28-Apr-17: Calling the Jordanians to account for the cold-blooded murder of three Green Berets

Jim Moriarty salutes his murdered son's coffin [Image Source]

[Please see the important update at the end of this post.]

It's now clear we are not alone in struggling to achieve justice over the objections, double-talk and calculated indifference of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Regular readers of our blog know that we have embarked on a battle to get Jordan to comply with its obligations under the 1995 Extradition Treaty it signed with the Clinton administration.

Within that framework, we - and the FBI and the Department of Justice - want to see them hand over our daughter's murderer, a Jordanian woman of 37 called Ahlam Tamimi, so that she can be put on trial in the United States for the most serious of offences. An article that appeared recently in the New York Jewish Week provides the background: "30-Mar-17: Years of pursuing a child's killer: Setbacks, challenges and a roller-coaster ride"

Tamimi was charged under US Federal law in July 2013 with a series of felonies arising from her masterminding the 2001 massacre-by-human-bomb at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria. Our daughter Malki, 15, was killed in that grotesque act of savagery. Dozens more were killed or maimed. Those charges against Tamimi were in a sealed criminal complaint that remained secret until unsealed nearly four years later, on March 14, 2017. (Tamimi had been charged with multiple counts of murder under Israeli law a decade earlier and had pleaded guilty to all charges. She was sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment which came to an abrupt and premature end in the catastrophic Shalit Deal of 2011.)

We presume the US Department of Justice was attempting to negotiate with the Jordanians during those four years up until last month. The Jordanians eventually refused and have come up with several reasons.

Jordan's brazen approach to the US demand includes claiming 22 years after it was signed that the extradition agreement is unconstitutional. Or that it was never ratified (does anyone actually know who has to ratify it? And why can they not ratify it today?). Or that it is somehow not applicable to Jordanians. Whatever, since Jordan is owned and operated by a family whose origins are Saudi Arabian and who dominate a society whose population overwhelmingly identify as Palestinian Arabs, no one expects a serious response. What's significant is simply that Jordan is saying "no"... and that Tamimi is regarded as a national hero in Jordan because - and not despite the fact that - she committed those 2001 murders.

There's no doubt the extradition treaty was regarded as binding at an earlier stage (and still is by the Americans). Under King Hussein, who is no longer alive, Jordan handed over to the US one of the plotters of the first World Trade Center terror attack from 1993 for extradition and eventual imprisonment inside America's justice system.

Here's how that extradition from Jordan was reported:

Bomb Suspect Extradited to the U.S. From Jordan | August 03, 1995 | Los Angeles Times | Robin Wright and Ronald J. Ostrow
WASHINGTON — In a closely held operation, the FBI on Wednesday brought back from Jordan a heretofore unknown suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, government sources disclosed. Eyad Ismail Najim, a Jordanian national, allegedly rode with Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in the bomb-packed van when it was driven into the underground parking lot of the trade center in New York City... Like Yousef, he left the United States shortly after the bomb went off on Feb. 26, 1993. The explosion killed six, injured more than 1,000 and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage. Yousef was brought back to the United States from Pakistan in another FBI covert operation last February. The two seizures of prominent suspects in the worst international terrorist attack ever to take place inside the United States rank among the biggest counter-terrorism successes ever achieved by U.S. law enforcement agencies. President Clinton is expected to issue a statement today heralding the U.S. victories against international terrorism, White House sources said.
Najim has been under sealed indictment since shortly after the other suspects were arrested and indicted, according to government sources. U.S. intelligence has long known where to find Najim but the FBI was unable to request extradition until a treaty was worked out with Jordan in March, the sources said. The final instruments of extradition were completed and exchanged last Saturday, allowing the FBI to proceed. The indictment had been sealed to ensure that Najim would not learn that he had been identified and try to flee again. While in Jordan, he was enrolled in school. Like many of the other trade center defendants, Najim is described as fairly young. "He thought he got away with it," one law enforcement official said. Najim was flown from Amman, the Jordanian capital, aboard a U.S. government plane and was expected to arrive at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, N.Y., a former Air Force base, and then be taken to the FBI's New York office for processing.

Ismoil is imprisoned today at the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum (ADMAX) Facility in Florence, Colorado. He is due to be released on August 30, 2204 (not a typing error).

King Hussein's son, Abdullah II, has the powers of an absolute monarch. He could choose to see to it that his country complies with the extradition treaty. No constitution or law or customary practice would get in the way. So far, at least, he chooses to do nothing.

At the same time, he engages in self-congratulatory Tweets honoring his contribution to the fight against terrorists - like this:

Twitter source (April 5, 2017)

We were struck by the hubris, and asked him:

Twitter source (April 27, 2017)

No response of course. Nor did his foreign minister trouble himself to react to this:

Twitter source (April 28, 2017)

Recently we have had the honor of coming to know the father of one of three US Special Forces servicemen whose deaths while serving the United States on the territory of one its supposed allies in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan during November 2016 has barely been reported. We wrote about it at the time, and it turns out our predictions were not far from the mark: "18-Nov-16: American service personnel killings in the Mid East get scant reporting and even less comprehension".

The Hashemite royal couple visiting the Trump
White House, April 5, 2017 [Image Source] 

Jordan is holding the shooter and will not extradite him to the United States either.

Here is a first-person account, reproduced in full, written by Jim Moriarty, a man who served his country via three tours of duty as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, and is today a Houston attorney and a bereaved and angry father. Mr Moriarty's son was one of the three murdered in Jordan.

Jordan must stand to account for deaths of U.S. soldiers | James R. Moriarty | Houston Chronicle (Associated Press) | March 30, 2017 

A Jordanian soldier killed my son Army Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty and two of his Green Beret brothers as they returned at midday to King Faisal air base in Jordan on Nov. 4, 2016. Since then, the government of Jordan has repeatedly misled the world about the incident, which I believe was nothing less than murder. 

Jordan quickly blamed my son and his fallen brothers, Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Lewellen and Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe, for failing to properly stop at a guard gate as they returned to the base where they lived and worked. International news reports soon included the false Jordanian explanation. Then the Jordanian story changed. An "accidental" weapon discharge provoked the guard to open fire, officials said. An FBI investigation later showed that excuse to be false, too. 

Then three weeks ago, just hours before the Lewellen and McEnroe families and I went public in Washington with findings from our ongoing search for justice, Jordan's ambassador to the U.S. released a new statement. The ambassador for King Abdullah II - whose country receives more than $100 million per month in U.S. foreign aid - called the killings "tragic and very unfortunate" and "deplorable," but still claimed that "rules of engagement" were followed.

