14-Feb-19: A prince, a princess, four Tamimis - and murderous violence

Image Source | February 6, 2019: Jordan Media Institute in Amman
Ahed Tamimi is the speaker. Princess Rym Ali,
the JMI's founder, is seated in the front row

Ahed Tamimi, a young Palestinian Arab woman from Nabi Saleh, a hamlet a few kilometers from our Jerusalem home ["17-Mar-13: A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns"] has been busy traveling and speaking to attentive crowds these past few months.

Ahed Tamimi

Just before she started an eight month sentence in an Israeli prison a year ago, the result of a plea bargain her handlers made with the authorities, we noted here ["24-Dec-17: Nabi Saleh, the media and a Tamimi child's journey"] that she is

the young woman many call Shirley Temper, a photogenic performer who for at least eight years now has been the central figure in a long-running propaganda performance orchestrated by her father Bassem Tamimi and his publicity business, Tamimi Press.

Bassem Tamimi, Ahed's manager/father and long-time producer/director, asserted some months back ["Palestinian Ahed Tamimi 'banned from travelling abroad'"] that Israel was in some unspecified manner standing in the way of the post-prison globetrotting/meet-and-greets he had in mind for her.

Somehow overcoming the Israeli opposition (if indeed it existed), the young woman, frequently referred to via overblown noms-de-guerre ("Palestine's Joan of Arc", "Ahed Tamimi, Palestinian protest icon", "I know I am a symbol of Palestinian resistance"), managed to pull-off a run of well-publicized visits to Spain, France, Tunisia, Greece and Jordan in September and October 2018. She also became the subject of a photo spread in the October 2018 Arabic version of Vogue magazine along the way.

She's been busy. And the drum-beating and orchestrating have paid dividends.

After years of wildly zig-zagging media estimates of her age [outlined here: "28-Dec-17: So how old is the Tamimi girl?"], there's little doubt she's now come of age and is an adult for all legal purposes (her 18th birthday was two weeks ago). This may become relevant if she repeats or enlarges on calls for more Arab-on-Israeli thuggery like those she made in front of her mother's Tamimi Press video camera ["04-Feb-18: The embarrassing violence of Ahed Tamimi and its fig-leafers"] a year ago. Mother took care to have the video very widely distributed. But surprisingly (alright, not so surprisingly as this excellent Forward piece by Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll points out), the fact that not-quite-adult Ahed Tamimi quite plainly called for real, physical violence has somehow become a point of controversy and doubt.

It shouldn't have. She did it and it's on the record.

Notwithstanding, she's turned up again in Jordan where she gave a speech a few days ago, asserting in some little publicized comments

that the Palestinian people’s struggle is to obtain their freedom, and not to gain the world’s sympathy or compassion. During a meeting with the Jordan Media Institute’s (JMI) students, in the presence of JMI founder HRH Princess Rym, Tamimi added that she works to convey a message for the need to support Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom and national unity. She also explained that she was subjected to various psychological and physical pressures both during the 16 days of investigations, and after being transferred to prison. She said she underwent deprivation of sleep and food, as well as threats to arrest or kill her relatives... ["Ahed Tamimi addresses students at Jordan Media Institute", Jordan Times, February 6, 2019]

There's similar coverage in Jordan's Arabic media here and here as well as on the website of her hosts, the Jordan Media Institute. About that last entity, we have some experience (keep reading).

The Nabi Saleh Tamimis

The JMI's English language report mentions only in passing Nariman Tamimi, Bassem's wife and Ahed's mother, who was in attendance. The Arabic language version (but not the English) adds this somewhat repulsive piece of Tamimi self-promotion:

As for the anti-public campaign against Ahed, her mother Nariman al-Tamimi pointed out that the great support for Ahed came because of the spread of the video [Nariman's video] slapping the Israeli soldier and Ahed Tamimi's ability to resist in spite of all circumstances... adding that her constant contact with media professionals over the past ten years to contribute to the promotion of justice in the Palestinian cause has helped increase support for Ahed... [Jordan Media Institute - Arabic language report of the Tamimi event on their premises, February 6, 2019]

Think about that. The mother seems to be boasting about the fact (and it is a fact) that she and husband Bassem Tamimi began grooming their daughter to be a fist-thrusting, slogan-spouting, angry-on-demand shrieking street activist and provocateur from when the child, already blonde and still somewhat Western looking, was a very vulnerable 8 years old.

In most places, this would be justifiably viewed as child abuse and the parents as derelict and likely culpable criminally. Noot, of course, in those netherworlds ruled by the appalling Palestinian Authority and the no-less-horrific Hamas.

But Nariman Tamimi's ethics descend to greater depths. She has no qualms, for instance, supporting the murderous violence of her cousin, the bomber Ahlam Tamimi. Quote the opposite. In her own words

...What she [Ahlam Tamimi, the smiling mass-murderer of Jewish children] did was an integral part of the struggle. Everyone fights in the manner in which he believes. There is armed uprising, and there is popular uprising. I support every form of uprising... ["11-Sep-15: How devoted to non-violence are the villagers of Nabi Saleh really?"]

The Sbarro massacre mastermind

Ahlam Tamimi returned the favour a year ago ["05-Jan-18: In Jordan, the FBI fugitive Ahlam Tamimi pays tribute to her slapping/taunting/kicking Tamimi cousin"].

Standing before a Jordanian audience, flanked by Jordanian dignitaries including a former Jordanian prime minister, she praised Nariman's daughter Ahed Tamimi who had been detained by Israeli authorities (as was Nariman) some days before. Both were facing charges and an Israeli prison sentence. Somewhat vaguely (based on the reports we saw), Ahlam Tamimi congratulated Ahed Tamimi for "breathing new life" into the cause of female prisoners and children prisoners.

