16-Mar-21: I remember shedding tears that day: Four years later

The article below is cross-posted from Frimet Roth's The Good, The Bad, The Ugly blog and was authored by Frimet. 

It was published there on March 15, 2021 under the heading A call to President Biden. Please check out the video clip at the bottom; we produced this - with the help of talented friends - to mark the anniversary about which Frimet writes.

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Exactly four years ago, during the evening hours of March 14, 2017, Department of Justice and FBI officials invited my husband and me to a meeting in a Jerusalem hotel.

There they shared with us news that we believed would herald the arrest and trial of our child's murderer. Ahlam Tamimi had by then been enjoying freedom and security in Amman for five and a half years. In October 2011, she had been released in the lop-sided Shalit Deal with the terror organization Hamas.

The moment she landed in her native country Jordan, she began boasting of the terror bombing attack she had masterminded on Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria in August 2001. The eatery had been packed with families that hot summer afternoon. The number of victims reached 15, including 8 children, among them our Malki.

Tamimi repeatedly urged her admirers to follow in her footsteps from the platform of a weekly talk show she hosted on the global Arabic-language Al Quds TV station. She also addressed live audiences both in Jordan and in several neighboring Arab countries to which she travelled during those years with ease.

On that March 2017 evening - it happens to have been my birthday - those US officials told us charges against Tamimi, the existence of which we knew nothing about until that moment, had just been unsealed. And her extradition to the US for trial had been demanded of Jordan pursuant to the 1995 Extradition Treaty between the two countries.

I remember shedding tears that day as I sat at the table across from those officials. I had little doubt that this monster would soon be where she belongs - behind bars in a US Federal penitentiary, this time until her last day on earth.

But here we are in 2021 and we are no closer to justice now than we were then. 

King Abdullah's regime steadfastly refuses to honor the extradition treaty that Jordan signed and ratified with the US in 1995. 

Jordan receives generous financial aid from the US as well as praise and adulation from the White House and from numerous individual members of Congress.

My husband and I are incredibly disturbed by the apparent passivity on the part of the US in the face of Jordan's brazen contempt for the rule of law.

It often seems to us that Jordan is the tail wagging the dog in this much lauded "partnership".

We truly hope that you, President Biden, will impress on Jordan that the existential support lavished on the Hashemite Kingdom is contingent on this evil woman being brought to justice.

We produced the video below with friends to mark the fourth anniversary this past weekend. It's also accessible via YouTube.

11-Mar-21: Interpol and justice

Trying to bring the central figure in our daughter's murder to justice has been one of the hardest and most painful things my wife and I have ever had to do.

That person, a Jordanian woman called Ahlam Tamimi, should have been put on trial in Washington under US law a long time ago. The charges against her were unsealed by senior Department of Justice officials almost exactly four years ago to the day, on March 14, 2017. We had already planned to mark that somber anniversary with a renewed call to the US government for meaningful pressure to be brought to bear on its ally and treaty partner, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

It is inexplicable to us that Jordan, which signed a treaty with the US more than a quarter century ago for the mutual extradition of fugitives like Tamimi, remains in flagrant breach of that treaty even while it continues to be a recipient of colossal sums in US foreign aid each year.

Today we learned of a further reversal: the blunt and unwelcome announcement by Interpol on March 8, 2021 that it has succumbed to pressure from the fugitive's family, lawyers and clan in Jordan and has cancelled the Red Notice which operated until now to encourage member governments to arrest her if she enters their jurisdiction. 

We learned about this via the Arabic-language media and are trying to get clarification from the US justice system.

My wife and I will not give up in our efforts to see this loathsome person - the embodiment of murderous bigotry - eventually brought to justice to answer for her crimes.