The letter infuriated our families. It also further united us. We reside in different geographical and political places, but our three families agree that honoring our sons' service and sacrifices must include finding the truth about what happened to them in Jordan and why. 

Because of the work of the U.S. Army and the FBI, we now know what happened to our sons. What we do not know is why it happened or when Jordan will be held accountable. On Feb. 28, the FBI showed us the haunting surveillance video of our sons' killings.

The video shows the truck driven by McEnroe slowly pulled up to the gate - just like any other day. The Jordanian soldier, wearing body armor and hidden in a concrete guardhouse behind camouflaged netting, opened fire without warning with an M-16 assault rifle. He was no more than 5 feet away. Bullet holes appeared in the view of the camera. Shattered glass flew.

The video also shows the chances of survival for McEnroe and Lewellen were almost zero. Caught completely by surprise attack, they died quickly in a hail of gunfire. My son Jimmy met a different fate. The Jordanian killer stalked him for minutes.

My son and another Green Beret, who would survive the attack, exited their trucks just in time to avoid being killed in the first bursts of gunfire. Armed only with pistols, they then spent the remaining six-and-a-half minutes of my son's life communicating with the soldier and other Jordanian soldiers in English and in Arabic. They soon realized they were in a fight to the death. The video shows Jimmy desperately waving and motioning to the five nearby Jordanian soldiers with whom they had worked that morning. Six other Jordanian gate guards did nothing to stop the assault.

The Jordanian soldier finally cornered the Green Beret survivor and my son. As the shooter came around a nearby truck, he caught the survivor by surprise. My son can be seen standing up in full view of the shooter and engaging him with his pistol. This move allowed the Green Beret to get to the Jordanian soldier's blind side and empty his pistol into gaps in his body armor, wounding him. My son took the bullets intended for the survivor and died moments later. The shooter, who was taken into custody by the Jordanian government, then was put into a medically induced coma. FBI investigators later conducted hours of questioning and the shooter gave yet another false explanation for the deaths: He heard "a loud noise" that he took for gunfire.

Americans are told that Jordan is our "ally." This incident raises troubling questions about that relationship - especially as Jordan refuses to accept responsibility for these deaths of U.S. troops or confirm what truly happened. Were I to speak directly with King Abdullah, I would remind him that my son called out in Arabic to his killer and other Jordanian soldiers, "We are Americans. We are friends." 

The time has come for the Jordanian government to finally account for these killings or risk its $1.6 billion foreign aid package. We want the killer of our sons prosecuted. We want the Jordanian government to apologize and publicly clear the names of our sons - and do everything possible to prevent such killings in the future. No more U.S. service members need to die at the hands of so-called American allies. 

King Abdullah II confers with the Chief Terror Officer of Hamas, Khaled
Meshaal, in Jordan [Image Source]

After a long period of asserting that the murderous attack by one of its soldiers was due to error by the Americans or, in a later variation, by the Jordanian, Jordan's version of events has just been re-adjusted once again:

After months of publicly defending the actions of a Jordanian guard who opened fire on a U.S. military convoy of Army Special Forces soldiers, killing three, Jordanian government officials have admitted that the shooter did not follow the military’s protocol and will face prosecution. Dana Daoud, a Jordanian Embassy spokeswoman, told The Washington Post that M’aarek Abu Tayeh — a member of the Jordanian king’s elite Hashemite force — will be “tried in a military court,” but she declined to comment on the nature of the charges against him or when a trial might occur... ["Jordan says guard who killed three U.S. soldiers did not follow rules of engagement", Washington Post, April 13, 2017]

Not much more needs to be said about Jordanian notions of justice that is not already obvious from previous encounters. 

We're thinking in particular about the shabby matter of Ahmed Daqamseh, a Jordanian armed guard who shot to death in cold blood seven Israeli schoolgirls. He was released prematurely last month to a well-publicized Jordanian celebrity's welcome: "12-Mar-17: What a Jordanian hero and his admirers tell us about the likelihood of peace".

To end, a handful of other recent posts of ours concerning the Jordanians, their idea of justice and their refusal to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, the happy, proud and celebrated killer of our daughter:

• 05-Apr-17: Abdullah in the White House today: Questions need to be asked
• 01-Apr-17: Ahlam Tamimi, Most Wanted Terrorist - now in Arabic
• 30-Mar-17: Years of pursuing a child's killer: Setbacks, challenges and a roller-coaster ride
• 28-Mar-17: Terror, justice and the Hashemite king of Jordan
• 23-Mar-17: Looking for justice in Jordan, Jerusalem and Washington
• 21-Mar-17: Tamimi extradition: When it's claimed that something is illegal in Jordan...
• 20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over
• 19-Mar-17: A thought about Jordan and its treaty obligations
• 15-Mar-17: Sbarro and justice
• 14-Mar-17: Will Jordan's lust for dead Jewish children cause problems with the US?

UPDATE July 29, 2017: We have just posted an update ["28-Jul-17: In Jordan, a choice among honor and pride and those lying security cameras"] that looks at the outcome of a Jordanian criminal trial and its aftermath. There are two statements in it worth highlighting:

1. All the factual claims by the Jordanians now turn out to be nonsense; and
2. There's a lot to be learned about having a neighbour like Jordan. And about how truth is perceived when the issue is really about honor - Jordanian honor.

The whole sorry affair has gotten far less media attention and political analysis than it deserves. Perhaps now that the gunman is behind Jordanian bars, that will change. But our own experience with Jordanian frankness and respect for law, morality and strategic alliances suggests don't hold your breath.

28-Mar-17: Terror, justice and the Hashemite king of Jordan

King Abdullah II of Jordan hosts Hamas arch-terrorist Khaled Mashaal
on the Islamist thug's first official visit to Amman, January 2012 [Image Source]

Jordan's refusal to comply with its treaty obligations to the United States and to hand over our daughter's murderer for extradition is getting a remarkably easy ride in the major media.

To make sense of that, a person would have to understand that Jordan and its king are widely treated in the West as moderate, reasonable and aligned with American interests. The US State Department (see "14-Mar-17: Will Jordan's lust for dead Jewish children cause problems with the US?") routinely describes the Hashemite Kingdom in its annual country-by-country survey on terror in glowing terms. The June 2015 report called it "a key ally and a model partner in combating terrorism".