We remarked on how disturbing it was to see

...very prominent Jordanians, members of the country's political elite, [who] have no problem sharing a public platform with a confessed killer of Israeli children who is also an FBI fugitive and the subject of American efforts to have her extradited to the US to face serious federal charges. Can you imagine this happening anywhere else? She's a wanted criminal but not in Jordan where she's a hero. [Source]

Most readers of this blog know Ahlam Tamimi ["17-Nov-11: A monster walks the streets and she has many accomplices"] confesses repeatedly, publicly and with evident pride to being the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria massacre where 16 innocent Jews, among them our daughter Malki, were killed. Ahlam Tamimi was serving a prison sentence of 16 consecutive life terms right up until the catastrophic Shalit Deal that Israel transacted with Hamas in 2011.

That's when she was freed and returned to the land of her birth, the place where most of her family lives and where she was raised.

We have written hundreds of blog posts and op eds about Ahlam Tamimi, born in Jordan and living there today, not in hiding but out in the open.

She has become a genuine celebrity ["24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers"] who speaks often in public forums and on Jordan's media. But (or perhaps and) she is a fugitive from the FBI, charged by the US Department of Justice with Federal crimes and with a State Department $5 million reward for her capture and conviction.

She is the subject of an extradition request which the Jordanian government, for narrow and technical reasons, has rejected ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"]. The US and Jordan have a valid extradition treaty that has been in effect between the two countries since 1995. Several Jordanian felons were extradited to the US before the Tamimi case.

It's interesting to us that of all the possible Jordanian venue options, Ahed Tamimi was a guest last week at the Jordan Media Institute.

It's also striking that Princess Rym Ali, the JMI's founder and a former CNN on-camera reporter before she married into the Hashemite royal family, was present to hear her speak, seated in the front row (see the photo above).

This brought to mind how the princess' husband, Prince Ali bin Hussein who is the half brother of Jordan's current ruler, posted a Tweet emotionally urging support for... Ahed Tamimi in December 2017 just before she went to prison. (Posted here; archived here.)

To us, this seems odd. Ahed is no Jordanian. And most other Jordanian royals seem to have wisely taken care not to get entangled with the outstandingly problematic Tamimi clan. Perhaps some enterprising journalist will take the trouble to look into what about the Nabi Saleh Tamimis' violent bigotry that so attracts this royal attention.

Jordan Media Institute

At this point, allow us to mention that we have had seriously disturbing experiences with the JMI and the unique interplay of professional aspiration and tolerance for extreme violence that we believe the school represents.

We're referring to how we discovered four years ago, and then did our best to publicize, that the very privileged students of this prestigious and hugely-needed institution had publicly declared Ahlam Tamimi - the boastful Hamas agent who set out to kill as many Jewish children as possible and succeeded - as their "success model". 

We ended up persuading several of the school's international funders, including a number of governments, to terminate their support. But we never succeeded in (a) getting the school's management to respond to us other than rude and pointless response from a manager there, or (b) to be open about what we had reported. Their preference was to engage in a rather shabby and pathetic cover-up.

We wrote about this in the posts below:

• 10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred
• 11-Dec-14: Is it newsworthy when journalists make a terror-addicted murdering colleague their role-model?
• 16-Jan-15: Incubating terror-minded journalists in Jordan but they have an answer to the criticisms
• 19-Jan-15: The dilemmas of funding and enabling terror

What happened at the Jordan Media Institute and the scandalous way it was hushed up by management ought to be factored into people's thinking when they wonder about the state of democracy, human rights and terrorism in the Arab world.

The terrors of Arab journalism

Given the strange role played by an ambitious school like JMI, this seems a good time to be thinking about how very badly journalism serves the Palestinian Arabs (the vast majority of Jordanians self-identify as Palestinian Arabs). And the difficulties their reporters and their editors encounter under the thumb of the powers that be.

Screen capture from the Gatehouse site

A typically incisive article today by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Gatestone Institute gives some exposure to the plight of a young woman working as a reporter in the Hamas-afflicted Gaza Strip:

Hajer Harb... is currently standing trial before a court in the Gaza Strip for exposing corruption in Hamas-run ministries and institutions. Harb, a cancer survivor, has been repeatedly summoned for interrogation by Hamas security forces for her role in reporting on corruption in medical and housing institutions... She is accused of "failing to display objectivity, fairness and accuracy" in her reporting... Instead of interrogating and prosecuting the corrupt officials whose identities were mentioned in her reporting, Harb is the one who is now standing trial for telling the truth. Her lawyer, Baker al-Turkumani, described the charges against her as "flimsy." The charges, he said, are an "assault on the freedom of the media and expression, which are protected by the law. The law and justice are the journalist's weapon against corruption. The law cannot be used to limit the work of a journalist or freedom of expression." ["Palestinians: "Journalism" Hamas Style", Gatestone Institute website, February 14, 2019]

Abu Toameh unpacks the Hamas charges against the reporter and calls them disingenuous and laughable:

It is disingenuous because it is coming from Hamas -- a group for whom the terms objectivity and accuracy are wholly inimical. It is laughable because it allows Hamas to set the standards for objectivity and accuracy... For Hamas, objectivity in the media means that journalists shut their mouths about their leaders and government officials. For Hamas, "accuracy" means that a journalist working in the Gaza Strip will show Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the worst possible light -- regardless of the facts.

He's no less blunt about Hamas' rivals, the Abbas-controlled Fatah/PA:

Since the beginning of this year, the Palestinian Authority security forces have arrested 10 Palestinian journalists in the West Bank for their "negative" reporting and alleged criticism of Abbas and other senior Palestinian figures... The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate regularly chooses totally to ignore the plight of the journalists arrested by the Palestinian Authority security forces. The only evils the Syndicate sees are those that can be linked to Hamas or Israel. That is because its heads and senior staff are affiliated with Abbas's Fatah faction... Like Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, with the help of its associates in the syndicate, is apparently seeking to control the news and narrative to make sure that journalists direct their criticism only against Israel. Like Hamas, the Palestinian Authority has been relatively successful in its effort to limit the flow of information from areas under its control. A Palestinian journalist living in Ramallah will think at least a dozen times before he or she writes or says a word that could rile Abbas or one of his senior officials.