Arnold Roth
Jerusalem
thisongoingwar@gmail.com 

23-Jan-18: The Iranians publicize some plans for Israel

Here's the entire text of an article that appears today on the website of Tehran Times

Everything ready for liberation of Palestine: general | January 23, 2018
TEHRAN – Everything is ready for the liberation of Palestine, an Iranian general said on Monday, calling the Palestinian people to unite to defeat Israel, Mehr reported. “As the Supreme Leader has said, efforts should be made to arm the West Bank, because efforts in this regard would lead to the collapse of Israel,” said Ahmad Vahidi, president of the Supreme National Defense University of Iran. He added should the Palestinian nation be armed, they can form a liberation army and decide their own fate by their strong will.

A month ago, an Iranian source quoted Vahidi saying in a speech at a public ceremony:

“Today, Iran is one of the most powerful countries in the military sector and its main reason is the (country’s) pursuit of valuable concepts of martyr and martyrdom.”

We wonder why, given who said it, that doesn't get more media attention.

Vahidi (real name: Ahmad Shah Cheraghi) was Iran's minister of defence between 2009 and 2013 and remains a senior figure in Iran's military establishment, currently serving as the head of the Supreme National Defense University of Iran.

He has been wanted by Interpol since 2007 (along with five other Iranians suspects named in this Interpol notice) for his alleged participation in the Iranian bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 18, 1994, in which 85 people died, according to his Wikipedia entry. Iran denies it was involved. (This recent report says Vahidi was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force at the time of the 1994 bombing.)

The unexplained reference to Mehr in the Tehran Times piece evidently means Mehr News Agency (MNA). About this, Wikipedia says

"Tehran Times and the MNA are run by a single management system with MNA staff triple that of Tehran Times. MNA is one of the outlets for the Ministry of Intelligence..."

03-Dec-17: Understanding Jordan's king and his "holistic" approach to terror

Yesterday in Jordan [Screen grab]

Regular readers know we pay more than the usual amount of attention to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It's where our daughter Malki's murderer lives free as a bird.

And even though

• she has boasted over and again for the cameras and the media of her central role in the 2001 bombing attack on the people inside Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria; and 
• she confessed in an Israeli court in 2003 to the calculated murder of 15 innocent victims, most of them children, and to having done this on behalf of the Islamist terror regime, Hamas, whose first-ever female terror agent she is reputed to be; and 
• the US government, the US Department of Justice and the FBI want her arrested and extradited to face Federal charges in a Washington court

Jordan's ruler King Abdullah II, aware of her celebrity status among his people, has stubbornly presided over a series of measures whose effect is to spit in the eye of the Americans, to deny the validity of the 1995 Jordan/US Extradition Treaty and to ensure one of his kingdom's - and the Arab world's - most admired females remains free to pursue her career of incitement to terrorism, Islamist values and the murder of Jewish children.

Nigeria's president and entourage hear from Jordan's
king on how Jordan has defeated terror [Image Source]

Jordan is currently hosting an event variously termed (depending on which media channels you consult) the Aqaba Retreat, the Aqaba Process or the Aqaba Meetings. (Aqaba is a resort town located at Jordan's southern-most tip, adjacent to the much smaller Israeli resort of Eilat.)

Jordan's semi-official English-language mouthpiece focused on who was there in an official-sounding report yesterday ["King meets with leaders, officials as Aqaba Meetings kick off: Gathering aimed as venue to bolster security, military cooperation in the fight against terrorism", Jordan Times, December 2, 2017]:

• "His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday met with the presidents of a number of African countries and representatives of nations participating in the two-day Aqaba Meetings to discuss the global efforts to fight terrorism and extremist ideologies, especially in West Africa..." 
• "The participants [include] senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Cyprus, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Australia, India, Indonesia, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Nigeria, Mauritania, Antigua and Barbuda, Mali, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Chad, and Burkina Faso, in addition to representatives of regional and international organisations..." 
• "His Majesty also held meetings with US Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis, Brazilian Minister of Defence Raul Jungmann, French Minister of State attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, UK Minister of State for the Armed Forces Mark Lancaster, and High Representative of the African Union Pierre Buyoya... On the sidelines of the Aqaba Meetings, King Abdullah met with President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, President of Guinea Alpha Condé, President of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou, and President of Mali Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, a Royal Court statement said."
• "The Aqaba Meetings were launched by the King to maintain international and regional coordination and cooperation in the fight against terrorism within a holistic approach, and to discuss security challenges in regions around the world that are dealing with terrorism hotspots, with the aim of identifying shortcomings and coordinating efforts to fight terrorism."
• "The meetings are part of His Majesty’s initiative to reach out to countries around the world and coordinate with them on this issue, since the anti-terrorism fight “must be a joint, international effort, based on close coordination and consultations, to counter the global threats of terrorism and extremism”, the statement said... 

