Latest news with #AhlamTamimi
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Globalizing Naziism
It takes severe depravity, not to mention sheer stupidity, to believe that shooting an unarmed couple in the back as they stand at a crosswalk is somehow going to "Free Palestine," which is what the cowardly killer yelled into the Washington night as he was led away by police. If they didnt realize it before, Americans have now learned precisely what kind of demons are being summoned up when pro-Hamas demonstrators on college campuses chant "Globalize the Intifada." No one in Israel needed to be told. Theyve known for a long time. The "Second Intifada" was burned into Jewish memory at the dawn of the 21st century by a series of gruesome attacks known in Israel by their place-names: the Dolphinarium discothèque in Tel Aviv, Sbarro Pizza and Café Moment in Jerusalem, Maxim Restaurant in Haifa, the Park Hotel in Netanya. The Dolphinarium was blown up on June 2, 2001, by a suicide bomber who took the lives of 21 young people - most of them Jewish teenage girls from Russia and Ukraine. Two months later, seven Palestinian terrorists with ties to Hamas carried out the bombing of the Sbarro pizza parlor. Sixteen people were killed, including three Americans and a pregnant woman. Half the victims were children. One of the Americans, a mother named Chana Nachenberg, spent 22 years in a coma before dying in 2023. Ahlam Tamimi, one of the masterminds of the crime, was released in a 2011 prisoner exchange. She lives freely in Jordan today and is unrepentant - saying in one television interview shed do it again. The deadliest single attack of the Intifada, known in Israel as the Passover Massacre, took place on March 27, 2002, at the Park Hotel along the Israeli coast. The killer disguised himself as a woman, and carrying a suitcase bomb entered the hotel dining room, where 250 civilians were celebrating Seder dinner. Thirty people, most of them elderly, were killed, and another five dozen wounded. Some of the victims were Holocaust survivors. Hamas leaders boasted about the Passover attack, while Israeli government spokesmanGideon Meir spoke for most Israelis when he said, "There is no limit to Palestinian barbarism." Apparently fearing what did, in fact, later ensue (a fierce IDF crackdown on the West Bank) even Palestinian Authority officials condemned the attack. By the time the second Intifada waned, more than 1,000 Israelis were dead, most of them civilians. Two of the terrorist attacks in particular foreshadowed the Wednesday evening murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim at the Capital Jewish Museum. The event featured humanitarian organizations that use interfaith dialogue in places like Gaza and Syria to alleviate civilian suffering. Café Maxim had a similar ethos. Co-owned by Jews and Christian Arabs, the Haifa restaurant was a tangible symbol of peaceful co-existence when a female suicide bomber - a lawyer from Jenin - destroyed the place two days before Yom Kippur in 2003. Jewish and Arab Israeli customers dined together in that place - and they bled and died there together, too. Twenty-one people perished, including three children and an infant. Among the dead were four Arab employees of the restaurant. On May 2, 2004, a Jewish social worker named Tali Hatuel who was eight months pregnant, was driving with her four daughters when she was ambushed by two Palestinian gunmen. After it was disabled, the killers walked up to her car and shot the four girls and their mother at close range. Islamic Palestinian groups praised the deed as "heroic." That was 22 years ago. But it was only last week that Tzeela Gez, an Israeli mother of three being driven to the hospital to give birth, was shot and killed in the West Bank, a murder lauded by Hamas as a "heroic act." Thats what the word "Intifada" signifies. What happened seven days later in Washington is whats meant by "globalizing the Intifada." Typically, segments of the legacy media struggled to find moral clarity, or even simple coherence, in Wednesdays awful news. was full of such examples, including one confusing passage from an NPR story that seemed to accept the Washington, D.C., killers logic. ("Many U.S. and Israeli officials identified the attacks as the latest in amarked rise of antisemitic incidentsin recent years - and more notably, as Israel ramps up its offensive in Gaza, where the risk of famine looms for a population ground down by a months-long blockade.") Bari Weiss, as usual, cut to the heart of the matter. Writing in The Free Press about the double murder outside an iconic Jewish landmark in the capital city, Weiss unspooled "the culture of lies that created the climate for his murderous rampage." She details many of them; Ill fill in others. The list of culprits is long. It starts with college presidents who accepted money from sketchy Arab autocrats who buy peace in their own country by fomenting bigotry and intellectual dishonesty in ours. Next are the faculty cadres who spread specious theories such as critical race theory aimed not just at the United States, but at Western culture in general. The apotheosis of this insanity is grafting the dubious "colonizer" label onto Israelis, who occupy a land inhabited by Jews 2,000 years before the advent of Islam. Democratic Party politicians whove repeated these toxic lies, or at least not objected to them out of fear of alienating the kookiest elements of their progressive base. On Friday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes issued a forceful denunciation of antisemitism. Yet last year she was supportive of the pro-Hamas demonstrators at Columbia. "At Columbia University they call for Intifada constantly," former Columbia student Jonathan Epstein explained on CNN. "Theyre not doing it quietly. Theyre loud … You can hear it. They make recordings of themselves." Liberals who repeat the spurious slander about "genocide" in Gaza - on behalf of a movement that openly calls for the destruction of Israel and murderous attacks on the Jewish diaspora around the world. Islamicists working for the U.N. who aided and abetted the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas atrocities. Useful idiots in the Western media who repeat Hamas propaganda uncritically, particularly the deliberately deceptive exaggerations about famine and wartime casualties. Performative posers who glamorized political violence by swooning over accused assassin Luigi Mangione. "Words matter," we are constantly told. Its true and its a lesson we learned anew this week. On Tuesday British diplomat Tom Fletcher, U.N. Undersecretary General of Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, told the BBC that if food trucks didnt start rolling into Gaza, "14,000 babies would die in the next 48 hours." This was nonsense, as Fletcher knew. The report he cited actually claimed that 14,000 children under the age of six would be at risk for malnutrition in the coming 12 months if the situation remained static. The BBC didnt check Fletchers specious claims. Neither did the British prime minister, nor the hysteric members of the House of Commons who repeated them. His line was regurgitated ad nauseam by the U.S. news media and uncountable numbers of social media "influencers" around the globe. By Wednesday, the BBC and the U.N. had backed off this assertion. Perhaps its unrelated, but by then a man with a pistol and evil intent had boarded a plane from Chicago to Washington and bought a ticket to a humanitarian event attended by Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim. Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics and executive editor of RealClearMedia Group. Reach him on X @CarlCannon.