Ahlam Tamimi boasting about her life as a Hamas terrorist
[Image Source: Video capture from Kuwaiti TV]

A great shame that all those 'activists' agitating for 'Free Palestine', for BDS and for "Palestinian rights" don't direct their energies, criticisms and fury at the two ham-fisted Palestinian Arab regimes that bear almost all the responsibility for what's wrong with the lives of the people living under their boots.

And also for the extreme violence that many people think about when the word "Palestinian" enters the discussion. (Ahlam Tamimi, our child's murderer, boasts that she was a journalist at the time of the massacre, and is still called one today.)

Also a great shame that the Ahed Tamimi phenomenon continues to get so much unjustified backing in parts of the Arab world where a little more inward-focused retrospection would do so much more for the problems that beset their lives.

And ours too.

UPDATE February 15, 2019

We just came across the Jordan Media Institute's two tweets of last week's Ahed Tamimi event currently here and here and here with a half-hour video of Joan-of-Arc's customary flat/monotone speech (and archived here and here and here in case... you know).

(There don't seem to be any English-language tweets of the momentous occasion, indicating - who knows - that they don't want their foreign supporters seeing this, but perhaps we just missed them.)

The JMI photos make apparent that Nariman Tamimi, mother of Ahed, cousin and outspoken fan of Ahlam Tamimi and her hideous deeds, is seated at the head table.

Also apparent: (a) that Jordanian journalism's best and brightest don't at all mind being associated with the terror-loving Tamimi clan's messaging - which if you pause to think about it is staggering; (b) the scandal of 2015 which cost the school some substantial foreign funding is dead and forgotten; (c) the illustrious Jordan Media Institute is mighty proud that the Tamimis allowed them to give a platform to Ahed.

24-Nov-18: How Jordan's mainstream media showcase a couple of role-model jihadist murderers [Video]

Screen shot: Jordan's Ro'yaTV promo for their

popular "youth show", Caravan

Once again, we offer a look at the little-known and deeply troubling way the Kingdom of Jordan deals with a Hamas murderer/terrorist living unhindered and free in its midst. (Jordan for several years has  resisted ongoing US efforts to see our daughter's killer extradited from there to face trial on US Federal charges.)

Who is Ahlam Tamimi?

Being the parents of a child murdered by a proud and pleased woman who doesn't stop boasting about what she did was never going to be easy.

Regular readers know that Malki, our sweet, vivacious fifteen year-old eldest daughter was one of the victims of the Hamas bombing of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria on August 9, 2001. The mastermind of the attack, convicted for her role in scoping out the target site because of the attractive number of Jewish children who frequented it and planting the human bomb there before fleeing, was sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment. She was the first-ever Hamas female jihadist. Her name is Ahlam Tamimi.

Tamimi walked free, along with 1,026 other Arab terrorists - most of them killers - in the catastrophic deal Israel made with the Hamas terrorists to secure the freedom of an Israeli hostage, Gilad Shalit, in October 2011. She has been living free-as-a-bird in Jordan, not under cover, not in hiding, ever since.

She married another convicted Arab terrorist/murderer, Nizar Tamimi, in the summer of 2012. He is her cousin. (Another cousin is Ahed Tamimi, the 17 year old blondish "icon" of Palestinian "resistance" recently released from an Israeli prison.)

The murdering Tamimi couple on the Caravan set as fulsome tribute is paid to the honor they bring to Jordan [Image Source: Screen capture]

The United States Department of Justice unsealed terrorist charges against Ahlam Tamimi on March 14, 2017. That same day, her name was added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list and the US let it be known it was asking Jordan to extradite her to face charges in a Washington courtroom. The two countries have had an active extradition treaty since 1995.

Al-Tamimi was returned to Jordan upon her release from incarceration. Jordan’s courts, however, have ruled that their constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals. The U.S. has worked and will continue to work with its foreign partners to obtain custody of Al-Tamimi so she can be held accountable for her role in the terrorist bombing. The FBI also announced today that Al-Tamimi has been placed on its list of Most Wanted Terrorists. [DOJ media release, March 14, 2017]

A few days after the announcement, Jordan announced that its courts had ruled that the 22 year old treaty was, under Jordanian law, of no legal effect. Consequently, Jordan said, it would not be handing Tamimi over to the Americans.

It was announced some months later, on January 30, 2018, that a $5 million reward is now offered by the US State Department for information leading to Tamimi's arrest and conviction. The reward is nominally still in effect. But we have come to realize there are serious, unpublicized and troubling problems connected with how the reward actually works in Tamimi's case. All our efforts (and we have tried hard) to get answers to our questions from the Rewards for Justice unit at the State Department and from other State Department officials have been unsuccessful. We'll come back to that later.

The voice of incitement

Between February 2012 and September 2016, Ahlam Tamimi hosted her own television program called “نسيم الأحرار” - “Nassem al-Ahrar”, or in English: “Breezes of the Free”. This was produced and distributed by Alquds TV, one of Hamas' two global satellite channels, from a studio in Amman, Jordan. It is inconceivable the Hashemite government didn't know and couldn't have stopped it. As a practical matter, the Tamimi show served as an Islamist-inflected voice for and by Palestinian terrorists behind Israeli bars - an invaluable, strategically important two-way channel of communication, encouragement and incitement to terror.

Tamimi, already a celebrity by that time across large parts of the Arab world as a result of her frequent appearances in the news and in front of live audiences, leveraged it as a platform to further cement her status among Arab-speaking audiences wherever the Alquds TV content can be seen - literally everywhere.

In addition to being broadcast over the air, the weekly program was distributed to global audiences via dozens, perhaps hundreds, of little-known websites specializing in streaming video content - meaning a viewer need only have a smartphone or laptop with Internet connection; no TV, no satellite dish, no impediment to achieving the widest imaginable influence.

She dropped out of the program without warning in September 2016. As we learned much later, she was very briefly taken into police custody in Jordan on an Interpol warrant (never reported outside the Arab world as far as we know) at that time. She subsequently lowered her profile (we explained the circumstances here) for a time as the efforts to have her extradited and brought to trial in the US worked their way through Jordan's channels of power. 