A brief Associated Press report makes plain what we find so perplexing about this:

Jordan's state news agency says King Abdullah II is hosting a high-level conference on fighting terrorism and extremist ideologies, particularly in West Africa... The agency says the conference is the latest in a series launched by Jordan's monarch to reach out to other nations and help coordinate the fight against terrorism... Jordan's king is seen as a key Western partner in the battle against Islamic extremism. ["West Africa is focus of Jordan counter-terrorism conference", AP, December 1, 2017]

For us, the elephant in the room is Ahlam Tamimi. 

Source: Al Jazeera

Abdullah has treaty obligations to the US. His father signed a 1995 Extradition Treaty with the Clinton Administration in 1995 and in its wake several Jordanian terrorists and felons were shipped off to face the US justice system. Though his media, aided by compliant reporters and editors outside Jordan, put up a facade that makes it seem extraditing Tamimi to the US is somehow problematic, it's clear that it's Tamimi and the specific crimes to which she has confessed that are the problem. And the real story. 

Though no one in the mainstream media seems to have picked this up yet, there's a clear analysis of the legal mess into which Jordan has inserted itself while giving its native jihadist killer safe harbor. See "Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements" [Michelle Munneke JD of American University Washington College of Law, in National Security Law Brief, October 28, 2017]:

This analysis means the United States should not give up on attempting to extradite Al-Tamimi. If other countries place enough pressure on Jordan due to concerns of Al-Tamimi’s danger and susceptibility to planning another attack, Jordan may change its position. Al-Tamimi is above all else, a significant danger that Jordan should take seriously—if not for the world, for Jordan’s own citizens that live amongst Al-Tamimi.
Jordan should reconsider its position and permit extradition in the case of Al-Tamimi for the safety of Jordanians, and citizens of other nations that may be subject to another attack by Al-Tamimi. Thwarting extradition not only violates the principle of comity, but it also perpetuates the international danger presented by Al-Tamimi.

But for most people, this isn't about law but simply crime and punishment. Tamimi was sent by her Hamas masters in the summer of 2001 to kill Jews. Especially Jewish children. She succeeded by all of their perverted measures. And she's now free, extremely well-compensated, raising a family and a media celebrity.

She has never denied the facts. And she has been applauded - literally - time and again in her public appearances throughout Jordan as well as in her well-publicized VIP speaking visits/travels to such countries (listed alphabetically) as Algeria (December 2011), Kuwait (July 2012 and March 2014), Lebanon (April 2012 and January 2015), Qatar (April 2012, again December 2013), Tunisia (April 2012 and November 2015) and Yemen (April 2014). 

She hosted a popular weekly TV program called “نسيم الأحرار” [Transliteration: “Nassem al-Ahrar”] meaning “Breezes of the Free” between February 2012 until September 2016.  Devoted to Palestinian Arab prisoners and their families, it appears to have been designed to bolster their morale, act as a two-way conduit of information and to encourage more of the kind of the kind of acts that turned these terrorists into prisoners in the first place. Tamimi stopped being its presenter in September 2016 at about the time she was very briefly (for a single night) taken into custody by Jordanian authorities pursuant to an Interpol arrest order at the behest of the US Department of Justice.

