There have been a number of articles by Jews lately saying that this is not the time to worry about the anti-Israel platform of Black Lives Matter because solidarity with blacks over the murder of George Floyd is far more important.
The morning after I saw the video of George Floyd’s death-by-police, I gave a small donation to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and shared a link on social media encouraging friends to do the same. A fellow member of my temple’s Tzedek Council took exception. He declared that while he supports the cause of ending police brutality against African Americans, he couldn’t in good conscience contribute to BLM because of their support of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS), and condemnation of Israel.
…But Jews need to support black people, BDS or no, because… well, “First they came for the Blacks and I did nothing.”
I believe in equality and equity. I fight against racism. I believe every human being is created in God’s holy image. And yet, I previously grimaced when I heard the rallying cry “Black Lives Matter.” I grimaced really for one reason only: the stance the Movement for Black Lives platform took on Israel back in 2016. The comprehensive document referred to Israel as an “apartheid state” and condemned the United States for its “alliance with Israel and [being] complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people.” Such rhetoric broke my heart.
For the past four years, every time I saw a “Black Lives Matter” placard, I shuddered at the anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic themes it raised for me.
…In 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the world changed. Now it is on us to make certain that George Floyd’s death will not be in vain. We can argue and joust and cry about Israel another day. Today, we have a categorical moral imperative to hear the pain of our black brothers and sisters. We have to recognize the holiness in their struggle and their plight. And I know in my heart of hearts that I have to stand with them. We have to stand with them. And so now and evermore we must all say Black Lives Matter.
Another article, with a much stronger point for supporting BLM, at Hey Alma:
Far more common than those who denounced Black Lives Matter outright, though, were those who silently took a few steps back from the movement. You know who you are. You know that there’s racism in America; you’re against it, obviously, but you really, really don’t want to get into an internet fight about Israel.
Maybe you’re a college student who feels alienated by the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) activism on your campus. Maybe you’re a proud Zionist who deleted Dua Lipa’s new album from your Spotify library after she reposted an anti-Israel screed. Maybe you haven’t thoroughly thought out your position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and you’re just sick of people expecting you to take sides just because you’re Jewish. Whatever the reason, you’re one of those people who just wouldn’t be comfortable rolling up to a Black Lives Matter protest with your Star of David necklace out, knowing that you might run into someone holding a Palestinian flag.
I see where you’re coming from, I really do. And I’m here to tell you that you need to show up anyway.
I am an Israeli citizen and a proud Zionist. I oppose BDS because I believe full civil rights and security for Palestinians will only be achieved through Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and trust-building. By the same token, I cannot refuse to engage with Black Lives Matter. The history of racism and white supremacy in the United States is violent and painful, like that of Israel and Palestine. No American of good conscience can simply opt out of racism in America — no more than Israelis can simply ignore the existence of Palestinians, or vice versa.
All of these articles are conflating genuine fighting for equality and justice with the organization called “Black Lives Matter.” They say that the fight against racism is too important to let the BLM’s anti-Israel platform be an impediment.
Now, imagine if the BLM platform said it was against equality for women. Imagine if it said it was against accommodating disabled people in America. Imagine if it said it was against equal rights for gays. Would anyone say that this should be ignored and we should support Black Lives Matter anyway?
No one would.
But BLM did insert bigotry into its platform. It actively opposes the rights of Jews to exercise self-determination, the right to defend themselves, the right to be treated like other peoples.
Why is the anti-Israel and effectively antisemitic platform of BLM any more acceptable than those other prejudices? Why are Jews – and everyone else – supposed to overlook this discrimination and bigotry in the name of fighting discrimination and bigotry?
In a world where a single unthinking politically incorrect comment can get people to lose their jobs, why is anti-Israel bigotry the exception that we are asked to overlook? Why do Jews have to be the ones who rise above being the objects of hate but no one else is expected to?
Attend the protests. Wear your Star of David necklace. Brandish the signs that say Jews support black lives. There is nothing wrong with marching with those you disagree with on a cause you have in common.
But keep your self-respect. Don’t say that we can ignore the bigotry of BLM or can push that topic off to another day. Bigotry is the topic, and supporting BDS is bigotry. Even if 99% of the BLM platform is wonderful, that 1% poisons the entire thing and should never be accepted or excused.
If the Israel issue does come up, don’t get defensive. Show pride. Point out that it makes sense for blacks to partner with Jews who know a thing or two about rising from slavery and genocide to becoming a proud people living their own lives in their own land, who unapologetically defend themselves against the antisemites and bigots, who know that antisemitism and racism will never disappear but have the most experience in effectively fighting the hate.