Throughout her years back in her homeland Jordan, she has appeared both widely and often in the darker and more extreme corners of the Arabic media, always encouraging terrorism, always basking the glory of having defeated the Zionists by being released back into freedom despite the many Jews she murdered.

Needless to say, she has never shown the slightest remorse for her savagery.

Jordan's beloved

Followers of Frimet Roth's blog already learned exactly a month ago ["Our daughter's murderer - live on Jordanian TV yesterday"] that Ahlam Tamimi, seated beside her husband, recently took a central role in a totally-mainstream Jordanian TV program.

Caravan is a weekly TV show on Jordan’s privately-owned Ro'ya TV channel, evidently the most watched of Jordan’s TV channels. Caravan doesn't appear to have anything political to say. It aims explicitly at a young audience - not children - and gives the impression of trying hard to seem hip in a vaguely Western way.

In its October 23, 2018 edition, the show's attention was entirely given over to Ahlam and Nizar Tamimi, Jordan's best-known husband-and-wife team of convicted, unrepentant Palestinian Arab murderers. And as becomes painfully clear, a pair of well-loved Jordanian heroes whom 'everyone' knows and respects.

We asked some Arabic-speaking friends to review it and give us their impressions. Here's what one told us:

The Tamimis were on for 45 minutes. There wasn’t anything especially headline-worthy of anything they said. They never talked about their terrorist act, just their life in prison. You would think they had been sentenced to jail for parking tickets. The host of the show was fawning all over them, calling them special guests over and over again. The husband said “we are living the best life possible now”. The details of their so called heroic imprisonment were quite banal. How they smuggled letters to each other, how they got hope from programs such as the one they were on that talked about prisoners in Israeli jails. How they survived mentally by “challenging” the prison system... At one point, asked what her ambitions were at the age she became a terrorist, she rambled on but ended up praising Jordan and King Abdullah... Watching the show, I was literally cursing into my phone... 

Ro'yaTV tweet: The obsequious Tamimi tribute received

heavy promotion on social media [Twitter]

From our friend's report, it appears no mention was made in the entire hour-long program of the atrocities carried out by the Tamimi couple. No indication of the acts of savagery that earned them their conviction before Israeli courts. Not a word about Ahlam Tamimi's constant incitement to terrorism. No hint of her repeated public endorsement of how murdering Israeli children serves the interests of the Palestinian Arab resistance.

There was also no reference to how she claims now to be innocent of all the charges brought against her by the Department of Justice; or of how she believes the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews, far from being about occupied territories and national self-determination is actually a "religious struggle".

The transcript

We asked for the Arabic-to-English translation help of our friends at Palestinian Media Watch (thanks very much, guys). Here are a few extracts:

• Presenter (Aya Al-Khayyat): [01:22] "There are many heroes behind bars. They have many stories and wars and a great struggle against the enemy and the occupier. Today in Caravan we are honored to be able to host a number of released prisoners to get to know their great story...
• Welcome Nizar Tamimi and Ahlam Tamimi... It is a great honor for us to host you in the Caravan studio. The first question is: How did you get to know one other and how did you get married?”  [laughs]
• Nizar Tamimi says they met after he was already imprisoned in 1993. [Imprisoned? Why? Viewers are left to assume it may have been for a traffic offence; there's no hint given of the brutal murder of an Israeli man of which he and several other Tamimi cousins were convicted in 1993]. Ahlam, he says, was a Jordanian citizen who came to study in Palestine. At that time, visits by relatives, both second and third degree, to the prison were permitted. They were related (he doesn't say how - in reality they are related in several different ways since the Tamimis are deeply involved in marrying within their clan) and she came to visit him. They stayed in touch.
• Nizar Tamimi: [03:54] "Then in 2001, Ahlam was arrested because of her involvement in the struggle and jihad activity [Notice that the fifteen people she murdered, the sixteenth person who remains unconscious to this day - these are not important enough to be mentioned even once in this program] In prison, we were in contact... It was difficult to be in contact, it was not permitted, and the security conditions became more stringent after the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Praise to Allah, in 2005 we managed to make a marriage pact while we were in prison... Praise God, we are now living well."
• 
  Presenter asks Ahlam Tamimi how she felt when sentenced to multiple terms of life imprisonment.  
• Ahlam Tamimi: "...A life sentence is not a logical thing. But the security establishment of the Zionists aims to compare [Translator: seeks to balance] the state of fear generated by the Palestinians via the struggle activities [Translator: operations] that we have been waging over the years – with life imprisonment. They consider that every dead Israeli should be answered with a life imprisonment sentence and in this way placate the anger of the Zionist families of those killed in the various operations... Nizar was arrested in 1993 and remained in prison for about 20 years [sic – in reality 18 years]. I was arrested in 2001 and I remained ten and a half years [sic – just barely ten years] in prison. Nizar got a life sentence, I received 16 life sentences! And that’s to be expected. When we choose to go on the path of struggle, we or any Palestinian, there are known scenarios [ahead]. Either you are arrested or you die as a shahid [martyr] or you get injured or you become a fugitive. When we choose to go on that path, we are ready for any possible scenario..."
• Presenter: [15:26] "This is admirable! You, the people of the struggle, elevate the name of Jordan!"

Abdullah Barghouti's mother sheds tears over her son's

sad fate - being locked away by the Zionists. No mention at all

of the 70 Israelis his terrorist bombs blew to pieces.

There's a break next - with some coverage of a current art exhibition that focuses, like the program itself, on prisoners. Unbelievably, it includes an interview with Abdullah Barghouti's mother. 

(Barghouti, a clansman of Ahlam Tamimi, is serving 67 life terms behind Israeli bars for a string of massacres of Israelis where he made and supplied provided the bombs. One of those is the Sbarro bombing where our child's life ended.)

She says her son wants to be released. Also that he is optimistic and hopes to be released "in the next deal". 

How did Barghouti get locked away in an Israeli cell? The answer isn't given but it's not hard to discover via Google. Barghouti built the exploding guitar that destroyed Sbarro along with a long line of other bombs that in total erased 70 Israeli lives. He has boasted on American TV that, when eventually released, he plans to kill more Israelis.