Tamimi and her connections publicly thank Jordan's judiciary and
leaders for getting her off the hook with the FBI and the US
Department of Justice - though the pursuit continues [Source] 

Jordan is a family-run business that like so many other Arab polities presents itself as a nation-state and even as a constitutional democracy, which is a real stretch given the total domination exercised by the British-installed Hashemites that have run it since the 1920s. 

Thus it was no secret to Jordan's Royal Palace that Tamimi was recording a weekly tribute to terrorism-and-Islamism in an Amman studio (Amman, Jordan's capital, is where she lives). And that it was uploaded and broadcast around the world every week for years by the Hamas-owned Alquds satellite television network. Her appalling show was and still is rebroadcast by a multitude of Arabic and non-Arabic websites that stream all or some of the programming put out by Alquds. The king and his Hashemite Kingdom never had any problem with any of this. Their "principled opposition" to terror only stretches so far. 

In April 2017, an Australian TV journalist told us privately that Tamimi had been advised by the Jordanian authorities to lower her profile in the wake of a Jordanian Court of Cassation decision that Jordan's 1995 extradition treaty with the US was unconstitutional. In particular, he told us, the "Jordanian authorities have now banned her doing any media interviews". Our impression is she is taking the advice seriously for the time being. 

Before that, and for several years from her home base of Jordan, she appeared numerous times as the presenter on several Alquds TV specials - including a number of propaganda programs that went to air in the summer of 2014 as fighting raged between Hamas Gaza and the IDF. She may be the most influential and important female public figure in Hamas.

So what does the Royal Hashemite Palace and its central personage say to all this?

Nothing, at least not publicly. Nor can we expect them to respond for so long as he and they continue to be absurdly feted as central players in their "holistic" struggle to defeat the terrorists by the likes of the most senior politicians of the United States, the UK and Europe. 

Just so long as they're not Jordanian terrorists.

22-Oct-17: The mass-murdering savage, an FBI fugitive, sends her apologies

Happy "pioneers of Jerusalem" in Istanbul yesterday. The
jihadist savage Tamimi is missing from the photo - the explanation
is below in her own words [Image Source]

An Arabic-language report on a government-controlled Kuwaiti news site informs us that a conference under the headline "Fourth Pioneers of Jerusalem Forum" took place in Istanbul, Turkey, this weekend. (If there was Turkish media coverage, we haven't found it yet.)

This caught our eye because one of the speakers was our daughter's murderer, the on-the-run savage Ahlam Tamimi, now relatively well-known as the youngest fugitive Most Wanted Terrorist on the FBI's list . She currently lives in Jordan (the place she was born and raised) and is the subject of an unsatisfied extradition request by the United States government.

Tamimi interviewed in Kuwait's Al-Rai TV studio in July 2012,
gloating over dead Jewish children and how she killed them

As we have written before, the circumstances in which Jordan chooses not to comply with its 1995 treaty obligations make clear to us and to experts we have consulted that Tamimi is being afforded special protection by the monarch of Jordan, King Abdullah II.

[See the background at "23-Mar-17: Looking for justice in Jordan, Jerusalem and Washington"]

The Kuwaiti report, published by an arm of Kuwait's Ministry of Information, says this of the female jihadist (machine-translated from the original Arabic which explains the jerkiness):

Released prisoner Ahlam al-Tamimi said in a recorded speech that she was unable to attend the forum because she was listed on the wanted list of the International Police (Interpol), that Palestinian women played the main and most important role during the popular uprisings, viewing many of the old and modern jihadist roles of women. Al-Tamimi called on Arab women to break the silence and support Palestinian women by organizing weekly demonstrations and supporting their steadfastness in various ways. Women's organizations and human rights organizations also demanded that Palestinian women in general and women prisoners in particular be allowed to take their rights... The International Women's Coalition for Jerusalem and Palestine [evidently the organizer of the event] was founded in 2014 on the sidelines of a forum for pioneers in the Islamic world to support the steadfastness of Palestinian women and expose the Zionist violations that are being inflicted on Al-Aqsa Mosque in addition to activating projects and activities aimed at supporting Jerusalem and Palestine in all countries and resisting normalization with the occupation in all its forms.