Israel is the real life Wakanda. That is the message that needs to be shared.
Jewish pride means that no one should donate to, or write articles supporting, an organization that is bigoted against Jews who support a Jewish state.
Black lives do matter. But Black Lives Matter cannot be condoned as long as it practices the type of bigotry it is ostensibly against.
UPDATE: It appears that the pro-BDS platform has been removed from the webpages of Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives. I don't know when this happened. They no longer have a full platform published, and their What We Believe page has nothing about Israel or Palestinians. If they no longer support BDS, this argument becomes moot, but we should get clarification.
UPDATE 2: The anti-Israel rhetoric is still there but put under a different policy paper on cutting military expenditures. It refers to Israel as an "apartheid state" and points people to Adalah and BDS resources. My original point stands. (h/t Orgth BC)
There was an amazing article in Haaretz on Tuesday, written by former Palestinian negotiator Bishara Bahbah .
Bahbah gave advice to Palestinian leadership that is obvious and rational. Which is exactly what makes this article amazing – Arabs usually coddle the Palestinian leaders rather than tell them hard truths.
Excerpts:
The Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate With Israel and Trump Is a Cowardly, Fateful Mistake
Besides denunciations and rejection, the Palestinian leadership has nothing else to offer. The Palestinian leadership is in a state of mental paralysis. Depressingly and damagingly, this
Here are eight recommendations for the Palestinian leadership to deliberate – and move forward. Before too much is lost.
You need new blood. The same, failed Palestinian leaders have been leading for the last four decades. Despite their failures, they have either retained their positions or have been promoted.
Do something – or resign. If Fatah’s central committee and the PLO’s executive committee are incapable of making constructive, fateful decisions regarding the future of Palestine, except to say no, then please resign. There are younger Palestinians in their twenties and thirties who are capable of making better calculated and courageous decisions. Those should be the ones in power.
Doing nothing or saying no gives Israel a green light to act. Saying no to the Trump peace plan and/or doing nothing to respond to the proposed plan is tantamount to giving Israel a green light to annex the Jordan Valley come July 2020.
Better deals might not exist. In 2000, 2008, and 2014, the Palestinian Authority refused to accept peace proposals based on a two-state solution formula. There is no perfect peace agreement and there is no just peace agreement. Learn to live with the dictates of life and the realities on the ground. By comparison, those previous peace proposals look very attractive compared to the Trump peace plan. Do not waste the Palestinian people’s lives waiting for a better proposal to present itself. It might never happen!
Reject but provide an alternative, i.e., engage. President Donald Trump, and his ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, described the Trump peace plan as "a basis for negotiations." They did not say take it or leave it. …
Beware of your own people. The Palestinian political elite are financially comfortable with their monthly stipends, cars, drivers, and, most importantly, their Israeli-issued VIP passes. The rest of the Palestinian people whether in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the refugee camps do not have those luxuries. They are suffering but they see what you, the leaders, have. Be very, very alert to how capable "hungry" people can be.
When have you ever heard a Palestinian say something this rational – especially in Haaretz?
Of course, two days later there is no coverage of this article in Palestinian media – even though they often eagerly translate articles from Haaretz. The reason why this article is ignored is the reason why peace is impossible – because the Palestinian leadership does not want a state nor do they want peace.
Over the past couple of days the Palestinian foreign minister had to deny rumors that he was willing to negotiate with Israel under Russian sponsorship in Moscow. Whether he really said this or not is not important – the fact that he regarded a rumor like that to be so outrageous that he threatens to sue the newspapers that reported it is really the story. The idea of talking to or negotiating with Israel is anathema to Palestinian leaders, which means that they are not interested in any real peace; instead they hope that one day international pressure will force Israel to surrender its own sovereignty.
Peace can only come when Palestinian leaders are willing to face hard truths that might be uncomfortable to them. But they live in a fantasy world where the unassailable logic shown here is not only not heard, but it is forbidden.
You annex foreign land, not your own country. – Menachem Begin
Right now Israel is facing a momentous decision to do something that is practically nothing. That is to extend Israeli civilian law to some parts of Judea and Samaria, specifically the Jordan Valley and other areas where Jewish communities are located.
Why do I say it is practically nothing? Because the official position of our government, although it often does a rotten job of explaining it, is that those areas are already part of Israel. Nothing is being “annexed” as the EU insists (here is why). And while the areas are currently governed by a military government, little will change in most practical legal matters.
