02-Jul-23: A festival, a funeral and failed leaders

Tamimi is a featured interviewee on Al-Aqsa TV (and Facebook) June 30, 2023

America's most wanted female fugitive made a featured appearance on global TV again this past Friday. 

Ahlam Tamimi, a designated FBI Most Wanted terrorist since March 2017, looked jubilant as the centerpiece of a 25 minute interview on the Al-Aqsa TV network. It's been beaming programs daily from Gaza to Arabic-speaking audiences in every part of the world since 2006. 

The background is worth knowing. In 2010, the US Department of the Treasury, calling it "a television station financed and controlled by Hamas", designated Al-Aqsa TV as 

a primary Hamas media outlet [that] airs programs and music videos designed to recruit children to become Hamas armed fighters and suicide bombers upon reaching adulthood. Treasury will not distinguish between a business financed and controlled by a terrorist group, such as Al-Aqsa Television, and the terrorist group itself... [link]

Treasury designations like this one are intended to freeze assets held by the station and to

prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in any transactions with these parties. Executive Order 13224 targets terrorists, terrorist organizations, persons owned or controlled by or acting for or on behalf of designated terrorists or terrorist organizations, and those providing financial, material, or technological support to designated terrorists or terrorist organizations, or for acts of terrorism [Source]

Sounds fearsome. 

But for years, video programming that originates with Al-Aqsa TV has gotten a considerable part of its global distribution and exposure from Facebook. Could this amount to giving "financial, material, or technological support to designated terrorists"? It's a question that was posed in the past.

Ahlam Tamimi, who has long called her central role in the massacre of Jewish children in Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria in 2001 "a crown on my head", was interviewed live on Friday June 30, 2023 in a program marking the festival of Eid al Adha. 

The adulatory interview, entirely devoid of criticism and long on compliments and adulation, ran for 25 minutes on Al-Aqsa TV that day. It remains viewable now on Facebook [here].

Rambling and unfocused, with lengthy elements of theology, it calls for understanding of the greatness of what jihadists like Tamimi see themselves personifying. When Tamimi has the media's attention, it's generally about her dedication, her determination, her victimhood. And sometimes about her skillful cooking:

...I mean, I am a professional in making Jordanian mansaf [lamb cooked in fermented dried yogurt, served with rice or bulgur - considered the national dish of Jordan]... I mean, I make mansaf and feed everyone, God willing. I want to talk. Mansaf is also one of the dishes that Nizar and I love. Most Palestinian prisoners and editors also love this dish. On the other hand, I mean, if I want to compare to you, we used to make Mansaf in prison. No one asked me this question honestly. The method of making it in prison is completely different from the way it is made in. In freedom, God willing, in future episodes. If you want to talk about this talk, it is necessary, we would love it very much.

This, remember, is an interview with a confessed mass murderer.

* * *

Until a month ago, the death toll that resulted from Tamimi's August 9, 2001 execution of an act of violent savagery on behalf of Hamas was 15. 

Two of those killed were Americans. Our daughter Malka Chana Roth, 15, was one. And a young American Jewish tourist (and her parents' only child) visiting Jerusalem briefly while pregnant for the first time, was the other. Sveeral American nationals were injured.  

The number of murdered rose to 16 on May 30, 2023. Chana Tova Nachenberg had been profoundly injured in the Sbarro bombing when a splinter of shrapnel penetrated her skull, rendering her comatose - but sparing her toddler daughter. A month ago, she died in a Tel Aviv hospice, having never recovered consciousness throughout the nearly twenty-two years that ensued. 

Chana Finer Nachenberg's grave

Her closest family - parents, husband, only child - visited her for years, praying, hoping, weaping, wishing for a miracle that never came. 

Then the vigil came to an end.

We hope none of them ever hears Tamimi wail, as she did on Al-Aqsa this past Friday, about how

I am trying to be happy and get joy. But I mean, the family entity has been shaken because of this forced distance, because of constant demands, constant pursuit. However there is no listening ear to our cause as if [it were we who] committed the massacres of the whole world. They want to put the blame on my back and Nizar's back. [Source]

Her family entity has been shaken, says Tamimi, the proud murderer? It's a reference to how Nizar Tamimi, her husband and cousin, an unrepentant convicted murderer imprisoned for life and freed, like Ahlam Tamimi, in the notorious Shalit Deal in 2011, now lives free in Qatar after Jordan declared him persona non grata in 2020 ["Jordan deports Sbarro bomber’s husband, also a convicted terrorist, to Qatar", Times of Israel, October 13, 2020]

But the presenter, like every presenter of every interview Tamimi has done in all her years of obscene celebrity, doesn't once mention the children this barbarian blew to pieces. 

In the Arabic-language media, there is zero interest in addressing the humanity of Tamimi's murdered victims. Tamimi herself has said repeatedly she has no regrets. She would do it again if she could. 

In a startlingly large number of Arab media outlets, our beautiful fifteen year old daughter is repeatedly called "zionist rapist". So are all the other Sbarro pizzeria victims, some of whom never reached their teens. 

The horror is not limited to Tamimi.

* * *

The dedication ceremony at the fresh graveside of Chana Tova Nachenberg this past Friday included no references to more violence. No calls for revenge. No bitterness or anger. But much heartbreaking wistfulness, deep longing, love.

The FBI issued a Most Wanted Terrorist poster for Ahlam Tamimi in March 2017. It says she's dangerous and likely armed. You can see the English and Arabic versions here.

In the past week, evidently triggered by the increase after so many years of the number of dead, and of the Americans among them, the FBI with no fanfare has just issued an updated version which shows Tamimi looking 43 years old. It also updates the death toll.

King Hussein and President Clinton

What it doesn't say, at least not in the way we think should be said, is that Ahlam Tamimi remains free, a celebrity, safe under the illicit protection of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. 

Why illicit? 

Because a 1995 extradition treaty made between the William J. Clinton administration and the late King Hussein of Jordan, the father of today's Jordanian ruler, gives Jordan no discretion in the matter. 

If pursuant to the treaty America asks for the handover of a fugitive wanted by the US justice system which Tamimi certainly is, Jordan can really only ask "Which flight?" 

Jordan has issued a host of alibis and made-up rationales to conceal the truth of why it refuses to extradite Tamim to Washington where she began facing terror charges under seal in July 2013. (The charges were made public only on March 14, 2017 after years of unproiductive efforts by the United States to induce Jordanian compliance with its undoubted treaty obligation.)

From speaking with a wide selection of authorities, it's clear to us that Jordan's self-excusing acrobatics aren't taken seriously by anyone. 

It's also worth noting that in the formal ratification document signed back in 1995 (we obtained the documents by personally suing the State Department), King Hussein expressing himself in formalized language (and understandably using the Royal "We") says that Jordan pledges

to carry out its provisions and abide by its articles and... shall not allow its violation. Accordingly We have ordered that Our Seal be affixed to it and We have signed it properly 

Jordan did in fact observe the provisions and articles of the treaty appropriately and conscientiously every time the US requested an extradition, as a treaty partner of course must. That however came to an end with the Tamimi case, years after King Hussein's death.