That was never a view with which we agree and it's even less so now in the wake of the scheming the Jordanians have done in the past five years to avoid bringing a mass murderer of Israelis, and particularly of Jewish children, to justice. We're speaking of the self-confessed murdering jihadist, Ahlam Tamimi, Hamas' first-ever female terror agent and a Jordanian from birth. Jordan is where she was sent by Israel when her freedom from imprisonment was extorted in the 2011 Shalit Deal. She has led an exceptionally comfortable life there as a Jordanian - and pan-Arab - celebrity since her return from Israel.

We think Jordan's view of what terror is must be based on a definition totally alien to the one we and the countries of the West recognize.

Caroline Glick, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and travels several times a year to Washington where she routinely briefs senior administration officials and members of Congress on issues of joint Israeli-American concern. Her columns appear regularly in the Jerusalem Post (where the one below appeared yesterday) and in the Hebrew-language Makor Rishon.

A Test for King Abdullah
Caroline B. Glick | Jerusalem Post | March 27, 2017 at 21:20

Ahlam Tamimi is a mass murdering monster. And today she is living the good life, as a “journalist,” inciting jihad in Jordan under the protection of the King Abdullah.

On August 9, 2001, in the service of Hamas, Tamimi led a suicide bomber to the Sbarro Pizzeria in central Jerusalem. It was summer vacation. The streets were filled with children and parents.

Sbarro was filled with children and their parents.

Tamimi had scouted out the location of the bombing ahead of time. She chose Sbarro because it was a popular destination for families with young kids.

Tamimi brought the bomber to the restaurant. His bomb, hidden in a guitar case, weighed 5-10 kilos. It was surrounded by nails to puncture the flesh and internal organs of the victims, maximizing their pain and bodily damage.

Fifteen people, including seven young children and a pregnant woman were killed in the blast.

Another 130 were wounded. Chana Nachenberg, today 47, was 31 at the time. She was torn apart by the blast, only to survive, hospitalized in a vegetative state ever since.

Tamimi was sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences and 15 more years in prison for her crime.

She was released in 2011 as part of the ransom deal Hamas coerced the government to accept to secure the freedom of IDF Sgt. Gilad Schalit. Schalit had been held hostage and incommunicado by Hamas in Gaza since he was abducted from Israel in 2006.

Tamimi, like the other thousand terrorists she was freed with, was not pardoned. Israel’s release was a conditional commutation. The terrorists were freed on condition that they did not engage in either terrorism or incitement of terrorism subsequent to their release.

Dozens of terrorists released under the Schalit ransom deal have been returned to prison to serve out the remainders of the terms over the past five years due to their violation of those conditions.

Immediately upon her release, Tamimi began violating the terms of her commutation by inciting terrorism.

She has been able to avoid returning to jail to serve out the remainder of her sentence because she decamped to Jordan.

From the safety of King Abdullah’s capital city Amman, Tamimi has worked as host of a television program on Hamas’s television station. Hamas television, which exists for the explicit purpose of inciting terrorism and indoctrinating viewers to become jihadists, operates openly in Jordan, as does Hamas.

Indeed, in 2011 King Abdullah decided to embrace the jihadist terrorist group that controls Gaza and is allied with Islamic State and Iran. Hamas leaders have frequently visited Jordan in recent years and the terrorist group is able to openly operate in the kingdom.

Since her release, Tamimi has given countless interviews and as traveled through much of the Arab world, celebrating her act of mass murder. She has said repeatedly that she would commit her children’s massacre again if she could.

Three of Tamimi’s victims were American citizens.

Malki Roth was 15 when she was killed. Shoshana Yehudit (Judy) Greenbaum was 31 and five months pregnant. Nachenberg is also a US citizen.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Justice unsealed a 2013 indictment of Tamimi regarding her role in the murder of US citizens. The Justice Department officially requested that the government of Jordan extradite Tamimi to the US to face trial.

The US signed an extradition treaty with Jordan in 1995. But, as Malki Roth’s father Arnold Roth wrote last week in a blog post regarding the extradition request, since 1997, Jordan has claimed that the agreement was not ratified by the Jordanian parliament.

Based on this claim, two courts in Jordan, including the supreme court of appeals, rejected the US extradition request claiming that it would be unconstitutional to respect it.

Roth scoffed at the argument, noting that in Jordan, the notion of constitutionality is entirely arbitrary.

In his words, “In a monarchy where the king changes prime ministers and governments more often than some presidents change their suits, there’s an inherent problem with paying so much respectful attention to a constitution. Jordanian law, and what is legal and illegal depends on one individual. If [King Abdullah] wanted to extradite her [Tamimi], she would be in the US today.”

And this brings us to Abdullah, and what he wants.

Last week, this column discussed the hero’s welcome that Ahmad Dagamseh received when he returned home from prison. Dagamseh, a former Jordanian soldier, was released this month from Jordanian prison after serving a 20-year term for murdering seven Israeli schoolgirls at the so-called Island of Peace in the Jordan Valley in 1997.

After the column was published, Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian Jordanian ex-patriot and regime opponent who serves as the secretary general of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition wrote to me to highlight the fact that Dagamseh’s release was widely and exuberantly covered by media organs controlled by King Abdullah.

Zahran wrote that an official envoy of Jordan’s Interior Ministry Ghaleb Zohbi greeted Dagamseh at the prison upon his release and that Dagamseh was driven from jail to his village in a Mercedes flanked by a convoy of police cruisers.

Zahran added that the standard practice is for released prisoners to be taken home in a police wagon.

In a subsequent email exchange, Zahran set out his case for replacing the Hashemite minority regime with a Palestinian majority regime.

Zahran argued that the number of refugees in Jordan has been purposely inflated, and that the massive Palestinian majority in the population has not been significantly degraded by the refugee flows from Iraq and Syria over the past decade and a half.

According to his data, which he contends is supported by US embassy in Amman cables published by Wikileaks, there are 6.1 million Palestinians in Jordan. The kingdom is host to 750,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees.

Zahran accused King Abdullah of deliberately fanning the flames of antisemitism and anti-Americanism among the Jordanian public in order to make himself appear indispensable to Israel and the West.

Dagamseh’s celebrated release, like the regime’s protection of Tamimi and its willingness to permit her to continue to incite jihad against Israel from Amman are examples of this practice.

Abdullah’s notion, Zahran argues, persuasively, is that by giving a microphone to jihadists, Abdullah convinces Israel and the US that they cannot afford to allow anything to happen to him or to his minority regime.