The Arabic version of the FBI Tamimi
Wanted poster [Online original here]

Machine translations often have problems with expressions that possess special and distinct meanings in their original languages. When the Kuwaiti editors put words like "steadfast", "pioneers" and "take their rights" into the mouth of a self-confessed and boastful murderer of fifteen innocent people, most of them children, it's entirely possible that in Arabic she was saying things far more blood-curdling and hate-filled than the bland English that comes out at the end.

The Kuwaiti site does have an English-language edition. But for reasons only its editors and the commissars to whom they report know, the Tamimi quote and the report of those happy pioneers in Turkey are an Arabic-language exclusive. They go unreported in the English-language edition. (The editors and government officials evidently know what their markets want.)

We already knew that in Kuwait, they admire Tamimi and the murders she engineered: she was an honored and highly publicized visitor there, including being interviewed at length on one of their television stations, first in July 2012 (on Iqraa TV - transcript here and reported by us here) and then again in March 2014.

As for Tamimi's mention of Interpol, here's what we think she means:

Jordan's absolute ruler

So long as she stays within the borders of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, she's safe. That's provided King Abdullah II, the ruler of the kingdom who single-handedly appoints every last one of its judges and exercises total control over its lawmakers by dissolving the country's parliament roughly once every fifteen months (that's according to the US Congressional Research Service), keeps blocking US extradition efforts. As long as he does, and keeps ignoring the plain language of a 1995 extradition treaty his father signed with the Clinton administration 22 years ago, the boastful murderer will be safe.

But the minute she gets on a plane to travel - and she has done lots of travel since her freedom was extorted by Hamas in the Shalit Deal of 2011 - then she is at risk of being taken into custody.

That's the result of an arrest order announced in March 2017 ["14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought"] and made by a Federal judge four years earlier in Washington DC. In Istanbul, Turkey, she's a steadfast pioneer. In Amman, Jordan, she's a national hero and symbol of the resistance.

In Washington, and via the eyes of the US Justice Department and the FBI, she's one of its most wanted fugitives.

28-Sep-17: Now that the Palestinian Arabs are embraced by Interpol...

October 2016: Jibril Rajoub is hosted by the chief of the

Palestinian police [Image Source]

Interpol voted this week to admit the Palestinian Authority civil police as a full member in what Al Jazeera calls "a new victory in its drive for international representation despite strong Israeli opposition".

This raises some pretty deep concerns here in Israel where the assumedly-secure sharing of intelligence on terrorism is viewed as a life-and-death matter by ordinary folk.

The current head of the PA police is modestly referred to in formal documents and press releases as "His Excellency Major General Hazim Attallah". He was appointed to the role in March 2008, promoting a US official to submit this brief backgrounder up the reporting chain from where it eventually found its way into Wikileaks.

Some highlights [italics mean direct quotes]:

• Attallah previously served as "the military secretary and a security advisor in the Office of the President" of the PA. 
• He became "a security advisor to President Abbas in 2005 and military secretary to PM Salam Fayyad in September 2007."
• A "savvy internal operator who has managed to effectively navigate between PM Salam Fayyad and President Abbas and make himself necessary to both... [An] unusual choice for police chief--he spent most of his security time in the Preventive Security Organization (PSO) and his recent assignments have been advisory/political, not management."
• "The PA police headquarters is full of senior figures who will, at least initially, view Attallah as a political interloper." 
• "Born in 1959 in Bayt Surik (near Jerusalem)..." That's an interesting note: it's the small village from where the Palestinian Arab shooter who murdered three Israelis at Har Adar two days ago ["26-Sep-17: At Har Adar's entrance, an Arab-on-Israeli shooter with problems and a solution"] came. 
• "Attended Bulgaria's military academy from 1980 to 1984... the son of Husni Muhammad Attallah ("Abu Za'im"), a former head of Fatah military intelligence and senior PLO official until a high-profile break with Arafat in 1986..." 