Middle East Eye
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Jordan and US in talks to extradite alleged Jerusalem Sbarro bomber
US officials have entered talks with Jordan about extraditing a high-profile Jordanian citizen who was convicted by an Israeli court for assisting in a deadly attack in Jerusalem, Middle East Eye can reveal. The discussions come at a critical time for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which has banned the Muslim Brotherhood and is wary of its citizens' anger at Israel over the war in Gaza. Jordan and Israel have had a peace treaty since 1994. The extradition of Ahlam Tamimi is being discussed as part of a broader package of deals that Jordan hopes will allow it to obtain more US economic assistance, which has been curtailed with the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). 'Jordan is trying to show the Trump administration it is still relevant to its world view,' a senior western source familiar with the sensitive negotiations told MEE. 'The old adage that aid is needed to stabilise Jordan for the sake of the region does not fly anymore,' the source added. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters One result is Jordan taking on a bigger role in participating in operations against the Islamic State in Syria, as US troops withdraw from the country's northeast, the source added. Reuters previously reported that Syria's counterterrorism authorities and US representatives were holding talks in Amman. However, the case of Tamimi may be the most sensitive for the kingdom, as it touches on domestic politics and the fate of a Jordanian national. Muslim Brotherhood crackdown Tamimi was imprisoned for her role in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, which killed 15 people, including seven children. She was sentenced to 16 life terms but freed in a 2011 prisoner exchange with Hamas. After her release, she lived in Jordan, where she has regularly made media appearances. Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news outlet reported in February that Jordan told Hamas to find a country to relocate Tamimi, or it would be forced to extradite her. Why did Jordan ban the Muslim Brotherhood? Read More » The discussions between US officials and Jordan since then over Tamimi's fate in the broader context of currying favour for US aid relief have not been reported previously. The US sees an opening for Tamimi's extradition since Jordan banned the Muslim Brotherhood in April, the source added. The Brotherhood's political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), is the kingdom's main opposition party and has a history of accommodating the Hashemite Monarchy. The IAF's office was raided recently, and some observers believe the party's licence could be revoked altogether. Jordan accused the Muslim Brotherhood of planning to carry out attacks in the country, an announcement that came a week after security services said they had arrested 16 people accused of stockpiling weapons and planning to destabilise the kingdom. One US official familiar with the raids confirmed to MEE all the weaponry seized in several locations but said that the arms could have been destined for the occupied West Bank and not necessarily directed at the monarchy. The move, however, did not surprise US officials who expected a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in advance, the official added. Tamimi's status became a lightning rod in US-Jordan ties during the first Trump administration. King Abdullah II was able to sidestep the first Trump administration's request to extradite Tamimi, who is on the FBI's most wanted list. Two US citizens were killed in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing. The Associated Press reported in 2020 that the White House weighed withholding or cutting military aid to Jordan to obtain Tamimi. The Jordanian embassy in the US did not respond to MEE's request for comment by the time of publication. Jordan's quest for aid King Abdullah and Trump had a generally good meeting at the White House in February, US and regional officials familiar with their talks told MEE. Following the meeting, Abdullah was credited by Egypt with dissuading Trump from pursuing his plan for the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and its US "takeover." However, Jordan has already suffered a steep cut in financial assistance. Jordan proposes exiling 3,000 Hamas members from Gaza to end Israel's war Read More » The State Department said in 2023 that Jordan received almost $1.7bn in aid. Of that, just $425m was foreign military aid. The kingdom receives roughly $770m in direct cash payments. According to a report by S&P Global assessing Jordan's credit in March, the shutdown of USAID alone would endanger about $300m in disbursements to the kingdom. Jordan has been trying to obtain additional aid from Gulf States, diplomats and analysts say. Saudi Arabia has tightened its purse strings in recent years. Meanwhile, the UAE's influence in Jordan has grown. But assistance has come in the form of investments, not aid. In 2024, the UAE and Jordan signed a $2.4bn deal to build a railroad from Aqaba to the Dead Sea. The UAE's ruling al-Nahyan family views the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to its rule and has attempted to stamp the movement out across the region.
