By Arnold Roth, JNS
In memory of my daughter, Malki, and others murdered in terrorist attacks, those who wield power must ensure that the terrorists and those shielding them face consequences.
This week, my family should be joyously marking a child’s birthday. Malki—vibrant, sweet-natured, empathetic, musically talented, everyone’s friend and lovingly devoted to caring for her youngest, very disabled sister—was our first daughter. She would now be 40.
But she never reached her sixteenth birthday. Malki’s life ended in the Hamas-orchestrated bombing of a bustling pizzeria in central Jerusalem on a summer school-vacation afternoon in 2001. The monstrous lunch-hour attack targeted Jewish children and claimed 16 innocent lives, among them three Americans, including Malki. Dozens more were seriously injured.
The man who detonated the explosives stuffed into a guitar case slung over his shoulder was not a "suicide bomber," as news reports called him. He was a willing executioner, recruited and equipped by Hamas jihadists and promised lurid rewards in the afterlife. He was the bomb.
The real bomber, as I have come to realize, was the atrocity’s central figure, its spearhead. Ahlam Tamimi, a 21-year-old Jordanian college student and part-time TV newsreader, was the first woman admitted to the ranks of Hamas operatives just months earlier. She scouted the target—a Sbarro pizzeria—days before, selected it for its crowds of children, and accompanied the human bomb to its entrance before fleeing to avoid arrest and injury.
Living openly today in Jordan’s capital, where she frequently appears in Jordan’s media, Tamimi was secretly charged with terror offenses under U.S. federal law in 2013. Years later, after failed efforts to persuade Jordan to extradite her, the charges went public in Washington. She became the second woman on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list—arguably America’s most wanted female fugitive.
But why does she remain free?
Jordan's King Hussein and then-U.S. President Bill Clinton signed a bilateral extradition treaty in 1995 that clearly applies to her. But within a week of the 2017 U.S. Justice Department's announcement of the charges, a Jordanian court declared the treaty invalid. This happened 22 years after it took effect, despite multiple successful extraditions of Jordanian terrorists to the U.S.
American aid to Jordan has been lavish and continues growing. After the treaty was made, Jordan became a major non-NATO ally (MNNA), bringing it significant benefits. Hussein’s son, King Abdullah II, who has ruled since 1999, is a regular White House and congressional guest with unusual access.
The Jordanian court ruling was tailored to protect Tamimi, and dismissed by legal observers and (very quietly) by the State Department. Still, it provides Jordan with plausible cover to shield her. The result is that she lives in Amman as a celebrity, never in hiding and inspiring further acts of terror.
This isn’t because of legal complexities. What’s happening is a deliberate thwarting of U.S. justice, enabled by officials who profess to combat terror yet permit it to be trampled. Tamimi's freedom is a choice that alarms those, like me, seeking accountability for victims.
For five years, Tamimi hosted a TV show from Amman, broadcast worldwide to Arabic-speaking audiences, advocating for terrorists like herself. Her writings in Arab journals routinely frame her actions heroically, skipping the part about the lives she destroyed.
Her prominence embodies the catastrophic values of Islamist terror, amplifying her influence. Her impunity fuels violence, heightens antisemitic sentiment in Jordan, and bolsters groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
U.S. leaders view King Abdullah as a moderate ally essential for peace. Setting aside such views, what aches and confounds is Washington’s absence of any public admission that thwarting Tamimi’s prosecution stems from the notion that it’s a "price worth paying" for never-stated geo-political goals.
A handful of officials, former U.S. President Joe Biden among them, have paid lip service to extraditing her. But their words ring hollow to me, to the Jordanians, and I believe to anyone committed to justice. Yet the double-talk persists; the hypocrisy at Washington’s highest levels goes unchallenged and mostly unreported.
Obviously, Malki’s birthday means nothing to them. But it ought to be a poignant reminder: justice delayed is justice denied—not only for my child but for all American terror victims. Accountability has to be prioritized over expediency.
I want Congress, the State Department and the White House to act decisively. They need to insist that Jordan honors the treaty; to expose the excuses as self-damaging weakness. This Jordan/Tamimi issue has been under the rug for far too long. A commitment to defeating terror demands principle and determination.
In memory of my Malki and the other victims, those who wield the power must ensure that the terrorists and those shielding them face consequences. Enough with delays and pretense!