August 2017: His Excellency visits Interpol [Image Source]

From other sources:

• A profile article last year surveying the PA's multiple and overlapping security arms ["The many layers of the Palestinian Security Forces", Ynet, April 26, 2016] calls him "intelligent, albeit arrogant, and as someone who views himself as superior to others". 
• Human Rights Watch, offering faint praise when Attallah was appointed to the Excellency position, wrote that the PA police organization "appears to be the least abusive force in the West Bank". In the circumstances, actually quite a compliment.
• The Facebook page of the loathsome and violent Jibril Rajoub displayed a photo (at the top of this post) on October 19, 2016 of him standing with Major General Attallah in the latter's Ramallah official office. Both senior officials are clutching holding a plaque featuring a PA map of Palestine. Palestinian Media Watch points out repeatedly that the PA's version "completely erases Israel from the map". This is clearly true - you only have to look at it. Rajoub's hideous public views on terror are well-documented. This for instance: "I say that whoever carried out individual acts of heroism, we in the Fatah movement bless and encourage them. We consider them heroes and a crown on the head of every Palestinian..." [Official PA TV, January 2, 2016 via PMW]. This is the honored guest of the head of the PA's police? 

Attallah, who has been busy traveling in Europe during these last few weeks, presumably to help ensure backing for the PA's Interpol strategy, will be going to Hamas-controlled Gaza this coming Monday "to discuss security matters with Hamas" [Jerusalem Post yesterday]. He has not been there since the Islamists seized control in 2007's blood-soaked violence. 

With Interpol having now opened its arms to Attallah and the Palestinian police, we're thinking - like commentators who frequently ask when speaking of events in our area - what could possibly go wrong.

3-Aug-13: Prison breaks and terror threats

Indonesian police secure entrance to burning prison
compound in Medan, July 11, 2013 [Image Source: CNN]

Following on from what we posted here Friday ["2-Aug-13: That war against "terrorism"? How well are we doing, exactly?"], Interpol issued an alert today advising its 190 members to step up vigilance in the wake of a wave of prison breaks involving hundreds of terrorists and other criminals in 9 countries which "may be linked". These took place (among other locations) in

• Libya: More than 1,100 prisoners escaped from a facility on the outskirts of Benghazi on July 27 [NYTimes report] following a wave of political assassinations and attacks on political offices across the country
• Iraq: An overnight jail-break on July 22 in which 500 convicts, including senior al Qaeda terrorists, escaped from Abu Ghraib [NPR report]
• Iraq: Also July 22, Taji prison, north of Baghdad, was attacked by forces of The Islamic State of Iraq, the umbrella group for al-Qaeda in Iraq [Al Jazeera report] with numerous deaths and many prisoners freed
• Pakistan: A high quality military-style operation on July 31 in which, says NPR, Taliban forces numbering around 100 (or the Tehrik-e-Taliban, a Pakistani affiliate of al-Qaeda, according to RT) armed with explosives and automatic weapons attacked the central prison in the city of Dera Ismail Khan freeing (depending on who is to be believed) between 175 and 300 prisoners, among them 35 "high-profile militants". Al Jazeera correspondent Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Islamabad, said that the infiltrators "were using loudspeakers and calling the individual names of inmates to come out of the badly damaged prison." Ahead of the prison break, officials received a letter threatening such action, but according to the head of the local prison department Khalid Abbas, "they didn't expect it so soon."
• Indonesia: BBC says 100 prisoners escaped (while CNN says "hundreds") on July 12 from Tanjung Gusta prison in Medan, Sumatra. Nine of them are reported to be terrorists.

Reuters says the Interpol warning refers to the anniversaries of several violent attacks over the past years during the coming month, including in Mumbai and Nairobi. Though they don't mention it, August 9 is the twelfth anniversary of Hamas' showcase attack on the Sbarro restaurant in central Jerusalem.