* * *

It's hard to ignore how Tamimi's continued freedom, her encouragement of more terror, her glorification of the murders she carried out, her inciting of others to do the same, all get buried again and again by those who ought to have taken action years ago. 

Since this is about justice, there's plenty of disgrace to go around.

* * *

This post, like many others before it, has been translated into the Polish language ("Święto, pogrzeb i nieudane przywództwo") by Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.

13-Mar-23: The Sbarro bomber says she has rights and she's demanding them

In Amman on March 10, 2023, a crowd of Tamimi supporters calls on
King Abdullah II to return the pizzeria bomber's husband to her [Image Source]

The Sbarro bomber, FBI Most Wanted fugitive terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, has embarked on a pre-Ramadan campaign to get her husband back.

Where did he go? To Qatar, as we wrote at the time ["04-Oct-20: The Sbarro bomber's husband has been forced to leave Jordan: A snapshot of developments"].

He appears - that's what reports are saying - to be taking up residence in Qatar. But note that the government of Jordan has said precisely not one word. And no reports of him actually being in Qatar have emerged yet. There's room to be cautious in interpreting what's happened. [Source]

We noted back then, some two and a half years ago, that the abandoned wife had issued this "special statement":

The expulsion of her husband from the Hashemite Kingdom came "suddenly and without prior coordination" [the special statement of Ahlam Tamimi said] and "at a very sensitive time... in light of increasing American demands to extradite me to there... The deportation of my husband Nizar was met with much joy and pleasure in the Zionist newspapers."  The husband's deportation is, she fears, "a prelude to handing her over to the American authorities." This is very wrong since, as she puts it, "it is my right for my husband to live with me on Jordanian lands with dignity just like all other Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians." 

Ahlam Tamimi is a stunningly cold killer who boasts of her central role in two bombing atrocities in Jerusalem, one of which actually happened. 

She has never expressed a single word of remorse for the massive loss of innocent lives including that of our precious fifteen year-old daughter Malki. Those murdered by her bomb get no mention in this latest of her publicity campaigns.

For someone described in law enforcement posters as a person who "should be considered armed and dangerous", it's worth noting Tamimi's uncommon fixation with asserting her rights. She has been doing that again these past few days:

The human life of any Jordanian woman married to a non-Jordanian is a right and a natural requirement for Jordanian women on Jordanian soil... I mean, I am asking for a reunion with my husband. At this moment, it has been two and a half years since I was removed from my husband, but I cannot go to him because there are many security agreements that govern other countries with America. Leaving Jordan puts me in danger if I leave Jordan and go to any other country. Therefore, the best solution is the return of my husband... This is our right as Jordanians and an entitlement because I am a fighter who has suffered in Zionist prisons for ten and a half years. Therefore, through you [a news interviewer], I appeal to the Jordanian tribes... I appeal to the hearts of Jordanian tribes, mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, to support and stand by me in this darkness. We are at the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, a month characterized by mercy and compassion. I hope you will sympathize with me and my cause, especially since at the end of 2022 in November, my father died. We asked the concerned authorities to allow Nizar [Ahlam Tamimi's cousin and hasband] to come - my father is Nizar's uncle - in order to attend his uncle's funeral and stand by me. This request was absolutely rejected. If such humanitarian situations arise, Nizar will not be allowed to come to Jordan. When will the family be reunited? Before Ramadan, I ask you for mercy. I ask you for sympathy. I ask you for sympathy. [Source: Video interview of Ahlam Tamimi published by Facebook]

Tamimi's appeal via Gaza's Shehab Agency

She made a push for those same rights a day earlier in another video interview, this time with a Gaza-based, Hamas-aligned news platform called Shehab Agency whose Facebook presence was shut down by Facebook in 2021:

I am exposed to great darkness [an Arabic-speaking friend who saw this says "injustice" is a better translation] in Jordanian territory... This darkness [injustice] hurts me every time because it has shaken the entity of family stability. In 2020, the decision was made to remove my husband from Jordan without knowing the reason. We received verbal reasons that he was an unwanted person on Jordanian territory and was removed from Jordanian territory... During the two and a half years, I have tried to claim my rights as Jordanians married to a Palestinian man. These are the rights of Jordanian women in Jordan. I have asked my husband more than once to return to Jordan in order to be reunited with the family, in light of the fact that I am being subjected to an American attack by [the threat of them] rearresting me in America and I cannot leave Jordan. In addition, in 2017, I obtained a Jordanian judicial decision from the highest Jordanian discrimination body to reject the American request for my arrest. Therefore, my presence in Jordan is a legal right by judicial decision... When I got out of prison... I was hosted and welcomed by the King of Jordan [but] all these privileges were systematically taken from me - and my husband was expelled. Therefore, I am not honored as a Palestinian-Jordanian activist on Jordanian soil. On the contrary, I was separated from my husband and my family life was disrupted. They do not want to return my husband to me. I do not work in the media... and have been subjected to unjustified persecution for which there is no convincing reason. Therefore, through the Shehab Agency, I want to speak and send a message and appeal to the King of Jordan to look into my grievances. So the King of Jordan: in history, when a woman appealed to the Caliph al-Mutasim... he answered her call and got her out of prison. Therefore, King of Jordan... Respond to my call to return my husband to reunite my family by directing your decision to the concerned authorities... As a helpless Jordanian woman, return my husband to me as we enter the holy month of Ramadan. I hope to receive an appeal through Al-Shehab Agency to listen and that this family will be reunited. May God bless you to send my message through this platform on International Women's Day, when I am exposed to great darkness on Jordanian soil... [Source: Video interview of Ahlam Tamimi with Shehab Agency via Twitter]

There's much Arabic social media coverage of Tamimi's cries from the "darkness" of Jordan these past few days. And of her efforts to attract synpathy for what she calls the loss of "family stability".

Not so much in English. Middle East Monitor, a news platform that uses the revealing motto "Creating New Perspectives", offers a version ["Activist: Jordan is putting pressure on freed prisoner, Ahlam Tamimi", Macrh 10, 2023] that's notable for its distortions, deletions and sloppiness with the facts.

Here's how it describes Tamimi and what got her famous:

On 9 August 2001, a Palestinian man broke into a pizza restaurant in occupied Jerusalem and blew himself up, killing 15 people including two American citizens, one of whom was Malki Roth, an Israeli-American woman. 

Tamimi was arrested for her alleged involvement in the operation weeks later and was sentenced to 16 life sentences. She was released in 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Palestinian factions. She currently lives in Jordan.

Last year, a document issued by the Interpol revealed that Tamimi's name had been removed from its wanted list.

In 1995, the United States and Jordan signed an extradition treaty, but in 2017, Jordan's high court blocked Tamimi's extradition, since the treaty was never ratified.

