On 20th Anniversary Of Pizzeria Bombing, Female Palestinian Terrorist Evades Justice, Still Famous In Jordan
Monday marks the 20thanniversary of the infamous Sbarros bombing in Jerusalem, in which a young Palestinian female terrorist who had been posing as a journalist in order to target the areas where more Jews could be killed led a Palestinian bomber to the restaurant at lunchtime, where he murdered 15 people, including a pregnant American woman whose murder left her parents bereft of their only child and imminent grandchild, six girls between the ages of 10 and 16, five members of a family — including the father, mother, and three children, two of whom were ages two and four — and another eight-year-old girl.
“The bomb contained nails, nuts, and bolts in order to maximize casualties,” The Jerusalem Post noted, adding, “To mark the 20th anniversary of the bombing, Meir Schijveschuurder, who experienced the attack as a 17-year-old, and his sister Chaya, then 8, dedicated a maternal delivery room last week at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in memory of their murdered family members. … Earlier this year, Interpol dropped its arrest warrant for al-Tamimi.”
The female terrorist, Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi, still resides and is celebrated in Jordan, despite the fact the United States government has been seeking her extradition. In 2013, the U.S. Justice Department filed criminal charges against Tamimi; Jordan has claimed it has no extradition treaty with Washington. But the State Department’s “Treaties in Force” document states that the two countries have had an extradition agreement since 1995.
Ahlam Tamimi, who orchestrated the bombing and said “I just couldn’t hide my smile” when she learned of the death toll, lives free in Jordan, which has refused to extradite her to the U.S. to face trial for the murder of American citizens. (@JoEmbassyUS) https://t.co/ZMfwCUBXXV
— Avi Mayer (@AviMayer) August 9, 2021
The victims were Giora Balash, 60; Zvika Golombek, 26; Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, 31: Tehila Maoz, 18; Frieda Mendelsohn, 62; Michal Raziel, 16: American Malka Roth, 15; Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43; Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41; Ra’aya Schijveschuurder, 14; Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4; Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2; Lily Shimashvili, 33; Tamara Shimashvili, 8, and Yocheved Shoshan, 10.
Two other daughters of the Schijveschuurders, Leah, 11, and Chaya, 8, were critically injured. Miriam Shoshan 15, Yocheved’s sister, was left with 60 nails lodged in her body, a hole in her right thigh, third-degree burns on 40 percent of her body, and a ruptured spleen.
David Horovitz writes in The Times of Israel of Malka Roth’s parents:
To say that they have never recovered from the murder of their daughter is, of course, an understatement. Malki’s loss has dominated their lives for almost 20 years. But it is not just the loss of Malki. It is that the finality of Malki’s death does not mark the end of her story. The gaping wound of her loss, which they had thought, in their newly bereaved naivete, just might begin to close with time, has been kept open to this day by a series of cynical betrayals and affronts, interspersed with faint glimmers of unrealized hope.
And as they have suffered, Ahlam Tamimi — the woman who scouted the location for the attack, escorted the suicide bomber to ensure the atrocity went ahead, and speaks of the bombing as “my operation” — has thrived, has been allowed to thrive. She has been able to marry, to talk of starting a family, and to become something of a celebrity on the strength of her murderous exploits, while expressing regret only that more people were not killed. She cast their lives into darkness. But hers has been bright.
Tamimi said that after the bombing she was listening to the radio on the way back to Ramallah in a bus, adding, “I admit that I was a bit disappointed because I had hoped for a larger toll. Yet when they said ‘three dead,’ I said: ‘Allah be praised’… Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn’t. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding. They didn’t even know that I was among them. On the way back, we passed a Palestinian police checkpoint, and the policemen were laughing. One of them stuck his head in and said: ‘Congratulations to us all.’ Everybody was happy.”
Days after arriving in Jordan when Israel released her from prison ad part of the Gilad Shalit deal, Tamimi was honored at the Jordanian Law Court building. Asked if she would take the same action in a bombing again, she answered, ‘Asked in an interview at the time whether, if she could “go back in time,” she would carry out such a large-scale attack, she replied: “Of course. I do not regret what happened. Absolutely not. This is the path. I dedicated myself to jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success. You know how many casualties there were. This was made possible by Allah. Do you want me to denounce what I did? That’s out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner.”
Tamimi bragged later in an interview:
I was a journalism student in the political scient track and I was working in the media and the press. This allowed me to become a member of the Palestinian Journalists Union. The union card enabled me to enter Jerusalem in order to conduct interviews. This drew the attention of the Izz Al-Din Al-qassam Brigrades. They realized that I could enter and leave Jerusalem without the knowledge of the Zionists.
The Arab interviewer interjected, “So you would go in and out in your capacity as a journalist? Nice.”
Tamimi continued:
Yes. This was one of God’s miracles and facilitations. This made them ask me to join the Izz Al-Din Al-qassam Brigrades and I immediately accepted. … I was assigned three missions. The first mission was to spot locations suitable for Jihadi operations. I would go to Jerusalem and walk around in the areas frequented by the Zionists. … I would go around these areas, and as part of my first mission, I would surveille suitable locations, such as shops, malls, schools, and restaurants, any suitable target for a Jihadi operation. I would submit reports to the cell commander and this report would be studied statistically: How many Israelis enter a certain location in one hour?
I would sit there, look at my watch, and count the number of people who entered the place in an hour. I would calculate it and report that if the operation were to take place at a certain hour, the number of Israeli casualties would be at least 30 and could even reach 50 because during this specific hour, 70 Israelis entered the place. I would also check what the most suitable hours were. For example, a restaurant is frequented by Zionists mostly during lunch time, a school in the morning. There was an optimal time to carry the Jihadi operation and I would write all of this in the report which I sent to the cell commander.
Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Tamimi discusses how she used her identity as a “journalist” to gather information for organizing the Sbarro pizzeria suicide bombing carried out on this day in 2001.
15 Israelis (8 children) were murdered, 130 wounded
Sick
— Emily Schrader – אמילי שריידר (@emilykschrader) August 9, 2021
There is still a movement to bring Tamimi to justice:
The sincere thanks of Malki Roth’s family go to the leadership of the Rabbinical Alliance of America for their call to US action over #Jordan‘s ongoing and unconscionable harboring of the woman who calls the #Sbarro massacre, 20 years ago today, “my operation”. @RabbinicalOf https://t.co/L26rPD1hFc
— Frimet Roth (@FrimetRoth) August 8, 2021
In March 2019, Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) called for the extradition of Al-Tamimi from Jordan to the United States. He stated:
Al-Tamimi is a convicted terrorist responsible for the murder of 15 people, including two United States citizens and an unborn child, as well as injuring over 100 others. Al-Tamimi is not remotely repentant for her actions, and justice demands that she be held accountable for these acts of terror and murder. I’m calling on the Kingdom of Jordan, which has long served as an ally to the United States in the region, to swiftly extradite Al-Tamimi to the United States, where she can stand trial for her crimes. Our prayers continue for all suffering from this senseless and cowardly act of terror. We seek justice and closure not only for these victims, but for their families and loved ones who now bear this unimaginable grief and loss.
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