• Video grab (on the right): On display in the art exhibition, a portrait of Kuwaiti mass murderer Abdullah Barghouti, the Hamas master bomb-maker. His worried mother, speaking with considerable emotion, is interviewed live on the program and with maximum sympathy. She says she is optimistic he will be out of prison soon.
• Ahlam Tamimi [this segment of the interview is at the art exhibition]: [18:47] When we were in prisons of the occupation and we heard that one of the artists was painting us or writing us a poem or a story, it encouraged us a lot - that there are people who remember us.  …
• [Back in the Caravan studio]
• Presenter: [20:23] Were you aware of [the Shalit deal] while you were still in prison?
• Ahlam relates that the Shalit Deal had been under discussion from the time Shalit was abducted in 2006 until the mass prisoner release in 2011. She notes that in this transaction, out of thousands of prisoners, only 1,450 prisoners were released [sic – in fact the number is 1,027]. And the others expected their names to be included in the list but unfortunately they did not leave. But, thank God, there is always hope, and the proof is that there will be another deal, inshallah. And with the help of Allah, all prisons will be emptied. 
• Presenter: Inshallah.
• A member of the audience congratulates the program’s guests and asks whether the Jordanian government stays on top of the issue of Jordanian prisoners [in Israeli prisons]. Ahlam Tamimi answers that the embassy [in Israel] does take an interest in the prisoners, but it does so only to a minor degree, and it is to be hoped that this degree of interest [by Jordan] will grow.
• Presenter asks if they feel the support of the [Arab] street for them and for the Palestinian cause.  Did they feel this support when they were in prison? Nizar Tamimi answers that there is radio and television in prison. This has happened thanks to the efforts of the prisoners, their protests and strikes. There are programs focusing on peace demands and so on for the prisoners. These strengthen and encourage the prisoners.
• Presenter asks Ahlam Tamimi what her aspirations in life are or were. The enemy's media [meaning Israel of course] disseminates the message that those who join the Palestinian resistance lack aspiration, lack a love of life apart from the desire to succeed in injuring their enemies.
• Ahlam Tamimi: [40:00] I was a student at Bir Zeit... This was one of the main universities in Palestine that produced most of the demonstrations and martyrs (shahids)... It set in motion a strong situation of struggle. Once the school day came to an end, the lecturers and the university administration would organize themselves according to the students' wishes. Once school was over, we would organize the Palestinian street according to our desires. Our aspiration in Palestine, from when we were youths right up until now, is to liberate our land. This is not just the aspiration of the Palestinians but of every Arab citizen. It’s an issue of the whole world - in every land where there is an occupation, it is unacceptable from a human standpoint... Palestine is an issue of the world, mainly of the Arab citizen, whenever he is found, especially when we’re speaking of the place of the Prophet's journey [refers to Jerusalem] who is the prophet of all Muslims. So it is very important that we try constantly to raise  the problem of Palestine in the education of our children. How can we raise a generation of liberation if we do not educate our children about the Palestinian problem in the educational curriculum, in life, in the family and so on? How else will they know there is an occupied Palestine, and that they have to turn [their attention] to it? You in the universities [she turns her attention to the students in the audience] - it is highly important that you turn to actions – as students, in your clubs, and wherever you are found, actions in which you revitalize the Palestinian problem... Jordan is in the first line in this subject: our geography is one, our concern is one. His Majesty and the Hashemite monarchy never ever abandoned the Palestinian problem… 
• Thus we hope there will be more activities by young people to support the issue of Jordanian prisoners and Palestinian prisoners. So that we can direct our words towards the Zionist Entity [Israel of course] saying: "No! To the matter of the prisoners there are consequences not only within Palestine but also extending out to Jordan, to Tunisia, to the entire Arab world.

When Ahlam Tamimi urges "more such activity", it needs to be absolutely clear that she is not referring to knitting classes.

Smiling faces, unconcealed admiration: Lavish tribute to the

murdering Tamimis on prime-time, mainstream Jordanian TV

Back in the mainstream

It's evident the Tamimis, who in April 2017 began maintaining a relatively low profile, have now been given a signal to emerge and to take their place in Jordan's public spaces.

At the same time, they have taken care, or been carefully instructed, not to sound violent or directly threatening, though the female clearly does engage in incitement to terror and violence directed at the young audience that Caravan seeks.

It's worth underscoring the central point here: not a single word of the entire program addresses why the Tamimis were in prison, or the length of their sentences (multiple life terms). This is not “reality” programming but rather soft-focus, inspirational television, in some ways like certain religion-centric shows familiar to us in the West. But the people getting the adulation. the respect and the platform are not mere eccentrics or Bible thumpers. They're coldly enthusiastic murderers. Utterly unrepentant and embraced as role-models and heroes by mainstream Jordanians - and their mass media - because of that.

The full video of the Jordanian tribute to the Tamimis which originally went to air on October 23, 2018 is online here and archived here. (Please let us know if it's unviewable or disappears. We made an archival copy of the video file.) 

As far as we can tell, no one in the mainstream media has given this any attention at all. 

14-Aug-18: Chasing (some) terrorists in Jordan

Image Source: Twitter account of Jordan's royal court

A significant clash between the forces of the king and what are being called a terrorist force happened on Saturday across the valley from us over in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

It all started, as far as we know, with an explosion at a Jordanian music festival on Friday. First reports - like this one from an English-language Arab source, were careful to tiptoe around the possibility of terror:

A vehicle belonging to the Jordanian gendarmerie was hit by an explosion on Friday evening, leaving one sergeant dead and wounding six other security personnel, an official at the General Directorate of the Gendarmerie has said. The blast happened just outside the capital Amman, where the unit was tasked with guarding a cultural festival held in the western outskirt of the city. Local news media quoted government sources denying the blast was linked to terrorism, however, investigations are continuing... Local media quoted security sources as saying that "a gas bomb exploded near the fuel tank, causing the explosion of the vehicle". The Fuheis festival is an annually held event in Jordan and is considered the second largest festival in the country after the Jerash Festival... Fuheis is a Christian-majority town, around 20km northwest of the capital Amman. [The New Arab (UK), August 11, 2018]