In 2013, the Justice Department included Tamimi on the FBI's most wanted list and charged her with "conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction against Americans outside the United States". [Source]

About their "New Perspectives" it's worth noting that:

• the unnamed "Palestinian man" didn't break into a pizza restaurant but walked in through the unguarded front entrance. 
• His name was Al-Masri and he was carrying an explosives-filled guitar-case on his back. He was decapitated by the explosion which killed 15 innocent patrons inside the pizzeria and left a sixteenth, a young mother, unconscious until today. About 130 other people were injured, many of them horribly. Among the victims were several US citizens. 
• Tamimi accompanied the human bomb to the doomed pizzeria by bus and taxi from Ramallah and then fled to safety before he and the building exploded. The pizzeria was chosen as her target by Tamimi because of the large number of Jewish children it attracted at lunch-times. The children were in no sense caught up in the crossfire; their murders were the reason for the atrocity.  
• Most of those murdered were children. The Middle East Monitor people seem not to regard that as worth reporting. Given their outlook, we understand why they would fail to mention it. A small point, really. 
• Alleged involvement? Tamimi admitted every aspect of her "alleged involvement" to the Israeli court that heard the charges against her in 2003. She pleaded guilty. In the years since then Tamimi has repeatedly recounted - with undisguised enthusiasm and often in front of cameras - the details of the massacre she spearheaded and painstakingly plotted. 
• This doesn't stop the editors of this not-so-classy piece of journalism from referring to Tamimi as "freed prisoner" as if that's why she's in the news. 
• Jordan's Court of Cassation ruled on March 20, 2017, almost exactly six years ago, that the Jordan/US treaty was void because of an alleged technical flaw created exclusively by Jordan (and, assuming it exists, curable by Jordan). That court ruling is contradicted by documnts we received via a Freedom of Information Act suit we filed against the US State Department in a US federal district court. It's also challenged by the official position of the US which is that Jordan remains bound by the treaty. 
• Tamimi was added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list in 2017, not in 2013. She is still there. 
• That's because the United States indicted her (or to be more precise - issued a criminal complaint against her) six years ago. The Middle East Monitor report somehow overlooks that element. Their report makes no sense at all without mentioning it. 
• Tamimi's name was never removed from Interpol's wanted list. Interpol doesn't have a wanted list. The Middle East Monitor people have made the same erroneous and misleading claim in the past. Interpol provides information to police forces. It doesn't pursue criminals or issue warrants for their arrest or prosecute them.

Tamimi's crusade for sympathy and the exercise of her rights as a Jordanian woman is getting wide and noisy support in Jordan where the Royal Hashemite Court and much of the population are engaged this weekend in a wedding celebration. 

We're tracking this as it continues to unfold.

[UPDATE March 21, 2023: Something's moving. Tamimi has made at least six public appearances in the past 12 day, up to and including yesterday. They have been either in person before live audiences or via media, or in some cases both. After a lengthy period of relative silence, she is now speaking publicly in strongly critical tones that veer into open disrespect for Jordan's ruler and the Hashemite Court. Her rhetoric focuses on the disrespect to her rights. Yes, the fugitive murderer wants her rights to be better respected and she is making sure public audiences know this. More details as we assemble them.]  

01-May-22: A Congressional initiative sanctioning Jordan gets some Arab lobby attention

Fugitive "alleged" bomber Ahlam Tamimi has celebrity status in Jordan

New legislation introduced to the US Congress last month and centering on the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and its outrageous sheltering of a fugitive terrorist has gotten some initial attention in the Arab world. 

The background is in our post of a few days ago: "26-Apr-22: New legislation seeks to hold Jordan accountable for failure to send the Sbarro bomber for trial in Washington".

In the April 18, 2022 edition of its Washington Policy Weekly, the Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) posts this:

Rep. Steube Pressures Jordan. On April 14, Rep. Gregory Steube (R-Florida) introduced legislation to HFAC (H.R.7527) that would limit assistance to Jordan until it applies the provisions of a US-Jordanian extradition treaty that he claims was signed by the two countries in 1995. Jordan disputes the claim and has not ratified the treaty. Steube wants the Jordanian government to extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the United States for her alleged role in an attack on a pizza parlor in Israel in 2001.

"ACW... is guided by a strong belief in the

importance of democracy in the Arab world,

respect for human rights and civil liberties... "

But just how nonpartisan is this report and those who publish it? Two key terms - "he claims" and "her alleged role" - in this very brief ACW piece cry out for some adult attention. 

First, they're right when they say that Congressman Steube claims an extradition treaty was signed in 1995 between Jordan and the United States. But he's not alone. Who else claims it? 

At least two other parties do. One is the United States Department of State. It publishes an authoritative online list it calls Treaties in Force that runs to nearly 600 pages when printed. Look for the heading "Jordan" and the sub-heading "Law Enforcement" on page 243 and there it is: 

Extradition treaty.
Signed at Washington March 28, 1995.
Entered into force July 29, 1995.
TIAS

The second party is the late King Hussein, Jordan's ruler between 1952 and 1999. In a personally-signed document given to the Clinton administration as part of the making of that 1995 treaty, Hussein, the father of Jordan's present king, Abdullah II, forcefully delivered this solemn commitment on July 13, 1995:

…having reviewed the Extradition Treaty signed in Washington on March 28, 1995… [we] do hereby declare our agreement to and ratification of that Treaty in whole and in part. We further pledge to carry out its provisions and abide by its Articles and we, God willing, shall not allow its violation.

(We obtained the document last year via a successful Freedom of Information Act application.) 

King Hussein was true to his letter and did not allow the treaty's violation. In fact, it was first put into effect just one month after it came into force with the extradition to the US of a Jordanian fugitive who faced terrorism charges arising from the first bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in 1993.

By the time Jordanian officials started carrying out what Hussein swore would not happen - the violation of his treaty with the Americans - he was no longer alive. 

Five years ago, with his son in charge of the Hashemite kingdom, a superior Jordanian court chimed in. Less than a week after long-sealed terror charges against Jordanian celebrity jihadist Ahlam Tamimi were made public in Washington DC by the Justice Department, Jordan's Court of Cassation handed down a brief but decisive ruling that the 1995 treaty was invalid. We documented this at the time ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"].

As for ACW using the term "her alleged role" when speaking of Ahlam Tamimi, they probably know that Tamimi has never denied the charges against her. She's made an obscene fetish of boasting publicly about what she did. Those outrageous 2001 murders and her unabashed taking of full credit are why she is an icon today in Jordan. a celebrity throughout the Arab world. 

Half a year ago, from the safety of Jordan's capital, Tamimi addressed a hall filled with young Turkish women and girls at an Islamist conference in Ankara. To their obvious delight, she did what has earned her wide fame: she reveled in the glory of being the person, a woman no less, who brought a human bomb to a Jerusalem pizzeria filled with children on a school vacation afternoon. 

