectures went ahead:

Essentially, his message was that there is absolute corruption within the Palestinian Authority and there is a need for genuine support of the Palestinians - as opposed to the sort of grand-standing and politicising that we currently see. [AIJAC]

But the speaker first had to endure a gaggle of New Zealand protestors who handed out hostile material inside the venue and accused Eid of being a "traitor" and (worse, we assume) a Zionist. Perhaps they also argued with the points he made. If so, we haven't seen those contentions reported. The impression we have is that they ignored his views, preventing them from being heard to the greatest extent possible by intimidation and demonization. Eid's human rights don't seem to be on anyone's agenda.

New Zealand's mainstream media were scarcely more open. An article about the Eid visit, by Sheree Trotter, a Māori New Zealander and advocate for Israel, gives the context:

It is perhaps not surprising that Eid’s visit was largely ignored by the New Zealand media. His message to the international community goes against the grain of the dominant narrative on the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Eid is quick to point out uncomfortable realities, such as the role of UN funded groups in perpetuating the misery of the Palestinians whilst gaining power and money on the backs of their suffering; the bias of a media which has lost its way and become politically motivated; the apartheid lie which can only be explained as yet another manifestation of antisemitism. Bassem Eid identifies proudly as Palestinian. From his perspective identity is not the primary concern for most Palestinians.  They know who they are. At the core of Eid’s message is his concern for the future well-being of his own: “We are people who want to survive. We are people who are looking for a better level of life. We are a people that want to ensure the future of our children. ["A Palestinian voice of realism", September 8, 2015, Times of Israel]

A bookseller's site

We're hardly the first to notice how touchy certain groups can get when they sense their sacred cows are under threat. The inimitable Nick Cohen [his "What's Left: How Liberals Lost Their Way", 2007, is a gem], a columnist and author from the left who not so long ago ran into the full bullying force of Fabian opinion-suppression in the UK, encountered an audience at King's College London some months ago that might have resembled the AUT's:

I’ve argued with racists and Putinists in my time and – to put it as mildly as I can – these little bastions of academia were up there with them in their contempt for basic freedoms. Contempt is perhaps not quite the right word. Most simply did not understand what freedom was, and could not grasp the need for universal human rights. They could not see themselves as others saw them, or understand that by giving up on basic principles, because they are difficult to live with, they had left themselves naked before their enemies... ["Britain's hypocritical universities are naked before their enemies", The Spectator, April 21, 2015"]

It's a growing problem, in case anyone's not noticing.

But all is not lost, as we reminded ourselves this morning. That's when we learned about a YouTube video, originating in Egypt, that has restored some of our faith in the ability of determined individuals, willing to risk what it takes in the pursuit of truth and freedom to speak out and say what they believe to be true.

It's ten and a half minutes long, almost entirely spoken in Arabic, and entitled Why do you hate Israel? But the clip maker, Sherif Gaber Abdelzim Bakr, just 22 years old, provides almost-English subtitles. And for his guts and clear thinking alone, he deserves a wide audience. As we write this, the clip has had 58,000 views since it went up three days ago.

Support probably means something to him since he's currently in hiding after being convicted seven months ago by an Egyptian court on multiple charges that include contempt of religion, spreading immoral values, and abnormal thoughts that provoke and disturb the public peace and the national security of Egypt. (The background is here.)

Bassem Eid is not in hiding, and not in danger of going to jail, at least not in Israel. But (and we have not heard this from him), it might be some time before he willingly exposes himself again to Western (or at least South Pacific) academics or audiences with some specific sub-set of human-rights on their minds, or self-proclaimed advocates of free speech. At a certain point, a person just gets sick of the empty slogans and pines for a world where values and opinions can count on getting a certain degree of respect and exposure.

Ah, you're asking about that optimistic note we mentioned that marks the end of Yom Kippur? Right. The very last words of the day-long prayers are Leshana Haba Biyerushalayim. Next year in Jerusalem. It's not paradise here, but when someone we don't agree with gets up and wants to speak, Israel's very robust democratic spirit pretty much ensures his or her voice will be heard. Anything less would be a sin.

15-Aug-14: Terror and children

Our Malki, June 2001

In accordance with the Hebrew calendar, tomorrow - the twentieth day of the month of Av - we remember our daughter Malki's life and its tragic and cruel end. On that date, thirteen years ago - August 9, 2001 - she was one of fifteen innocent people murdered in a Hamas human-bomb attack directed, after careful planning and research, at a pizza shop located at one of the capital of Israel's busiest intersections. Frimet Roth honours our daughter's memory with this op-ed published today by the Times of Israel.

When children are the target: Defeating the terrorists and remembering their victims

FRIMET ROTH | Times of Israel | August 15, 2014

In the wake of Operation Protective Edge, Israel is enduring an unprecedented deluge of condemnation. This is trying for the entire nation but is especially infuriating for families like mine.

The crux of the vitriol is the large number of Gazan casualties in this latest conflict who were children. The blame for this is planted squarely at the feet of the Israel Defense Forces for firing at an enemy that attacks from positions in close proximity to those children. 