So convinced, Israel and the US say nothing as Abdullah stacks his parliament with Muslim Brotherhood members. They voice no objection as Abdullah empowers Hamas, gives safe haven to terrorist murderers of Israelis and Americans, and rejects extradition requests on fictional constitutional grounds that he himself concocted.

Zahran, who seeks to replace the Hashemites with a Palestinian majority regime, which would allow Jordan to serve as the national home of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, argues that Jordan is a state run by the military and intelligence services, which themselves are controlled by the US military’s Central Command.

In his words, Jordanian forces cannot “relocate an armored vehicle” without first getting “permission from US Central Command.”

Zahran’s vision of a post-Hashemite Jordan is interesting. He envisions the US continuing to have overall control of Jordan’s security forces. The new regime would liberalize the economy and stop jihadist incitement while actually targeting jihadists rather than coddling them.

The regime for which he advocates would be dominated by the long-discriminated-against Palestinian majority. It would work with Israel to solve its conflict with the Palestinians. Zahran’s Jordan would restore Jordanian citizenship to the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria and give them voting rights in Jordan.

It is hard to know whether Zahran’s vision of Jordan is a viable one. Certainly it sounds a lot better than what we experience with Abdullah. And it deserves serious consideration.

By the same token, it is time for the US and Israel to test Abdullah, the moderate man we cannot do without.

The first test should be an ultimatum. Abdullah should be told that he must either extradite Tamimi to the US for trial or send her back to Israel to serve the remainder of her sentence. If he refuses, then either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or US President Donald Trump, or both, should meet publicly with Zahran to discuss his vision for the future of Jordan.

---
A version of this article also appeared on the FrontPageMag website today.

13-Feb-17: Another Shalit Deal milestone: Four terms of life imprisonment but this murdering jihadist now heads Hamas in Gaza

Sinwar, the day Israel let him walk free [Image Source]

Associated Press is reporting this afternoon that Hamas has a new leader in Gaza, and calls him "one of the Islamic militant group's most hard-line figures".

The appointment of Yehiya Sinwar, who was freed by Israel in a 2011 prisoner swap, solidifies the takeover of Gaza operations by the armed wing of the group. The military wing, which controls thousands of fighters and a vast arsenal of rockets, has battled Israel in three wars since Hamas seized Gaza a decade ago...  Sinwar replaces Ismail Haniyeh, who served as the prime minister of Hamas' government following the 2007 takeover of Gaza. Haniyeh is now expected to take over as Hamas' supreme leader, replacing Khaled Mashaal, who lives in exile. Khalil al-Haya, another political hard-liner, was elected as Sinwar's deputy. ["Hamas Names Top Militant as New Leader in Gaza", Associated Press via Bloomberg, February 13, 2017]

We're pleased to note that AP's story skips the customary nonsense about the Islamists wanting desperately to create a Palestinian Arab homeland and itching to build more kindergartens, nicer maternity wards and child-friendly museums. Instead:

Hamas is sworn to Israel's destruction and has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings, shootings and other attacks... Gaza is mired in poverty and widespread destruction. International organizations estimate the unemployment rate at over 40 percent, and the movement of people and goods in and out of the war-battered territory remains restricted. [Associated Press]

Sinwar was released from Israeli prison in the catastrophic Shalit Deal of 2011, having been arrested on January 21, 1988 and sentenced a year later after being tried in an Israeli court to four life terms for multiple offenses including (according to AP) masterminding the abduction and murder of two Israeli soldiers.

But a Haaretz profile two days ago reveals that Sinwar (sometimes written Sanwar) was sentenced by Israel

to life in prison in 1989 for the murder of Palestinian [Arabs] suspected of collaboration. His younger brother Mohammed was a commander in the Khan Yunis sector and was involved in the operations in which Shalit was abducted in June 2006, which five years later led to Sanwar’s release. ["Palestinians Freed in Shalit Deal Running the Show for Next Prisoner Swap", Haaretz, February 12, 2017]

It goes on to paint a portrait of an unusually vicious personality, even by Hamas' satanic standards:

Palestinians who have met with Sanwar describe him as an extremist, even in the context of his organization, and as someone who speaks in apocalyptic terms about perpetual war with Israel... [For example] the case of Mahmoud Ishtiwi, a Hamas battalion commander in the Gaza neighborhood of Zeitoun who was executed about a year ago. In the past, claims circulated in Gaza about the reasons for his execution, ranging from collaboration with Israel to suspected homosexuality... Ishtiwi’s sister [said] in April 2015, three months after Ishtiwi’s arrest, Sanwar visited the Ishtiwi family at home with Ishtiwi in tow – and Sanwar threatened them with a gun. In February 2016, Ishtiwi was executed... The Hamas leadership said the decision was based on “security and moral reasons.” [An Israeli source however] cites a power struggle within the Hamas military wing. The young battalion commander had accumulated influence and dared to try to undermine Sanwar. So in a highly unusual move, Sanwar decided to get rid of him... [Haaretz]

Sinwar is kissed in 2011 by the man (Haniyeh) he has replaced in 2017
[Image Source]

A Ynet profile today ["Hamas elects new radical leader in Gaza"] says Sinwar

is considered to be ascetic, strong, tough and the possessor of extreme discipline. He distances himself from the media, which accounts for one of the reasons why he is less well known in Israel, despite his key role in Hamas.

It's especially galling (to us at least) how this sociopath was released from behind Israeli bars five years ago with barely a mention of the risks his unwarranted freedom represented.

For instance: Israel Prison Service records, issued at the time the 1,027 Shalit Deal terrorists walked free and which we have filed away, indicate merely that Sinwar - named there as Yihia Ibrahim Hasan Al-Sinwar, יחיא סנואר אברהים חסן, prisoner ID 955266978 - was serving time for

הריגה ; אימונים בנשק ; פעילות חבלנית עוינת ; הסתה
Manslaughter; weapons training; hostile terrorist activity; incitement 

Mild language in the context. No hint, in other words, of the man's distinctive malevolence or leadership role. But today, with Sinwar free, unconstrained and ascendant, the expert assessments start to appear.

This one for example from the Associated Press piece we cited above:

Kobi Michael, a former head of the Palestinian Desk at Israel's Ministry for Strategic Affairs, said Sinwar represents "one of the most radical and extreme lines of Hamas." He described Sinwar as a "bitter enemy" of Egypt who is focused on building Hamas' military capabilities. "The idea that he was elected is a very dangerous and concerning indication of the destabilization of the region," Michael said.