Pretty soon, the story got darker: turns out it was a bomb that 

was planted under a police vehicle providing security at [the festival]... No group immediately took responsibility... Prime Minister Omar Razzaz portrayed Friday's bombing as a "terrorist attack"... Jordan is a close Western ally in a turbulent region, and has largely been spared from the conflicts in neighboring Syria and Iraq. However, the kingdom has also been targeted by Islamic militants, both domestic and foreign who have carried out a series of attacks... [Associated Press]

Fuheis (or Fuhais or Al Fuheis) is about 20 kilometers north-west of the capital Amman. The Fuheis Festival has been held annually for the past 25 years and is considered Jordan's second-largest cultural festival. Wikipedia says the town has 20,000 residents, 60% of them Greek Orthodox Christians. It's in the Wadi Shueib (Valley of Jethro) area, between Salt and Amman.

A place with a historical heritage ["Is Al-Salt Set to be Jordan’s Next UNESCO World Heritage Site?"] Salt, also called Al-Salt, happens to be where the security forces made up of "special forces", police and the army carried out a raid on Saturday. And where things seem to have gotten badly out of control. Salt had 97,000 inhabitants in 2006: 65% of them are Muslim and the remainder Christians.

Image Source: Where the ISIS people had their base - till Sunday

Newly appointed government spokeswoman Jumana Ghneimat said the security forces we just mentioned were pursuing a "terrorist cell". Here's a summary of what Agence France-Presse reported ["4 security force members, 3 'terrorists' killed in Jordan raid"] on Sunday:

• Quoting not its own reporters but the Jordanian government, it says: "Four members of the Jordanian security forces and three "terrorists" have been killed during a raid on a militant hideout after an officer died in a bomb blast near the capital..."
• Making clear Jordan now tied the raid to what had happened in Fuheis on Friday, it said "Five suspects were also arrested during Saturday's raid in connection with the home-made bomb that exploded under a patrol car at a music festival."
• According to Ms Ghneimat, "The suspects refused to surrender and opened heavy fire toward a joint security force". They "blew up the building in which they were hiding, and which they had booby-trapped earlier".
• The three security forces who were killed died in the shootout with the gunmen. A fourth died later of his injuries.
• The bodies of three terrorists (AFP puts that word in quotation marks) were found in the rubble of the exploded building as were some automatic weapons. Five militants (AFP's word) were arrested in the operation.
• AFP quotes "medical sources" saying 11 people "were wounded during the raid, including members of the security forces and civilians who were residents of the building where the militants were hiding". They included women and children. The AFP report has no details of who thhey were, their ages, or the extent of their injuries.
• Now this interesting direct quote based on something said by a "security official who asked not to be named": "All the terrorists who were killed or arrested were Jordanians and residents of Salt."
• The king, Abdullah II, is quoted saying Jordan would "strike mercilessly and forcefully" against whoever they are blaming which is not yet specified. "This cowardly terrorist act, and any act that targets the security of Jordan, will only add to our unity, strength and determination to wipe out terrorism and its criminal gangs". 
• And this intriguing comment from the recently appointed (see "New Jordanian cabinet has fresh faces but same old problems", The National, June 14, 2018) prime minister Omar al-Razzaz: Jordan will "not be complacent in the hunt for terrorists".

How firmly does King Abdullah actually run things in the kingdom? You get a sense of this from a recent comment by the sober and generally respected Deutschewelle news service:

Since the king calls the shots on all policy issues, it is unclear what mandate Razzaz will have to take measures to pacify the protesters ["Jordan's king appoints Omar Razzaz as new prime minister to defuse protests", DW, June 5, 2018]

On the other hand, how well that's going can be surmised by how many prime ministers the king has appointed and then replaced. Since he was crowned on June 9, 1999, Abdullah II has hired and fired 12 prime ministers, not including the new man, Mr Razzaz. They have served, on average, for less than a year and a half each. (We did the calculations from public records.) The economy is perhaps the most visible sign of how much of a challenge Jordan's managerial class have on their hands: see "'We simply can't take this': Jordanians vow to continue protests after PM resigns" [Middle East Eye, June 5, 2018]

Monday night brought this update:

Jordan said Monday that a terror cell targeted in a deadly weekend raid by security forces was composed of supporters of the Islamic State terror group and shared its extremist views. Saturday’s raid, during which three jihadists were killed and five arrested, revealed that they were preparing a series of attacks in Jordan, Interior Minister Samir Mubaideen said... The suspects “were not part of an organization but followed its takfiri (Sunni Muslim extremist) ideology and supported Daesh... All of them were Jordanians... The raid also foiled other plots to carry out a series of terrorist operations against security installations and public gatherings,” he said. ["Jordan says jihadists killed in raid were Islamic State supporters", AFP, August 14, 2018]

Reuters added:

• Also quoting al-Mobaideen, it says the "militants... did not belong to a specific group but subscribed to Islamic State ideology... There were plots to wage a series of terror attacks that sought security points and popular gatherings. We know the targets but we won’t tell them so people won’t get terrified”... 
• [T]here were no signs so far they had foreign links, Mobaideen said, refusing to give names of suspects. “The investigations are secret and ongoing,” he told a news conference
• Alongside automatic weapons in the suspect’s possession, the authorities found a location where chemical ingredients for manufacturing explosives were buried, Mobaideen added.
• The militant cell was recently set up and there were indications its members had embraced radical ideology. “What is dangerous is that these new recruits are more impulsive than those with experience in executing operations that harm Jordan’s security,” [head of the Gendarmerie] Hawatmeh told reporters.
• "Intelligence officials and some experts believe widening social disparities and a perception of official corruption are fuelling a rise in radicalization among disaffected youths in a country with high unemployment and growing poverty."

A report from a Palestinian Arab source ["Jordanian King Abdullah II vows to eliminate terrorism", Ma'an News Agency, August 12, 2018] datelined Amman says:

The Jordanian King Abdullah II released a statement on Sunday, vowed to end the existence of terrorism, following a deadly terror attack in the town of al-Salt, Jordan. [He] stressed that this cowardly act of terrorism and any action aimed at the security of Jordan "will only increase unity, strength, and determination to eradicate terrorism and its criminal gangs."