Most Israelis are aware that our army was forced to do so in order to protect its own civilians. 

In contrast, scores of Jewish children were targeted and murdered in cold blood by that same enemy during the Second Intifada. Yet few remember them; their stories have been virtually erased from the Palestinian-Israeli narrative. But we have not forgotten and we never will because our precious fifteen year old, Malki, was one of them. 

In those pre-security-fence days between 2001 and 2003, when Israel was shockingly lax about enemy infiltration, Hamas was able to invade our borders practically unimpeded. It executed a series of bloody terror attacks against us without any missiles or tunnels. On a near-weekly basis, innocent Israeli men, women and children perished at their hands.

Neither the United Nations Human Rights Council nor its predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, ordered an inquiry into those violations of our human rights. If challenged about that apathy, the UN would probably have pointed out that Hamas was a mere rag-tag terror group and as such lay outside their purview. But since 2007, Hamas has been Gaza's democratically elected government operating under the same principles which guided it previously.

My daughter's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, is proof of that.

Prying apart baby carriages in the street amid the carnage outside Jerusalem's Sbarro pizza shop
shortly after the human-bomb attack by a Hamas jihad squad, August 9, 2001 [Image Source]

One of the most productive, lauded and evil operatives Hamas ever had, Tamimi was released along with 1,026 other terrorists in the Shalit Deal which Hamas wrung out ofIsrael in 2011.

Shortly afterwards, she was interviewed [link] by a Kuwaiti TV presenter, Mohammed Al-Awadi. She related to him her modus operandi in chilling detail quoted below: 

I entered a [terrorist] cell. A cell is constructed by having a leader, then there are different groups; each one is divided into itself... You do not know who the leader is... First, I scouted places to decide where to carry out Jihadi operations... I would wander into Jerusalem to find the best spots to carry out these missions... First, I would scout stores and major shopping malls… schools, restaurants… I would then present my findings to the leader of the cell... I would do a meticulous count on the numbers of people moving in these areas and study it mathematically. I would use my wrist watch and count how many were walking in an area within one hour. So I would make reports that if an operation is conducted in such and such area. Then I would estimate the numbers of casualties; in some cases my number would be 30 Israelis will die and other estimates it would be 50 Israelis that will die... So from this time to that time there would be 70 Israelis who entered this spot. So during lunch for example, from this time to that time, so many Zionists enter this area. The school for example, I would study the morning time when school children would enter.

It would be convenient to argue that Tamimi committed that massacre in a bygone era. One could be deluded into believing that Hamas has matured with time; that it has evolved into a sane pragmatic entity; that it has discarded the ethos embodied by Tamimi and her cohorts.

But Tamimi remains a key part of Hamas’ war against Israel. Throughout Operation Protective Edge, Tamimi played a major morale-boosting role for the Gazans. She hosted a series of hour-long "resistance" programs, broadcast throughout the Arabic speaking world via the influential and globally-accessible Al Quds satellite television channel. Over the past two years, Al Quds has carried Tamimi’s weekly program, "Naseem Al Ahrar" (“Breezes of the Free”) celebrating the Islamist terrorists imprisoned in Israel. Those Al Quds programs are regularly uploaded to YouTube, often in high-definition quality. Her message of incitement against Israel and Jews is plainly one that Hamas is eager to disseminate widely.

Tamimi appearing on Kuwaiti interview show, July 2012,
  boasts of her role in murdering Jewish children

Israel's critics in the West seem incapable of acknowledging the evil of the Hamas ethos and its goals. Of Tamimi, the Hamas Wonder Woman, they seem basically unaware. In fact, Tamimi, who notoriously smiled with pleasure when she learned that there were eight dead children among the victims of the Sbarro massacre, is not even on their radar.

My husband and I must live each day with the painful realization that Tamimi is spewing her venom unhindered, while our pure, sweet kind Malki is gone.

The following is Malki’s journal entry after the June 2001 terror attack on a Tel Aviv discotheque frequented by teenage Russian immigrants. She had spent that Saturday at a retreat (a Shabbaton) conducted by the youth movement to which she belonged. Her words convey the angst she and her friends suffered during those days of unabated terror attacks in Israel. 

"There was one question that I really didn't understand. I just couldn't manage to understand. How is it that if everything is predetermined and known beforehand in Heaven? How is it that we are able to "remove the evil decree" and change things? It took Meir [the counselor] three hours to explain this, ‘till 3 in the morning. In the end, I understood it so well that now I explain it to my friends... Everything is known beforehand [but] without the element of time, and it is known that when you pray, you cancel a terror attack… At the morning prayers, we were notified that there had been a terror attack at the Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv last night and that there were many killed. That was it. I fell apart. Rafi's [another counselor] group gathered in our room and everybody just cried. We were broken. When Rafi arrived he made kiddush and simply didn't know what to do. He truly didn't know what to tell us."

The threat to Israel's existence posed by Hamas will not be eradicated until the world recognizes the special role that the murder of children has always had, and continues to have, in the Hamas outlook on life.