A New York Times backgrounder ["Hamas Appoints Hard-Line Militant as Gaza Leader"] quotes Israeli security experts saying Sinwar "had the status of prisoner No. 1" and that he was the "most senior prisoner released, and clearly destined for leadership".

A great pity Israelis weren't told any of this before the Shalit Deal went through and this man was set loose despite the four uncompleted life-terms to which he had been duly sentenced. The prison system surely had some assessments of this thug on its files. They knew him and what the price of letting him loose might entail.

Sinwar comes accompanied with a pair of loyal deputies who likewise are Shalit Deal graduates:

At Israel’s Nafha Prison, Sanwar created a circle of activists who were loyal to him. Two of them, who were released along with Sanwar, are now in key posts in the Hamas security apparatus. Ruhi Mushtaha is in charge of the prisoner portfolio and Tawfik Abu Naim heads the internal security apparatus in Gaza. [Haaretz]

As parents of a child whose murderers - several of them - walked free in the catastrophic Shalit transaction, we wonder when its tragic harvest will be more widely acknowledged. It represents a moment of massive misjudgment which, we fear, will haunt Israel and the Jewish people for years to come.

Some background reading: 

23-Jan-17: Another Shalit Deal outcome, another life sentence, another bereaved family • 13-Sep-16: Could Israel be about to release convicted terrorists in another deal? • 24-Dec-15: Another terror outrage narrowly averted - and Shalit Deal releasees are again at the heart of the darkness • 11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising  • 27-Nov-15: Our daughter won't be with us today as we remember her birthday • 23-Aug-15: Do they understand the price of freeing the hunger-striking terrorists? • “Palestinians freed in Shalit deal killed 6 Israelis since 2014" [Times of Israel, July 20, 2015] • 20-Jul-15: Pausing for a moment to reflect on when we lost our collective senses • 19-Jul-15: Another catastrophic outcome of the 2011 Shalit Deal • 27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved • “Ten lessons the Shalit deal taught us”, Frimet Roth, Times of Israel, October 15, 2014 • 30-Sep-14: Martyrs and monsters • 11-Sep-14: Freeing terrorists: The price in human lives lost and in justice perverted keeps getting clearer • 11-Aug-14: Shalit Transaction revisited: At what point does facing up to the cost of a disastrous decision become unavoidable? • 23-Jun-14: Quietly, inexorably, almost entirely unreported, the lethal consequences of the Shalit Transaction grow • 4-May-14: Who cares about justice? About the victims? About truth? • 16-Apr-14: Capitulating to terrorism and lessons for a people in search of leaders • 18-Mar-14: Most don't understand what's so terribly wrong about freeing convicted terrorists before they complete their lawful prison sentences • 27-Jan-14: Finally, they're starting to quantify the outcomes of the Shalit Transaction • 22-Dec-13: Delving into how those prisoner releases worked out • 18-Oct-13: Two years after the mass release of killers and other terrorists, a cry of pain • 22-Sep-13: Quote of the week: A growing understanding of what the Shalit deal has actually cost us • 27-Aug-13: Justice devalued, lives demeaned, principles cheapened: the high price of freeing murderers • 25-Aug-13: Wake up call for those who thought the terrorists are walking free for peace • 27-Jul-13: To defeat the terrorists, what one thing must a government never do? • 21-Jul-13: In the debate over whether Israel should free convicted terrorists, one key argument is mostly ignored • 13-Jun-13: Little-known sides to the post-Shalit careers of unjustly released killers • 10-Dec-12: The Gilad Shalit transaction continues to haunt and endanger us • 18-Oct-12: The Shalit deal a year later - a personal reflection • 17-Oct-12: Yediot: "Dozens of terrorists released in Shalit deal arrested by Shin Bet during past year" • 10-Jun-12: "Prime Minister Netanyahu: Honor the principles of justice and decency on which our nation is based • 17-Apr-12: Turns out the terrorists freed for Shalit are still doing terrorism. Who would have thought it? • 19-Oct-11: Haaretz: Shalit prisoner swap marks 'colossal failure' for mother of Israeli bombing victim • 18-Oct-11: "The statistical likelihood of more murders in the wake of a mass release of terrorists... is a certainty"  • 18-Oct-11: Frimet Roth speaks about our daughter's murderer going free (audio) • 17-Oct-11: "The public has been given a false sense that there were no other options" • 17-Oct-11: Releasing terrorists: "The calculation is based on extortion" • 16-Oct-11: "Do not free my daughter's murderer" (Haaretz today) • 15-Oct-11: From today's NY Times: "This deal is a disaster" • 15-Oct-11: Video: The murderer of our child says: "I don't regret anything" • 20-Jul-11: How the media hijacked the campaign to free Gilad Shalit • 23-Nov-09: On freeing a monster • 22-Jul-08: The once and future child murderer

10-Oct-16: Does yesterday's Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack say anything about our neighbours?

The cold-blooded murder of Levanah
Malichi at a Jerusalem tram
stop yesterday has warmed many
Palestinian Arab hearts

It's hard to think about the explosion of violence ["09-Oct-16: In Jerusalem, first reports of Arab-on-Israeli shootings this morning"] yesterday in this city of great beauty and of peace and spirituality without reflecting on the awful savagery of the past several years. Do yesterday's events add anything to our understanding?

In the aftermath of Sunday's attack by a lethally-armed Palestinian Arab attacker on unarmed Israelis standing at tram-stops in the capital, the New York Times looked at the people behind the attack:

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Palestinian coastal territory of Gaza, praised the attack and described the gunman as “one of ours.” Al Quds, the Hamas-affiliated television station, broadcast a video that it said was exclusive to the channel and that it described as the perpetrator’s last words. It was not clear when or where the video had been filmed. In it, the man, wearing a green polo shirt, the color of Islam and of Hamas’s flag, stood before a map of historic Palestine.

Not an outright claim of ownership - though Times of Israel says it is, quoting Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum who characterized the cowardly shooting of randomly-targeted Israelis as “a natural reaction to the crimes and violations of the occupation against our people.”

Hamas are riding the wave of Palestinian Arab support for savagery of Sunday morning's kind. And not to be out-flanked, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement also praised that attack, calling it “heroic.”

How widespread is that support?

We offered a view some months ago, in "15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?". The picture provided by reputable Arab pollsters is strikingly consistent. The answers are so clear-cut and so extreme that it's astounding they are referred to so little in the news commentary provided by 'experts'.

