As King Abdullah of Jordan prepares a trip to meet President Trump next Tuesday, a notorious Palestinian terrorist residing at Amman, Ahlam Tamimi, could finally be brought to justice, the father of one of her victims tells the Sun. Tamimi was convicted in Israel for her central role in a 2001 Jerusalem bombing that killed 16 people, including Americans, and shocked the country. For planning and executing one of the most notorious terrorist acts of that era, the Department of State is offering a $5 million prize for any information leading to Tamimi’s arrest. Mr. Trump’s plan to rebuild Gaza while its residents are temporarily relocated to Egypt and Jordan is seen at Amman as a threat to the Hashemite kingdom’s delicate population balance. Perhaps as an attempt to appease Washington, reports surfaced over the weekend that the kingdom will expel Tamimi. Speaking from Israel, an American citizen, Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki was one of Tamimi’s victims, says that after decades of fighting for justice, there is a new dynamic over the case. President Biden, he says, declined to press Amman to extradite Tamimi, as he considered King Abdullah a “loyal friend in a tough neighborhood.”Now, “for the first time, certainly in four years, we’re seeing the possibility of this issue getting attention at the decision making level,” Mr. Roth tells the Sun. “President Trump will get what America should have gotten 12 years ago. This woman should have been handed over and should have been tried for crimes against Americans under U.S. law, and she should be serving the rest of her life in prison.”King Abdullah’s minority Hashemite tribe rules over a country where more than 60 percent of the population considers itself Palestinian, including the monarch’s wife, Rania, who was born in Kuwait to a Palestinian family. “Jordan risks a lot here by even bringing this up,” the editor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal, Joe Truzman, tells the Sun. Extraditing Tamimi to America could “inflame an already delicate situation that they have over there with their large Palestinian population.”After articles surfaced that Tamimi might be forced to leave the country, perhaps to America, official Amman was quick to calm anger among the country’s restive population. Reports on Tamimi’s expulsion from Jordan are “not accurate,” the speaker of parliament at Amman, Ahmed al-Safadi, said Monday.He referred to a Sunday report that originated in a London-based Qatari outlet, Al-Araby al-Jadeed. It claimed that Jordanian intelligence informed Hamas officials that unless they quickly find a country that would shelter Tamimi, she would be extradited to America. The unsourced report was picked up by many press outlets in the region.Tamimi was convicted in Israel for her central role in the 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria, which killed 16 people. Two years after the bombing, she was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms. Tamimi was released in 2011 as part of a deal to free a Gaza-held Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and expelled to Jordan. Back in August 2001, Tamimi drove a suicide bomber, Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, to the Sbarro pizzeria at one of central Jeruslem’s busiest intersections. The terrorist carried an explosive-filled guitar case, which he detonated in one of the most deadly attacks of the second intifada. Among the victims were two Americans, Yehudit Greenbaum, who was pregnant at the time, and 15-year-old Malki Roth. A Jerusalem district court ruled in November that the Palestinian Authority must pay the victims of the Sbarro bombing tens of millions of Israeli shekels. The Department of Justice filed sealed criminal charges against Tamimi in 2013.Washington has deep ties with Amman, including annual support of $1.6 billion. Yet, even though the countries have an extradition treaty, little pressure has been exerted on the kingdom to hand over Tamimi. As King Abdullah sets to meet Mr. Trump at the White House, “the mood … is going to be one of, you know, we are the United States, and we play a critically important role in the lives of Jordanians,” Mr. Roth says. “And it’s time that there was more respect paid to what comes with all of that generosity.”