Our daughter Malki, 15 and US citizen, was one of the many children slaughtered there that day. We wrote about Tamimi's triumphant speech here: "27-Feb-22: The Jordanian woman who bombed Sbarro has earned another title"

There's another strange term that ACW's weekly uses. It says  

Steube wants the Jordanian government to extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the United States...

but that's disingenuous. Steube evidently does want that but there's another party that ought to get mentioned here for its hard work for years trying to get Tamimi, who brags of the children she blew apart, extradited to Washington to face trial. 

Congressman Steube isn't alone in wanting Ahlam Tamimi

extradited from Jordan

And that's the US Department of Justice along with the FBI. They announced their intentions all the way back in 2017: "Individual Charged in Connection With 2001 Terrorist Attack in Jerusalem That Resulted in Death of Americans [Department of Justice]"

If the think-tank experts at the Qatar organization's Washington offices don't know the details of the long-delayed Tamimi extradition and prosecution, we can definitely help: "14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and her extradition is requested"

We have little familiarity with the work of ACW which describes itself [here] as independent and nonpartisan. But to us, it's a little startling to see this degree of political position-taking and spin in a self-described nonprofit with Section 501(c)3 tax-exempt status under the US Internal Revenue Code.

At the same time, it owns up to being an offshoot of a Qatari thinktank, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), headquartered in Doha, Qatar. The anodyne title notwithstanding, it's headed by Dr Azmi Bishara, a one-time Knesset member who fled Israel amid reports of allegations that he had passed information to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and just ahead of Israel's police who reportedly sought his help in their investigation into suspicions relating to treason and espionage. 

Aspects of Qatar's standing throw light on why it might want to throw shade on efforts to bring a fugitive Hamas terrorist to US justice. This extract from an important and fresh analytical piece by a respected Israeli commentator makes good sense to us:

...Recently crowned by the U.S. as a major non-NATO ally and preparing to host later this year the prestigious soccer World Cup tournament, this tiny, affluent emirate has become the primary cheerleader for Palestinian terrorism. Not only does the ruler, Sheikh Tamim [bin Hamad al-Thani], refrain from expressing any criticism of killing sprees on the streets of Israeli cities or speak out against youth turning the al-Aqsa court into a scene of violence, but he also directs his media empire led by the al-Jazeera broadcast network to pour oil onto the flames, constantly exacerbating tensions. For years Doha has been hosting and financing Hamas leadership, including many operatives involved in initiating attacks on Israel. The country has become an important link in the supply chain of terrorism... Allowed to proceed in the current mode, the combination of Qatar, Hamas and the PA is guaranteed to cause an expansion of the cycle of brutal violence inflicting pain on both Jews and Arabs. If the U.S. truly aspires to achieve a settlement of the Middle East conflict, it cannot turn a blind eye to those seeking to obstruct further progress by igniting cycles of terror and counterterror. ["A Badly Needed New Approach to Quelling the Violence", The Washington Institute - Ehud Ya'ari, April 25, 2022]  

Naturally, we will be watching to see if Rep Steube's important bill attracts less tendentious and more respectable and balanced commentary from other parts of the Arab world.

29-Nov-20: After years of embracing terror against Israelis, what will it take for Jordan to extradite the Sbarro bomber to Washington?

"Ahlam Tamimi, your voice is loud": The viral Jordanian
response to the confessed bomber of a Jerusalem pizzeria
being silenced on a radio talk-show [Image Source]

A slightly modified version of the article below, authored by Gregg Mashberg and Arnold Roth, originally appeared on the Times of Israel website on November 8, 2020. 

Could Jordan’s celebrity terrorist finally face justice in the US?

King Abdullah II has tolerated, and even capitalized, on the hatred and extreme violence that Ahlam Tamimi personifies; is he finally leading his people away from all that?

BY GREGG M. MASHBERG AND ARNOLD ROTH

Are we perhaps — just perhaps — seeing the beginning of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan finally purging itself of FBI Most Wanted Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi?

You may remember the massive terrorist bombing of a Sbarro pizzeria in central Jerusalem during the deadly summer of 2001. The attack killed 15 people, including eight children, and approximately 130 were wounded, many grievously.

Tamimi, the Hamas operative who selected the busy restaurant for unspeakable carnage, went on record afterwards saying it was all about the children. Her goal was to kill as many of them as possible.

Tamimi delivered the human bomb, a young Islamist zealot with a guitar case slung across his shoulder filled with explosives encased in nails to magnify the flesh-ripping effect, to the target site. She chose Sbarro precisely because she knew it would be filled with kids having lunch.

The spearhead of the massacre, Tamimi was 21 at the time, Jordanian by birth and upbringing, and a student at a Palestinian Authority university with a night job reading the news on camera at a Palestinian Authority TV station. As police and rescuers thronged the smoking remains of the pizzeria, helping survivors and tending to the maimed and murdered, she made it back to the Ramallah studio in time to present that evening’s bulletin. For perhaps the first time in the annals of journalism, the horrific crime that opened the program was the work of the person icily delivering the news report.

What’s extraordinary about the events that followed is how Jordan has kept the Sbarro mastermind safe, famous, comfortable and influential in the most toxic sense of the word for the past nine years. 

The presenters of the Jordanian talk-radio show
on Melody-FM cut off Tamimi in mid-sentence, sparking
a nation-wide tumult 

This goes on despite a formal US demand that the Hashemite Kingdom arrest the fugitive who has a $5M reward on her head and extradite her to Washington where she faces terror charges. Two of her Sbarro victims were American nationals. David Horovitz’s epic May 2020 account gives the context: “Failed by Israel, Malki Roth’s parents hope US can extradite her gloating killer” [Times of Israel].

Under a treaty between the two countries signed in 1995, Jordan has handed over a string of fugitive terrorists who are now incarcerated in American prisons. But not Tamimi.

Little reported in the US media, Jordanians — with no apparent sign of dissent — have embraced Tamimi as a hero and inspiration. But now there are signs that Jordan’s King Abdullah II, whose government has spent most of the past decade shielding Tamimi from American justice, may finally be looking to bring her nine-year Jordanian honeymoon to an end.

Upon her release from an Israeli prison in 2011 as part of a prisoner deal, Tamimi received a tumultuous welcome back in her native Jordan. Within weeks, she was hosting a TV program of her own. With its dreamy title, “Breezes of the Free” was a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood production, beamed by satellite from Jordan every week to Arabic-speaking audiences the world over, promoting the cause of Palestinian Arab terror.

Wanted: The US Department of Justice unsealed terrorism

charges against Ahlam Tamimi in March 2017. Jordan

refuses to hand her over despite the extradition treaty

by which it has been bound since 1995.

In the summer of 2012, Tamimi married a cousin from her Tamimi clan, Nizar Tamimi — himself a convicted murder whom, like her, Israel released, despite having sentenced him to life. Their festive wedding was covered live by several Arab TV stations.