Here's one of the ways the flames keep being stoked. Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel's Middle East analyst, writes that members of the killer's family

joined the celebrations of his “martyrdom,” handing out candies to all those who passed by their house. Even his young daughter put out a video in which she expressed her joy in her father becoming a “shahid” (martyr)... The terrorist published a “will” in which he called on Muslims to act to protect the [Al-Aqsa] mosque.  ["Does the Jerusalem terror attack signal a new uprising?", Times of Israel, October 9, 2016]

The killer's daughter is Ma'an's principal focus today. The father
earlier posted a statement saying "We sacrifice
our children for Al-Aqsa".

The family's adulation of yesterday's murders, and of the murderer, is a major talking point for the reporters and editors of Ma'an News Agency. The main story on their English-language news site at this moment (Monday October 10, 2016 at 12 noon) is headed "Israeli forces detain slain Palestinian gunman's 14-year-old daughter"

A video of Eiman hailing her father’s actions went viral on social media on Sunday. "We deem my father as martyr,” she said in the video. “We hope he will plead for us before God on judgment day… I am proud of what my father did..." 

From the same Arab source, additional hard-to-miss signs of how much support there is currently in Palestinian Arab circles for the murder of innocent Jews:

Hamas said on Sunday afternoon that Abu Sbeih was a member of its Islamic resistance movement. Meanwhile, the Fatah movement in Jerusalem declared a day of mourning for slain Palestinians on Sunday afternoon following Abu Sbeih’s death. Fatah said in a statement it rejected Israeli forces’ killing of Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem, and that it would never leave the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the Old City “fall prey” to Israeli “extremists and terrorists” Ma'an News Agency, October 10, 2016]

Yosef Kirmah, newly-married, a '
decorated anti-terrorism hero,
now dead

Fatah, to remind those of lose sight of such things, is headed by "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority:

In two separate posts on its official Facebook page, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Movement honored the terrorist murderer... Fatah referred to the murderer as a "Shahid," an Islamic Martyr - someone who died for Allah - a status the Palestinian Authority presents as the highest achievement a Muslim can reach in life. Defining a dead murderer as a Shahid indicates that according to Fatah, the murder of Israelis is sanctioned and even desired in the name of Islam. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that it is PA and Fatah policy to glorify terrorist murderers and turn them into role models for Palestinian society.
Fatah and the Palestinian Authority for quite some time have been defining the conflict with Israel as a religious war, defining all attackers and the murderers of Israelis as heroic defenders of Islam and its symbols. Fatah's Jerusalem branch announced "mourning and a general strike for Palestine's Martyrs" and specifically mentioned today's killer - "this morning's Martyr" and vowed to "defend the honor of the Arab and Islamic nations with our bare chests"... Voice of Palestine Radio likewise reported that the Jerusalem branch of Fatah announced a day of mourning and a general strike in Jerusalem “due to the death of the Shahid Abu Sbeih.” [Palestinian Media Watch, October 9, 2016]

The head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, reportedly phoned the parents of the dead terrorist last night from his penthouse suite in Qatar, absurdly telling them his deeds “defended the Palestinian people” who, he said, were “proud” of what he did and who will serve as an “example” to his contemporaries. “Hamas will carry on it its jihad until Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are liberated from the impurity of the occupation”, said Mashal in a reminder of one of the central truths of the generations-long bloody conflict: it has almost nothing to do with creating another Arab state, and everything to do with destroying the only Jewish one.

In addition to the six wounded, two Israelis were killed in yesterday's murderous attack. 

Yosef Kirmah, an officer in an Israel Police counter-terrorism unit, the Yasam (a Hebrew acronym for Special Patrol Unit), was one of the police motor-cyclists who pursued the gunman after the attack and engaged in a gunfight with him in which the gunman also died. He was 29. Hundreds attended his funeral late yesterday at Jerusalem's Mt Herzl Military Cemetery:

In her eulogy, Noy Kirma, whose husband had been awarded a medal of honor last December for thwarting a Palestinian stabbing attack on kindergarten kids, continued: “How many plans we had — for a home and children. You loved me more than I love myself... You were my shoulder to lean on…” said the young widow, who had been married to the Israeli hero for only six months before his life was cut short. “You were loved by all. You were number one in their eyes. Number one in my eyes. I don’t know how the world will turn without you…You will be in my heart until the day I die.” [Algemeiner, October 9, 2016]

A Facebook page, quickly set up in his memory, served as a magnet for expressions of incitement and hatred during yesterday. Israel National News says:

Facebook users from Israel’s Arab sector bombarded Kirma’s memorial page with abusive taunts, anti-Semitic smears, and explicit incitement to violence and even threats of murder. Some of the offensive posts included images of anti-Semitic caricatures, pictures of bloody drawn knives and vulgar language.

Levanah Malichi, the second victim of yesterday's shooting ramage, died of her injuries at the Hadassah hospital on nearby Mt. Scopus. She left behind a husband, three children and six grandchildren. Many Jerusalemites remember her fondly from the three decades of her work on the administrative and logistics side of the Knesset, Israel's parliament. The Knesset speaker Yuli Edestein is expected to eulogize Malichi at her funeral today.

The police say (according to Haaretz) that the shooter

used a .556-caliber automatic rifle, in contrast to the crude, homemade firearms typically used in past attacks... [P]olice were trying to determine how the shooter had obtained the weapon.

It's unlikely that that particular high-power, automatic weapon is the only one currently in the hands of murder-minded Palestinian Arabs, already well-equipped with what are sometimes called home-made guns. The current tensions are unlikely to abate soon.

The same is true of the open adulation for the dead gunman, as evidenced by doing a Google search on "الشهيد أبو صبيح". Those Arabic words translate to "Martyr Abu Sabih", which is the name more than 60,000 hits give at this hour to the man who mercilessly opened fire with his high-powered rifle on unsuspecting Israeli commuters yesterday in order to "save" a house of prayer. In a string of Facebook posts, the gunman offered such thoughts as "We sacrifice our souls and our blood for you Al-Aqsa" and "We sacrifice our children for Al-Aqsa".

His frame of mind and his actions are likely on the minds of many other Palestinian Arabs today.

We're wide open to being shown Arabic-language condemnations of the pointless killings perpetrated in Jerusalem yesterday. If there are truly angry Arab voices out there, or even just some expressions of Palestinian Arab despair at the open bigotry and the immorality of celebrating murders, people need to hear them and know about them.

We're waiting, as we have been for some time.

22-Dec-15: Has a Hamas terror insider just been thrown out of Turkey?