What's actually going on behind the official statements and media releases? It's genuinely hard to know. Jordan doesn't have a free and enquiring media and much of what emanates from official sources is spin. A Jordan Times article yesterday shows (probably inadvertently) how that works:

Spokesperson of the Ministry of Political and Parliamentary Affairs Sami Mahasneh told The Jordan Times over the phone that a meeting with the minister and heads of political parties had been concluded with "unanimous agreement upon the government’s media strategy". He announced that a new platform dubbed “It’s Your Right to Know” is being developed by the government to issue around-the-clock news, which he said "will hopefully put an end to all false news and deal with sensitive ones in a delicate manner"...
Bayan Tal, senior advisor at the Jordan Media Institute, told The Jordan Times that this approach is "indeed noticeable" in the new Razzaz government. "There is a gap of trust between the government and the citizens when it comes to news. This is a result of the past governments’ way of dealing with the media and it is what leads citizens to often turn to rumours or unofficial news outlets for information, rather than the government's press release, as proven by studies,” Tal said... The competition between news agencies should not push them to commit immoral and disgraceful acts just to get views, likes, and comments, as those are “not the values of a true journalist”... ["Officials warn against false news ‘igniting national fear’", Jordan Times, August 13, 2018]

We actually do have things to say about how the "values of a true journalist" operate in Jordan. See

• 27-Apr-18: If it really means to tackle radicalism, the Kingdom of Jordan should extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the US
• 23-Jan-15: What's said in London stays in London: Jordan's now-you-see-it-now-you-don't war on terror
• 10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred

and especially

• 11-Dec-14: Is it newsworthy when journalists make a terror-addicted murdering colleague their role-model?

Now seems like a perfect time for the Jordanians to show how firmly they oppose Islamist terror by handing high-profile Islamist terrorist and Jordanian media celebrity Ahlam Tamimi over to US law enforcement authorities as they are obliged to do under the 1995 Extradition Treaty between the two countries.

27-Apr-18: If it really means to tackle radicalism, the Kingdom of Jordan should extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the US

The US State Department announced a $5M reward on Ahlam Tamimi's head in January 2018 [Source]

His Excellency Dr Mohammad Momani,
State Minister for Media Affairs and Communications,
Amman, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Dear Dr Momani,

We know from very recent media reports that Jordan is currently navigating treacherous waters. Its economy is weak, prices are rising, incomes are not and government subsidies on bread and other essentials are being slashed or removed. Jordan's GDP per capita is barely a quarter of the world's average, roughly the same as Albania's. In 1965 (according to the World Bank), Israel's GDP was 2.7 times the size of Jordan's; today (IMF estimates for 2018) it's almost 7 times as large. The two countries have roughly the same size population and roughly equivalent resources.

We're hearing that the Jordanian populace are angry and the fury is growing. There have been riots over the prices of basic foods.

On top of all that, there's been an upsurge in grand larceny as this report from yesterday shows:

A series of armed bank robberies in Amman has rattled Jordan, with some activists blaming the country's rising crime rate on alleged government corruption and failed economic policies. Activists say increased taxes and food and fuel prices have eroded the savings and salaries of the country's poor, which has pushed some to resort to serious crime. Armed bank robberies are rare in Jordan, but Amman has recently seen four heists in branches of the Societe Generale Bank Jordan and Arab Bank - Jordan... Many Jordanians have since expressed seeming delight in the robberies on social media, in a reflection of anti-government sentiment... Activists say government policies were the main catalyst contributing to the increase in violent crime, something that was rare until recently. They point to the recent proliferation of violent street gangs, car thefts and drug trafficking rings that have dominated some sections of Amman with impunity... ["Jordan bank robberies rattle Amman, activists blame government", Al Jazeera, April 21, 2018]

While Al Jazeera speaks of four heists, you probably know the Jordanian media speak of a larger number ["6th bank robbery in Amman since start of year", Jordan Times, April 18, 2018]. This surely worries you and your ministerial colleagues.

The specific way you chose to address this problem caught our attention and made us want to get in touch. Here's the full text of a report we spotted in an independent Jordanian newspaper from a few days ago, quoting you:

AMMAN: Government spokesperson and State Minister for Media Affairs Dr Mohammad Momani condemned the sweeping sympathy for bank robbers on social media today, Thursday, and described sympathisers as criminals. During the Minister’s weekly appearance on Radio Jordan, every Thursday, he said that publically [sic] condoning criminal activity is a crime. The same goes in various countries around the world, he claimed. On Jerusalem, Mr Momani reaffirmed that Trump’s decision to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv is illegal and hurtful to the peace process... It feeds radicalisation as it only fosters frustration and desperation, he underlined. ["Gov’t Speaker: Sympathising with Bank Robbers is Crime", Al Ghad, April 19. 2018]

You make some good points here. But if condoning bank robberies is a crime, Mr. Minister, then what do you say about protecting and honoring an unrepentant killer of children - the woman we describe below? And how do you justify allowing her to spread a lethal message of ultra-violent bigotry from the safe haven of Amman, Jordan? Why is she still living free in your country and sheltered by your legal system?

We traveled to Jordan a couple of times before - but not after - our child's murder at the hands of a Jordanian woman in 2001. These were brief stays and we weren't tourists. The meetings we had were with impressive decision-makers and thought-leaders. We enjoyed the experience. But to be clear, we don't claim special knowledge of your country. On the contrary - much about it puzzles us.

To illustrate: you underline (using Al Ghad's words) that radicalisation "fosters frustration and desperation". That sounds right to us. For what it's worth as non-Jordanians, we would encourage you and King Abdullah II to keep radicalisation of Jordanians as much under control as possible. Radicalisation is a widespread problem right across the Arab world. But it's not without solutions, provided the government leads the way. 

Dr Momani [Image Source]

But then what Jordan is doing to lead the way doesn't seem very well-advised. How your country has dealt with Ahlam Tamimi, Mr Minister, illustrates the point dramatically.