She has gone on to develop a high profile in Jordan and, via a series of speaking tours in the region, beyond its borders and in the Arabic media. Despite numerous take-down actions on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, she has continued to advance her social media brand.

Ahlam Tamimi’s triumphant career in the public eye has sent a profound message. The Tamimi juggernaut tells Jordanians and her fans everywhere that terror is not terror when its victims are Israelis. Israeli children, infants included, are fair targets for atrocities. Imprisoned terrorists are not prisoners but mere detainees and captives, victims of injustice who await the breezes that freed her from 16 life terms in an Israeli cell.

On March 14, 2017, the US Department of Justice unsealed a criminal complaint charging Tamimi with murdering two American nationals by means of a weapon of mass destruction. DOJ had kept the complaint under seal since 2013, as it attempted to extradite her to the US. The Jordanians refused and American diplomats apparently viewed themselves as helpless in the face of Jordanian intransigence.

Late last year, however, Congress provided authority, if not a mandate, to stop bankrolling Jordan to the tune of approximately $1.5 billion per year if it continues to dishonor its extradition obligation.

And just this past June, the State Department seemed to take heed. The new US Ambassador to Jordan, Henry Wooster, said during his confirmation process that “all options were on the table” to pressure Jordan to extradite Tamimi, presumably including a US funding cutoff. Confirmed by the Senate, Wooster arrived in Amman to take up his post in September 2020.

Then something startling happened.

Just days later, and with no media coverage, Jordan notified Nizar Tamimi that his residence visa was ending and would not be extended. On October 1, Nizar Tamimi, who unlike his wife is not a Jordanian citizen, left for Qatar, declaring he had been deported.

Ahlam Tamimi, outraged, promptly launched a public relations campaign claiming Jordan had violated her human rights by depriving her of the company of her husband.

Emphatically playing the victim card, she publicly beseeched the king to reunite the loving couple, proclaiming that no matter how distraught, she will not move to Qatar for fear of being arrested there or en route by Interpol. (Qatar and the US do not have an extradition treaty.)

Cashing in on years of Jordanian protection, coddling and celebration, she is now at the heart of a campaign urging Jordanians to declare “We Are All Ahlam Tamimi.”

During October, Tamimi phoned in to several Jordanian radio stations delivering appeals to the public to stand by her and press King Abdullah II to restore the husband to his rightful place in Jordan.

One of those calls was to Melody FM, a high-profile talk-radio station in Amman. Live video from the studio captured how the hosts quietly signaled to the control booth to cut her off as soon as they realized who was calling and that she had just invoked the name of King Abdullah II. The call ended as Tamimi was in mid-stream.

Ahlam Tamimi has never made a secret of how much she wanted

to murder Jewish children

Jordanians were enraged. The video went viral and on October 10 the interrupted call drove the highest trending hashtag on Jordanian Twitter. Melody FM has become the target of a commercial boycott. The talk show (“You and We”) is canceled and its two hosts are publicly at each other’s throats over which of them was more disrespectful to Tamimi.

It is too soon to understand fully what we’re seeing. Is Jordan merely throwing a bone to the US by shooing Nizar out of the country, expecting that will be enough to placate the Americans? Is the US finally saying, “enough is enough,” and pressing Jordan to begin getting rid of Tamimi?

Or — perhaps, in the wake of the Abraham Accords — does King Abdullah see normalization with Israelis as the wave of the future and Tamimi as an impediment?

Yet despite the hopeful signs, is the Sbarro monster right when she proclaims that Jordanians “are all Ahlam Tamimi”? Will Jordanians rally to protect her? If so, is King Abdullah II finally prepared to show leadership and lead his people away from the hatred and extreme violence that Tamimi personifies, rather than tolerating and even capitalizing on it?

There’s only one decent next step which is to load her on to a non-stop flight to Washington, DC where US justice awaits her. That is the way Jordan and its ruler can begin living up to the ideals they otherwise espouse as an ally of America and a force for moderation. King Abdullah II, Jordan, and the region would be the better for it.

—

Gregg M. Mashberg, a lawyer in New York, has represented the Roths pro bono since 2012, in connection with the effort to extradite Tamimi to the US. Arnold Roth produces the blogs on this site together with his wife Frimet.

04-Oct-20: The Sbarro bomber's husband has been forced to leave Jordan: A snapshot of developments

Nizar Tamimi giving an interview in his Amman home

This past Thursday, reports emanating initially from Tamimi clan sources and then later via the Arabic media in Jordan said the husband of Ahlam Tamimi, the admitted bomber of the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria in 2001, has suddenly been expelled from Jordan. 

He appears - that's what reports are saying - to be taking up residence in Qatar. But note that the government of Jordan has said precisely not one word. And no reports of him actually being in Qatar have emerged yet. There's room to be cautious in interpreting what's happened.

Where things appear to stand

Middle East Eye reported Friday (October 2, 2020) that 

Jordanian authorities on Thursday declared the liberated Palestinian prisoner Nizar Al-Tamimi persona non grata and asked him to leave the country, according to sources who spoke to Arabi21 news site. Nizar al-Tamimi is the husband of Ahlam al-Tamimi, who served time in Israeli prisons. Ahlam, who holds Jordanian citizenship, is wanted in the United States. Washington had previously requested her extradition, but Amman refused due to the absence of a law allowing the extradition of Jordanian citizens abroad. Her husband only has Palestinian citizenship, and is not on any wanted list by any country. A Jordanian source told Arabi21 that Nizar al-Tamimi had been renewing his residence permit every three months, but this time Jordanian authorities refused to extend his stay, and asked him to leave the country, even though his wife is a Jordanian national. The source said that Nizar left on Thursday to Doha [Qatar] despite attempts to mediate and solve the issue without having him deported. The source confirmed that “the decision to deport Nizar al-Tamimi is linked to his wife's involvement in a suicide attack against Israelis during the Second Palestinian Intifada, which prompted the US authorities to pursue her ever since”. The source also considered that “deporting Nizar al-Tamimi would cause major problems for the family, especially since his wife's departure from Jordan might threaten her safety and expose her to arrest”. The Trump administration indicated a few months ago its intention to cut off aid to Jordan as a way to pressure the kingdom’s authorities to hand over Ahlam to Washington, Arabi21 reported. In 2013, the US Department of Justice put Ahlam al-Tamimi on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list, and charged her with "conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against US nationals outside the United States". 

Nizar Tamimi, at the time a member of the Fatah terror organization and a resident of the Palestinian Arab village of Nabi Saleh ["17-Mar-13 A Little Village in the Hills and the Monsters it Spawns"] was charged in 1993 with his involvement in the murder of an Israeli student of Jewish religion, Chaim Mizrachi ["The murder of a West Bank student highlights the plight of the Jewish religious communities confronting Palestinian rule", Sarah Helm, The Independent UK, November 7, 1993]. The young Mizrachi had made the fatal mistake of buying eggs from a Palestinian Arab farmer. It's an appalling story. 