Al-Arouri addresses a global gathering of Islamic scholars in Istanbul's
Cevahir Hotel, August 20, 2014, and claims credit on behalf of Hamas
for the abduction and murder of three Israeli boys in Gush Etzion
some weeks earlier [Screen shot]

If the name Saleh Mohammad Suleiman Al-‘Arouri is not familiar to you, it should be.

Saleh Al-Arouri is in the news this evening because, according to reports published today, the senior terrorist, Hamas politbureau member and Islamist preacher has just been expelled from Turkey. News reports today say this is in accordance with an Israeli request in the context of the re-normalization of relations between the two countries. But there are differing versions of what has just happened.

According to the Ynet version today,

Israel established al-Arouri's expulsion from the country as a condition for achieving full reconciliation between Ankara and Jerusalem. Al-Arouri's "voluntary" departure was agreed upon during the meeting between Hamas' political chief, Khaled Mashal and Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu last Saturday. Nevertheless, Erdogan clarified to close associates that he had no intention of closing Hamas' offices in Turkey and would not stop his financial and moral support of Hamas, as Israel requested...  It was also agreed upon that al-Arouri would be expelled from Turkey and that talks about laying a gas pipeline between Israel and Turkey would soon begin. [Hamas leader expelled from Turkey | Ynet, December 22, 2015]

One of the founders of Hamas, Al-Arouri is a veteran of Israel's prison system where he spent 15 (some say 18) years. On release in 2007, he was expelled to Syria. Hamas' offices in Syria were shut down in 2012, at which point he and several terrorist colleagues were welcomed to Turkey. We have had occasion to write several times about the savagery over which he presided from there:

• 11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising
• 27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved
• 30-Sep-14: Martyrs and monsters
• 11-Sep-14: Freeing terrorists: The price in human lives lost and in justice perverted keeps getting clearer

On August 20, 2014, speaking from the principal dais at a gathering in Istanbul of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, Al-Arouri publicly confessed that Hamas was behind the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenage boys some weeks earlier, an act of terror that ignited passions right across the spectrum of Israeli public opinion. (The global association of "scholars" has its own YouTube channel. His speech, in Arabic with English-language subtitles, is online.)

It seems Turkey's decision to separate itself from Al-Arouri is not intended for full disclosure, if Ynet's sources are right:

Turkish media were asked Monday to not publish the reason for al-Arouri's expulsion from the country. Newspaper editors were told that the official reason given would be that he left of his "own free will"... [Ynet]

The same sources say the terrorist is likely to take up residence in Qatar where several of his Hamas colleagues are luxuriously ensconced already, or - which seems less likely - in Lebanon.

The Jerusalem Post offers a different take. Quoting Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based newspaper, it says today that Al-Arouri left Turkey several months ago "so as not to embarrass Turkey, which was facing big pressure from Israel and the US Administration”, and is now "shuttling between Qatar and Lebanon... The source also denied that Turkey had banned Al-Arouri from entering the country".

In Turkey, credible reports have been circulating for months that Al-Arouri had already moved elsewhere. Hurriyet Daily News, in an August 12, 2015 report headlined "Hamas leader Arouri not in Turkey" quoted officials from that country's foreign ministry saying not only that he was no longer a resident of Turkey but never had been. The same report quotes Israel's Channel 10 News saying in early August pretty much what Ynet and the Jerusalem Post have reported as news today - that

Turkey had bowed to pressure by the United States and ordered al-Arouri, who Israel has accused of organizing terrorist attacks in the West Bank, to leave the country... [Hurriyet, August 12, 2015]

Why did Turkey agree? Because, according to the August 2015 report, that was one of the Western prerequisites for Turkey’s entry into the coalition of forces fighting ISIS. (Personally, we're not persuaded.)

A respected Turkish newspaper, Today's Zaman, tells things over a little differently, asserting that

Turkey and Israel have agreed that Salah al-Arouri, a senior leader of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, who has been living in Turkey will not be allowed to operate from there...  The AK Party's recent change of heart towards the Israelis came after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signaled when returning from a trip to Turkmenistan earlier in December that the region would benefit from Turkey and Israel's rapprochement... ["Turkey says talks to mend ties with Israel positive, no change in preconditions", Today's Zaman, December 22, 2015]

Whatever the fine details, if the Islamist savage is now involuntarily on the move and no longer able to call Turkey home, we can hope something good might yet come of it.

30-Nov-15: Incitement to savagery costs lives on all sides so why doesn't everyone want to shut it down?

Ahlam Tamimi: It's not every day you see the parents of a murdered child
posting an image as explicit as this one depicting the now-free-as-a-bird 
socipathic killer exulting merrily over what she did

If you saw another of our posts today ["30-Nov-15: Radio that kills: silencing it"], you will be aware that incitement to killing and violence has gotten some of the Israeli government's attention in recent days and for deadly serious reasons.

Now there's a related move, this time, perhaps surprisingly, attributed to the Mahmoud Abbas regime in Ramallah:

The Palestinian Authority on Monday instructed its broadcasting authority to indefinitely suspend Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV programming in the West Bank. “The PA’s security apparatuses have announced officially to all broadcasters in the West Bank that they are forbidden from airing the Al-Aqsa network,” Hamas confirmed in a statement on Facebook. Israeli watchdog groups have long-claimed Al-Aqsa TV promotes terrorist activity, teaches anti-Semitism and incites hatred of Israelis, especially in its programming for children. Monday’s move was seen as an attempt by Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to tackle Hamas “incitement” and in so doing to curb the almost-daily clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian rioters. ["PA orders Hamas TV off the air in West Bank", Times of Israel, November 30, 2015]

Incitement is expensive in terms of lives lost and ruined on all sides of the conflict. We know about the cost from up close. It might not surprise to know that we have a very personal interest in this.

Our daughter's murderer, a woman called Ahlam Tamimi who was in her early twenties at the time, was charged with 15 counts of murder for engineering the August 9, 2001 massacre at Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria. For this, she was tried, convicted on her own comprehensive and unblinking admission, and eventually sentenced to 16 terms of life imprisonment. Along with the judgment, the panel of three judges saw fit to add an explicit recommendation: that no consideration ever be given by the Israeli authorities to releasing her early.

This was ignored.

In October 2011, she walked free, her life-sentences conditionally commuted (there were very real conditions), and went back to Jordan where she had been born and where her family live.