There's no need for us to tell you that among Jordanians, she's a celebrity, a figure of huge admiration, who has appeared often in your media and has a high public profile. As you surely know, she shared a public platform with several Jordanian lawmakers and a former Jordanian prime minister just a few weeks ago [We documented it here: "05-Jan-18: In Jordan, the FBI fugitive Ahlam Tamimi pays tribute to her slapping/taunting/kicking Tamimi cousin"].

But this is an open letter. So we will explain to our readers that Mrs Tamimi is an admitted agent of the widely-outlawed jihadist organization Hamas, the first female to be recruited by them and – in terms of lives extinguished and grief inflicted – one of their most productive.

She boasts explicitly and often of the killings she masterminded and executed at the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. She takes credit for choosing a site where significant numbers of children could be blown to pieces. Jewish children, of course; she makes clear that for her the conflict and the homicides are all about religion.

Tamimi faces Federal charges brought against her by the US government that were unsealed just a year ago, in March 2017. She is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list with a reward on her head of $5M. Her extradition has been requested by the US government under the fully-in-force and undoubtedly valid 1995 extradition treaty your kingdom signed with the Clinton administration. By the way, several Jordanian felons have been extradited by Jordan to the United States since the treaty came into effect. Jordan and its courts pretend this is not so and journalists seem to be cowed into accepting the pretense.

For reasons most Jordanians understand and which your country's leadership obfuscates, Jordan says it will not hand her over to the US authorities. Tamimi herself understands how valuable your government's help has been to her and has publicly thanked the Kingdom of Jordan and its courts for this. She appreciates Jordan standing in solidarity with her. Her family has explicitly praised Jordan's judiciary - which of course is answerable to the king - for its "integrity, justice and patriotism" [source]. They recognize that they owe Jordan's leadership a large debt of thanks.

One might hope that there are large numbers of Jordanians who are sickened or at least embarrassed by this. Sadly not so much, it appears. For the past several years and up to today, we and several Jordanian friends who help us check the Jordanian media closely have not yet found a single instance of a Jordanian official or judge or religious leader or political commentator distancing your country from the horrific slaughter which elevated Ahlam Tamimi into a Jordanian hero.

We don't claim deep knowledge of your country. If we're mistaken and there is in fact meaningful outrage over the admiration she attracts among Jordanians, please do tell us.

We're left to wonder about all of this. Not one word of criticism in any part of your media. No public arguments. No evident self-examination. No dissent from the popular view that this homicidal sociopath is a champion of Jordan, a figure for your society's children to grow up and emulate.

Then there's the disturbing matter of one of your country's most admired educational centers, the Jordan Media Institute.

As the political official responsible for Jordan's media, you're surely aware of the matters we described here ["10-Dec-14: In the Arab world's most promising new journalism school, a passion for murder and hatred"]. Your government created a school for training a new generation of Arabic-language journalists along what were to be Western lines, and right there on their website those best-and-brightest budding editors and reporters declared that Ahlam Tamimi was their role-model.

That astounding, appalling veneration for a confessed mass-murderer of Jewish children remained on view and uncontradicted right up until we publicized it. We successfully persuaded several (not all) of its foreign supporters to back off and to discontinue their funding.

The school's response was to silently, without any public explanation or attention, take down the entire site and pretend the scandal never happened. We documented all of this in articles we published on December 11, 2014; January 11, 2015; January 16, 2015; January 19, 2015; January 23, 2015; and February 4, 2015. 

By the way, we tried to speak directly with the JMI. Our attempts to get into a dialogue with its leadership were rebuffed in a blunt, ugly and completely unacceptable way. For all anyone knows, the students who graduated from the JMI since 2015 have taken up positions in the Arabic language journalism industry fully committed to the idea that their professional role-model is a mass-murdering Jordanian female who is on the run from the US legal system.

What impact will that have on your plans to reduce radicalisation and counter all the frustration and desperation? Perhaps not much given that Jordan's press freedom is in such bad shape:

Jordan drops two places on World Press Freedom index | Jordan Times | Mohammad Ghazal | Feb 12, 2015 | 21:44 | AMMAN — Jordan has dropped two places on the World Press Freedom Index 2015, ranking 143rd among 180 countries, as the government said it will continue to develop media freedom in the Kingdom. The Reporters Without Borders annual index released Thursday showed that Jordan continued a decline in press freedom, as it was ranked 141st in the 2014 index and 134th in the 2013 index. At the Arab level, Jordan ranked 11th... Commenting on the report, Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications Mohammad Momani said: “We will continue to develop our freedom of expression.”

You are quoted there yourself, saying you will "continue to develop [Jordan's] freedom of expression". That was three years ago.

So how well did you do in the following years? Not too well. In the most recent index, Jordan is in 138th place - lower than in 2013, lower than in 2016. Jordan's press freedom is almost at the bottom of the world league... and sinking, as we wrote here.

Here's something else we wrote back then that deals directly with how to defeat radicalisation:

A society claiming to be at war with the terrorists and aspiring to "continue to develop" its "freedom of expression" and "media freedom" has to have a strategy that goes beyond self-aggrandizing press statements. It also needs to be substantially more upfront with the outside world - and with itself, it seems - about the lethal support for jihad that infects the ranks of key parts of its population, including some of the journalists whose future careers it is proudly hailing... ["13-Feb-15: Jordanian accuracy"]

It's still relevant today. 

We still hope and expect to see Jordan comply with its international treaty obligations described well here ["Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements", Michelle Munneke - American University Washington College of Law, National Security Law Brief, October 28, 2017] and hand Tamimi over to the US so she can be brought to justice.

If Jordan's leadership is sincere about suppressing radicalism, it will share that aspiration.

Sincerely,

Frimet and Arnold Roth

Jerusalem

(A version of this open letter appeared originally in Times of Israel on April 23, 2018 under the title "Extradite Tamimi: An open letter to Jordan’s media minister". If you are a friend or acquaintance of the minister, please pass this along to him. He's sure to want to respond to us.)