Tamimi was subsequently convicted for his part in the cruel and gruesome homicide and sentenced to life imprisonment. Two other Tamimi cousins were convicted at the same time. 

The extremely unlovely Tamimi clan

Nizar Tamimi's uncle, the prominent agitator Bassem Tamimi who was Nizar's mother's brother was initially thought, according to reports we have seen, to have been involved. (Worth noting that there is a huge degree of consanguinity - marrying within the clan - among Nabi Saleh's many Tamimis. Almost every resident of the village was born with that name, and Nabi Saleh's Tamimis routinely marry Tamimis.) 

Then after Bassem Tamimi suffered head injuries while in Israeli police custody, those homicide charges seem to have been dropped with no public explanation. They are almost never mentioned in media reports about Bassem Tamimi's otherwise quite public life. 

Bassem Tamim is also a cousin of Ahlam Tamimi, Nizar's wife. 

And he is the father of Ahed Tamimi, the previously very-high-profile young woman, often referred to as Shirley Temper in news reports ["24-Dec-17: Nabi Saleh, the media and a Tamimi child's journey"] for her availability, from early childhood onwards, to perform on demand when the media cameras were rolling. 

Nizar Tamimi walked free in the extortionate deal Israel did with the terrorists of Hamas in 2011 to secure the freedom of a young hostage, Gilad Shalit. So did his cousin Ahlam Tamimi. And so did 1,025 additional convicted terrorists. Those two Tamimis - Nizar and Ahlam - were married in Jordan less than a year later ["22-Jun-12: A wedding and what came before it"]. 

Bassem Tamimi and his family traveled to Jordan to take part in the celebrations and appear in many of the published photos of the celebrations.

This past week

The London-based Arabic Al Araby news site (October 3, 2020) - which is the source for most of what Middle East Eye published above - under the headline "Ahlam Al-Tamimi appeals to the Jordanian monarch to allow her husband to return to Amman", reports from Amman, Jordan's capital, that Ahlam Tamimi has just sent a message to Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II. 

She asks him to allow her husband Nizar Al-Tamimi to return to Jordan and go on residing there.

Addressing the king in traditional fashion as "the father of all Jordanians", she praises him fulsomely as one who extends "hospitality for everyone who sought asylum in this country and who took refuge in it, bearing all the economic, political and social consequences... Jordan has been a pioneer in embracing me and giving a safe haven for me and my husband after we were released from the occupation prisons". 

Tamimi, regarded in some parts of the news industry as the most wanted female fugitive alive, describes the nearly eight years she has lived in Jordan after being released by Israel in the Gilad Shalit Deal as "the most beautiful days of my life". 

Then referring to the events of the past week, she declares that "we were surprised by the request that my husband leave [Jordan] quickly" causing them "the pain of separation".

The Al Araby report goes on to say by way of background that the Palestinian Prisoners and Executives Affairs Authority issued a statement on Thursday October 1, 2020, saying Jordan had refused to renew the residency of Nizar Al-Tamimi, husband of Ahlam Al-Tamimi, demanding that he leave Jordan. It says the Jordanian government and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs had failed to issue any comment on the matter. 

It mentions how "Jordan rejected the request of the American authorities to hand over the freed captive Ahlam Al-Tamimi, and the Court of Cassation at that time, the highest judicial body in Jordan, approved a decision issued by the Amman Court of Appeal, ruling not to hand Ahlam Tamimi over to US authorities."

Note: None of this includes anything from any official Jordanian source. 

Al Araby connects the expulsion of Nizar Tamimi to the statements made by newly-installed US ambassador to Jordan, Henry Wooster, who stated in May 2020, before he had been confirmed by Congress to the long vacant position of ambassador to Amman, that the United States, in the paper's words, "might suspend foreign aid to Jordan if Ahlam al-Tamimi were not handed over". 

Then it shifts into full-blown conspiracy mode:

The Tamimi case has become one of the pressure points used by Tel Aviv [sic] and Zionist lobbies [sic] pressing in the United States towards forcing Jordan not to object to Israel's plan to annex about a third of the West Bank to it and to implement the American dictation plan to liquidate the Palestinian issue known as the "Deal of the Century"...

Nizar Tamimi (r) with his mother's brother Bassem Tamimi
in October 2011 shortly after his release from an Israeli
prison cell as part of the Shalit Deal 

Quds Press International News Agency (October 3, 2020) [archived] publishes a "special statement" given to it by Ahlam Tamimi that day. The expulsion of her husband from the Hashemite Kingdom came "suddenly and without prior coordination" and "at a very sensitive time... in light of increasing American demands to extradite me to there... The deportation of my husband Nizar was met with much joy and pleasure in the Zionist newspapers." 

The husband's deportation is, she fears, "a prelude to handing her over to the American authorities." This is very wrong since, as she puts it, "it is my right for my husband to live with me on Jordanian lands with dignity just like all other Jordanian women married to non-Jordanians." 

Good luck with that.

Why now? 

Quds quotes her saying "it seems the Jordanian side is betting I will join my husband in Qatar but this is not at all possible since there is an Interpol request distributed at airports around the world for my extradition to Washington." 

The world's most sought female fugitive ["31-Jan-20: Fox News break ranks with the mainstream media on Tamimi and Jordan"] now thinks staying in Jordan is the safest option for her since "the highest Jordanian court (the Court of Appeal) made the decision not to extradite me to Washington - a strong and destined position and therefore my exit would be like someone who places himself in the lion’s mouth, exposing myself to the American danger, and therefore I will not leave Jordan ever... " 

Getting her husband back, according to Tamimi "is a right guaranteed by the constitution". 

Quds quotes the husband saying that last week "the [Jordanian] security authorities asked me to leave Jordan immediately and that their decision is final and irrevocable and would not be withdrawn under any circumstances."

Nizar and Ahlam Tamimi in their Amman apartment

Shehab News Agency (October 3, 2020) [archived] writes under the headline "MP Al-Shanti: Ahlam Al-Tamimi is an icon of the Palestinian woman revolting against the occupation", that a Gazan Palestinian Arab "parliamentarian" has denounced "the arbitrary measures" directed against the female "fighter against the Zionist occupation", calling them illegal "by all laws".

Jamila Al-Shanti, a key figure in Hamas and (according to this Wikipedia source - but there may have been another woman who had that role) the widow of arch-terrorist Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, the political head of Hamas until eliminated in 2004 by Israeli fire, says "Zionist American terrorism targets the released prisoners through assassination, re-arrest or deportation. Ahlam spent ten years in detention before her release in 2011 under the Wafaa Al-Ahrar prisoner exchange deal", a reference to the Shalit Deal.

She calls Ahlam Tamimi "a candle for the world’s women who aspire to freedom, an icon in the heart of every Palestinian and Arab woman fighter defending her right - Ahlam knows the path of resistance and will continue."