We warned whoever would listen [via the BBC for instance, as well as NPR, Canada's CBC, Haaretz, The Guardian, CNN, Le Figaro and dozens of other mainstream media channels] that she was not done with terrorism. This proved, of course, to be right and then some.

Tamimi's influence has grown greatly since her release. As we noted in this blog some months ago

[I]n December [2014] she was proclaimed the "Success Model" of the students at the Arab world's most important graduate school for journalists, an institution [called the Jordan Media Institute] modeled on the Columbia School of Journalism and founded by the woman previously known as Rym Brahimi who graduated Columbia and who then spent years working as an on-camera reporter for CNN. As Princess Rym Ali, she is now the king of Jordan's sister-in-law.

Tamimi travels freely and often throughout the Arab world. And she hosts a weekly television program on the Al-Aqsa TV. As we noted in an earlier post ["6-May-12: What lies behind freedom of the Palestinian Arab press?"], starting in February 2012, just four months after her release from an Israeli prison cell, her career

has been on a sharply-upward trajectory. She got her own glossy television program that is beamed by satellite every Friday night into all parts of the Arabic speaking world via the Al-Quds TV channel. That's one of two global-facing television channels operated by the Hamas terrorist regime; the other is called Al-Aqsa TV. Her weekly program, "Naseem Al Ahrar" (translation: “Breezes of the Free”) focuses on the injustices allegedly visited on Palestinian Arab prisoners languishing in Israeli custody... [A]t the age of 31, this woman possesses one of the most prominent and influential platforms that an Arabic-only journalist could ever dream of having. 

Tamimi hosting the March 23, 2015 edition of her weekly televised paean to
terrorism, Islamist-style, produced in Jordan for Hamas and beamed
throughout the world

Tamimi was the first female terrorist in the ranks of the blood-soaked Hamas jihad organization. Her undiminished enthusiasm for its barbarism is widely advertised on the web.

In 1999, under Jordan's then and current ruler, King Abdullah II and shortly after the death of his father King Hussein, the Hashemite Kingdom banned Hamas. Fearing the presence of "radical Islamic elements", it accused Hamas of engaging in "illegitimate activities within Jordan" and "clandestine paramilitary training and... of penetrating local fundamentalist opposition parties". Khaled Mashaal, who today heads Hamas, was arrested that year on returning to Jordan from a visit to Iran but - reflecting the tightrope-walking for which the kingdom is famous - the Jordanian king very soon afterwards flew him by private jet into "exile". That's how he came to live in Syria for some years, before trading that for considerably more-glossy Qatar where he currently resides.

A New York Times report at the time said the Jordanians

adamantly denied that the [Jordanian kingdom's] crackdown had been conducted at the behest of Washington or Israel. But they acknowledged that the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, had asked Amman to take action against what he saw as a dangerous source of rebellion against his peace negotiations with Israel. 

Quoting an Indian newspaper from November 22, 1999, one source said that Hamas leaders were warned by Jordan that "firm action would be taken if the Palestinian organization resumed its activities on Jordanian soil".

Our impression is that this "firm action" has never been taken very seriously. The reality is clear in the way the Hashemite regime has consistently turned a blind eye to the production in Amman each week of "Naseem Al Ahrar", the Hamas TV show that Tamimi fronts. That has been the case for nearly four years.

How difficult is it to see the evidence? It's not. The Tamimi show is easy to find and to watch, even for people living far from the Middle East. YouTube hosts an Al-Quds channel where more than 170 episodes [click to see an interactive list] of Ahlam Tamimi's weekly tribute to terrorism and terrorists are stored and viewable online, though without Arabic-to-English subtitles. We have watched many of them. With the help of Arabic-speaking friends, we have come to understand that this loathsome young woman with a cold passion for murder [view this 2012 video with English subtitles] may be one of the most powerful marketing tools in the entire murderous Hamas arsenal.

On the day she returned to Amman after being conditionally freed in an
extortion deal, Tamimi arrived at Jordan's Family Court for a reception in
her honour, one of many that followed throughout the
Arab world, but especially in Jordan [Image Source]

We pointed out above that all the Al-Quds programming is beamed throughout the world by satellite to wherever there are potential audiences i.e. Arabic speakers. This means there's almost nowhere on earth where ordinary Arabic-speaking folk with access to satellite programming can't watch their favorite jihadist.

But in the internet age, even that's more technology than a person needs. Click here to see a long list of streaming sites that will bring the same message of terrorist "heroism" and dead Jews onto the laptop, smartphone or home computer of anyone with a connection to the web.

That includes the Al-Quds website itself; it's streaming live Al-Quds programming into our home as we write this. Obviously most of our readers probably don't speak Arabic. But all of us live among many people who do. In the privacy of their homes or phone screens, access to this hateful, violent programming is just a click away. The success of the Tamimi show, running for four years and going strong, testifies to those global clicks.

The Tamimi story raises troubling questions. Among them:

• Why does Jordan, which even now bans Hamas from its territory, allow hateful extremist Hamas TV programming to be created and up-beamed weekly (at least) from downtown Amman? 
• If the Palestinian Authority has silenced Al-Quds and Tamimi, why does Jordan not immediately follow suit?
• Why do Jordan's friends, the countries with whom it has diplomatic relations (for instance the United Kingdom, Denmark, Switzerland, the Vatican, the United States, Sweden, the EU, Australia and many others) not whisper into the Jordanian authorities' ears and suggest this does not advance Jordan's interests? Ordinary folk who live in those places can easily notify their politicians and especially their foreign ministries of how repugnant it is to them that their country turns a blind eye to the Jordanian indulgence of lethal incitement.
• Why, knowing who Tamimi is and what she stands for, the pride she takes in the massacre she engineered, in the deaths she caused, don't those ambassadors accredited to Jordan explain to their diplomatic hosts what they already know: that the Jordanians, by turning a blind eye or (which is just as likely) encouraging Tamimi's missionizing for Hamas, are active participants in incitement to murder by their actions and by their failures to act? People are being killed.

From experience, we don't have much faith in the power of petitions. We managed to sign up more than 8,000 people from all over the world in the space of three days back in 2011 when we badly wanted to stop Tamimi, our child's killer, walking free. Other than an exercise in raising consciousness, the effort was mostly a painful and frustrating waste of time and effort.

We prefer on this issue to publicize our request by bringing it to the attention of the decision-makers in Jordan and in countries friendly with Jordan. We need help in doing that - help from people who understand how serious the issue of incitement to terrorism is and who care. 

Please comment below if you can offer some concrete suggestions, or email us at thisongoingwar (at) gmail.com