Next moves

But rhetoric doesn't have much impact on fast-moving developments and the reality is that Ahlam Tamimi's options have suddenly gotten a good deal narrower. 

It's obviously an ongoing and complicated story which, given our interest in seeing her sent to Washington to face trial there for spearheading the Sbarro pizzeria massacre, we will be following closely. And to those trying to learn something from all the moving parts and surprise twists: we follow the Arabic media fairly closely and have not yet seen a single article there which mentions the people Ahlam Tamimi killed. This is actually stunning, not in a good way. 

It's the real story here.

[UPDATE Sunday October 11, 2020: There have been many developments worth reporting in the past 72 hours. We've been flat out dealing with them behind the scenes. However we do hope to update readers of this blog in the coming 24 hours.]

02-Apr-19: Setting facts, ethics, context aside, Aljazeera salutes a couple of murderers

Mr and Mrs Tamimi at home in Jordan's capital Amman,
in a video segment embedded in the Al Jazeera homage

In Arabic only (so far), Aljazeera published a paean this past week to a pair of convicted and unrepentant terrorists sentenced by Israel to life-term prison sentences for killing many Israelis.

The two are not merely out of prison but, from what we can tell, live a highly public and comfortable life replete with exposure, celebrity, adulation and valuable political connections that seem to help smooth their way.

Aljazeera Media Network whose chairman Sheikh Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani served as a minister in Qatar's government in the eighties and nineties and who is a member of the ruling family of Qatar, the House of Thani, is a formidable communications conglomerate owned by the government of Qatar. It has some 80 bureaux and more than 100,000 employees distributed around the world.

This particular piece was published on the Aljazeera.net site last Thursday and so far has appeared only in Arabic. While the group publishes in multiple languages including English, Turkish, Indonesian, Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, the AlJazeera.net platform is specifically dedicated to Arabic speakers.

Because we think it shines some much-needed light on how Arab-on-Israeli terror is viewed in much of the Arabic-speaking world, we arranged a professional translation. The text appears below. 

A word for those uncomfortable with violence and bloodshed: Rest assured. Though this is all about a couple of unrepentant convicted felons, people who murdered other people and have never expressed regret for their deeds, and while one might expect some unpleasant discussion about killings and deaths - actually there isn't that much. Hardly any.

In fact, what violence there is happens to be about Israelis threatening (they say) and killing other people (they allege). We'll come back to that counter-intuitive aspect at the end.

Political News
Nizar and Ahlam: A couple pursued by “chains” despite their release from occupation imprisonment

March 28, 2019 | Aljazeera.net | From Mahmoud Al-Shar’aan in Amman 

They became engaged in the prisons of Israeli occupation. They were released in the prisoner exchange deal of 2011 known as the “Wafaa’ Al-Ahrar deal” between the Palestinian Resistance Movement (HAMAS) and the occupation. [TOW: In the West, it's better known as the Gilad Shalit Deal]  

Their relationship led to marriage and the establishment of a Palestinian house of “resistance” in the Jordanian capital of Amman.

They are the freed prisoners Nizar Al-Tamimi (45) and his wife Ahlam Al-Tamimi (38) who was born in Jordan. 

The bond of marriage was not the only thing they shared. They were also brought together by the defence of Palestine and the sacrifice they gave towards the struggle through the years they spent in prison.

Nizar, who belongs to the Palestinian Liberation Movement (Fatah) was sentenced to life in prison after he participated in the killing of an Israeli citizen in the nineties of which he served 20 years before he was released. 

Ahlam on the other hand was the first woman to have joined the Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. She was sentenced to 16 life sentences after she participated in a martyrdom operation against the occupation of Jerusalem in 2001, of which she served 10 years before she was released.

A new life

Their many years spent in prison have not killed the normal life of these freed prisoners as they both are pursuing their education, each in his own field. 

The husband is preparing for his Masters thesis [sic] in political science with the title “The law of Jewish nationalism and its effect on the reality and future of the Palestinian cause”, while the wife is preparing to study towards her Masters thesis [sic] in Journalism and Media under the title “A theoretical etymology of the concept of prisoner media”.

Nizar tells Aljazeera.net that freedom was like a new birth for them both after having spent many tough years in jail. “We were able to come out of prison strong, and more importantly we are still bearers of the message of truth when it comes to our just cause, and we have begun a new life”.

But the lives of the couple were thrown into disarray after they received messages threatening to pursue them and to lay cases against them in the United States.

The last case of these threats came in the words of the American peace process delegate to the Middle East, Jason Greenblatt, who wrote on his official Twitter account that “Americans must know that Ahlam Al-Tamimi who is a Hamas terrorist convicted of killing 15 people, seven of whom were children killed in cold blood, is living free today”.

Greenblatt announced a reward of the equivalent of 5 million dollars to anyone who can provide information on Ahlam Al-Tamimi and the Hamas leader, Saleh Al Aruri.

Continuous threats

Greenblatt’s threats were not new. They are a part of a long chain of threats received by Ahlam and her husband. It was revealed to Aljazeera.net that Jewish organizations paid to lay cases against them in American courts of law.

Ahlam identifies herself as a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian origin who is a freedom fighter for a just cause. “I refuse to allow my cause and the cause of my nation to be labelled as terrorism or that the door be opened to some representatives trying to make political gains to pass whatever they want under the cover of their mission”.

The freed prisoner regards her being in Jordan to be a point of strength as there is no agreement between Amman and Washington that states that wanted people need to be handed over. In addition, the Jordanian judicial authorities refused a previous American demand for her to be handed over.

She is asking the Kingdom to protect her from American hegemony and the continuing threats against her, and to solve her crisis with the United States “politically”.

Ahlam does not deny her fears of the financial reward offered by Greenblatt, because the involvement of money in this case might facilitate passing information on her or that the matter might even reach assassination, as she says.

At the same time, her husband is of the view that once a prisoner is released from prison, he remains a target of Israel, and he can therefore never really feel total calm as other prisoners have been killed after they were released from prison, as he says.

A house of resistance

Between four walls, the couple spend time telling stories and reliving the memories of prison life, of Palestine and of comrades in struggle. The best years of their lives were taken from them by Israeli courts and prison bars. This however did not prevent them from trying to live normally and defend their rights in a clear message that is not open for discussion, the summary of which says that there is no conceding the entirety of Palestine.

Nizar, the son of Fatah, and Ahlam, the daughter of Hamas, are the embodiment of the reality of a unified Palestinian people, in the wake of division which they described as an exception to the rule. They have spent their lives together with many ideas, some of which were conflicting, but they both always agree in the end that there is no way to liberate Palestine except through resistance and that it is the only way to achieve it.

Source: Aljazeera (Arabic) online here. In case it somehow disappears, we arranged for it to be  archived here.

A few observations.

• The only violence mentioned in this brazen homage is violence they claim is directed at - not by - the Tamimis, a pair of unrepentant murderers. As journalism goes, this is exceedingly shabby. Are there ethical standards in the Aljazeera media empire? What are they?
• Seriously, is it true as they claim here that "there is no agreement between Amman and Washington that states that wanted people need to be handed over"? No, not really. We explained that here: "14-Mar-19: Two years after Federal charges are unsealed, Ahlam Tamimi remains free. How is this happening?" Bottom line: Jordan and the US signed an extradition treaty 24 years ago; the US absolutely considers it still valid and in full effect and Jordan has never complained to its American treaty partners that there is a problem with it. In fact, Jordan has cheerfully handed over Jordanian felons to the US at the request of the US. But it refuses to hand over Ahlam Tamimi. It justifies this on the contentious footing that there is now a Jordanian constitutional law issue to consider. They don't say, but we think they should, that Tamimi is different from the others already extradited because she killed Israelis. Note that none of this seems to be known to the Al Jazeera editors and their reporter. Or perhaps they simply have no interest in conveying what they know to their news consumers. So it's either shameful pretense or it's professional incompetence.
• The reporter claims that "the lives of the couple were thrown into disarray after they received messages threatening to pursue them and to lay cases against them in the United States." This is pure invention. Ahlam Tamimi is wanted on US Federal charges that were unsealed in Washington on March 14, 2017 (see the previous para). There are no charges pending against her husband, but it adds an element of extra drama to the story. A great pity, seriously, that it's bunk.
• Did Ahlam Tamimi hurt anyone? Hard to know from this piece of shameless advocacy and terror promotion. All that the Aljazeera journalist and his editors want their Arabic-language readers to know is that this Jordanian woman was locked away for a tremendously long prison term because "she participated in a martyrdom operation against the occupation of Jerusalem". Is it even worth mentioning that 16 people were murdered in that "operation"? That Tamimi picked the spot because it attracted so many children and brought the bomb to it at the busiest time of the day? That this savage boasts openly and happily about it in front of cameras and live audiences? That the panel of judges who sentenced her recommended that Israel never consider letting her out under any circumstances or deals? And that they were ignored when the Shalit Deal was done? We guess not.
• Did she reveal that she's now pursuing a masters degree in journalism and media? We think (and we're checking so that we can be sure) that only a couple of Jordanian institutions offer such programs. One happens to be a school about which we have written in the past, and which has an extremely shabby connection to Tamimi herself: See "By their role models shall ye know them" [Times of Israel, December 2014]. 
• The Tamimis claim to have "received messages threatening to pursue them and to lay cases against them in the United States". Other than as another invented dramatic device, this notion of threats doesn't make much sense. The reporter could have mentioned that the US Department of Justice unveiled those serious criminal charges against Ahlam Tamimi more than two years ago ["14-Mar-17: Sbarro massacre mastermind is now formally charged and extradition is sought"]. He could have pointed out she was arrested in Jordan by Jordanian police on the basis of an Interpol Red Notice in September 2016 (with absolutely no publicity), but he doesn't. She was released the following morning but that says more about Jordan and its legal and power system than about the criminality of Ahlam Tamimi. Maybe he doesn't know. Maybe he already forgot. Maybe this isn't really about facts and news but about fantasies and delusions of Tamimi victimhood. But how is this journalism?
• The reporter and his editors are under the mistaken impression that Trump envoy Jason "Greenblatt announced a reward of the equivalent of 5 million dollars to anyone who can provide information on Ahlam Al-Tamimi". No, he didn't. The reward, which certainly does exist, was issued more than a year before Greenblatt mentioned it in his Tweet. And it doesn't come from Greenblatt but from a unit of the US State Department called Rewards for Justice. The year-and-a-half-old details for the Al Jazeera news-hounds are here (you're welcome): "31-Jan-18: There's now a $5 million reward for bringing the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to justice". Can we now expect a correction? Or do Al Jazeera's people claim ownership of their own version of reality?
• It's quite moving to read that "The best years of [the Tamimi couple's] lives were taken from them by Israeli courts and prison bars". Taken from them? Why? But it's chilling that the editors of this Al Jazeera group outlet manage to tell the story of two unusually cruel murderers without even a passing reference to the many lives they extinguished by their acts of depraved savagery. They give the impression that they identify with the killers and the killings. Is this fair of us? But if we're right (of course we are), do their pay-masters in the government of Qatar know this? Perhaps they will now. Perhaps they will even want to know about the life and lost "best years" of our desperately missed daughter Malki who was 15 when Ahlam Tamimi delivered her exploding guitar case on the back of her human bomb to Sbarro. (Full disclosure: Malki was not the only person murdered there that day. It was a massacre. In a pizzeria. Children were the target; they ended up being more than half the casualties. Tamimi's sickening, satanic plan worked. She hasn't stopped smiling and boasting about it.)  
• When Aljazeera quotes Nizar Tamimi asserting that "other [Palestinian Arab] prisoners have been killed after they were released from prison", did they check? Can they bring cases? As a news agency, did they think of listing the names of the many mass murderers [some named here along with their crimes] who walked free in that catastrophic transaction? Did they think of referring to the Israelis murdered after the Shalit Deal [some of them named here] by unrepentant terrorists who were let loose?
• The Aljazeera editors, aware of the endless enmity among the Hamas, Fatah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad factions, must have seen the almost humorous irony in their reporter claiming the Tamimis as "the embodiment of the reality of a unified Palestinian people". Unified? They must have already decided this scurrilous piece of reporting-as-incitement needed to serve a higher purpose than the objective reporting of news. So what the heck - go for broke. 
• Will the major news organizations and global content aggregators who partner with Aljazeera (like Google, Bloomberg, TechLive, Snapchat) be interested to know how the party they're consorting with acts as an active and effective promoter of terrorism that publishes sentiments like Ahlam Tamimi's "there is no way to liberate Palestine except through resistance"? Probably not. The rest of us surely should.

This reward poster in Arabic was issued by the US State
Department in January 2018 but has never been physically
posted anywhere in Jordan or the Arab world.

In the interests of seeming balanced, and having regard for the monumental media footprint the Aljazeera empire has managed to create, here's what the public relations professionals working at Aljazeera said about their employer a year ago:

We, at Al Jazeera, renew our commitment to global audiences with news coverage and programs which provide in depth analysis of news and current affairs. We will continue celebrating the achievements brought by our diversity of staff who hail from almost 100 different countries. It is this diversity of values and cultures that enriches our work and provides our audiences with the award-winning content on all our platform. We urge democratic forces all over the world, especially in United States, to stand with free media institutions to promote and protect the values of democracy, liberty, human rights, freedom of media and the right to free speech. Don’t shoot the messenger, journalism is not a crime.

Maybe they don't mean their Arabic output. And when the subject is this thing they call "resistance", perhaps different rules apply.

UPDATE Monday April 2, 2019 at 7:00 pm: The Aljazeera piece includes a substantial video interview which is of course not in English. We have just been told by friends (thank you, friends!) that MEMRI has posted a translation. Please go and read, watch and share - it's here.