Of course it is a big deal for the Palestinians, for the Europeans, and indeed for anyone who wishes that the Jews did not have a sovereign state. This is because it symbolizes the end of the pretense that was so dear to them, that the “West Bank” (as they prefer to call it) is not part of Israel and ultimately will need to pass into Arab hands. It means that any “two-state solution” that could happen in the future will happen according to a map more like the map found in the Trump Plan – one that is consistent with UNSC 242 that called for “secure and recognized boundaries” – rather than the very insecure boundaries that would result from basing them on the 1949 armistice lines, as previous US administrations wished to do.
It is also a big deal for us, for the same reason. It is a recognition that justice is on our side. It is a repudiation of the idea that we are holding onto something that belongs to someone else. It is an affirmation that Eretz Yisrael is the land of the Jewish people.
Let me dismiss the objection that the Palestinians will react violently. What else is new? The Palestinians will always be as violent as they think they can get away with. If they see that we’re prepared, they will content themselves with verbal complaints.
And King Abdullah of Jordan won’t abrogate his treaty with us. He can’t afford to, and in addition he probably would prefer not to have a border with any future Palestinian entity.
Most Israelis favor this step. But some have objected that the map in the Trump plan would leave numerous Jewish communities cut off, enclaves in the Palestinian entity without the ability to grow and difficult or impossible to secure. It would be, de facto, as much an abandonment of those communities as the withdrawal from Gaza was for Gush Katif. They also point out that any Palestinian state in the center of Israel’s heartland would be dangerous.
The US has said that it would “recognize” Israel’s action only if Israel offered to negotiate with the Palestinians on the basis of the Trump plan, coordinate the map with the US, and agree to freeze construction in parts of Area C that are not included in the area to which Israeli law will be applied. This implies that Israel would actually lose territory as a result.
I don’t want to minimize their concerns. But I think we need to step all the way out of the “peace processing” box and take a different approach. I propose that:
1. We announce that we agree in principle with the Trump plan, although we do not sign onto any specifics. We offer to talk with the Palestinians. 2. We draw a map that meets our security needs and provides for access to and expansion of all the existing Jewish communities. 3. We present it to the Americans and explain that this is our interpretation of the Trump plan, and we hope that they will be able to agree that it is reasonable. 4. We take the needed steps to extend civilian law to the areas indicated in the map.
Note that American “recognition” of Israel’s action is meaningless. We are not declaring a state that needs to be accepted into international organizations. We are making a change that is an internal matter, consistent with the principle that Judea and Samaria are part of Israel in accordance with international law.
I’m confident that the US will accept our action. It is not in its interest to reject it: whether the map is closer to what the American officials who originally drew it envisioned or to what the people who today live in Judea and Samaria prefer, the negative reactions from Europe and the Palestinians, as well as the (disingenuous) complaints of the Arab nations, will be the same. So why make the details a sticking point?
Keep in mind that the US has other concerns. It seems to me that the position of President Trump is precarious. I also believe – though I hope I’m wrong – that the disturbances that we are seeing now in cities across the country are not a short-term phenomenon but mark the beginning of a prolonged state of instability. And the Coronavirus is not going away.
We are an ally, not a vassal of the US. It may be that in the long run we may be able to do more for it than it can do for us.
Western Europe, with its history of colonialism, antisemitism, and genocide against the Jews and others, is not a moral exemplar; its politics are politics of interest larded with a large measure of Jew-hatred. At the same time that we extend civilian law in Judea and Samaria, we should take the strongest possible steps to eliminate EU influence there, as well as in various areas of Israeli politics and society.
We can and should take this step. Even though it is practically a very small step, it is psychologically and spiritually important. It may not be possible, even in a few months. Don’t wait until it’s too late.
Before Covid-19 struck, Boris Johnson had decided to invite the Chinese tech giant Huawei to provide parts of Britain’s 5G communications network. Now, with China condemned for causing the pandemic through its reckless behaviour and then behaving like a gangster state in resorting to lies, threats and manipulation, the government is proposing an alliance of ten democratic nations to develop alternatives to Chinese technology.
This “D10” would be composed of the G7 nations — the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan — plus Australia, South Korea and India. It’s an idea that is not only excellent in itself but encapsulates an insight with far-reaching potential to restructure global institutions.
What’s actually outdated is the idea that peace and justice can only be advanced by the world acting as one big united family. This belief in the brotherhood of man lay behind the foundation of the United Nations in 1945. Yet the UN has not only failed to live up to its ideals of confronting aggression, preserving peace and defending human rights, but has in fact helped thwart them.
Given that most countries are tyrannies, kleptocracies or rogue states, a global body which brings them all together will inevitably be dominated by their unsavoury characteristics.
What’s needed instead is a United Democratic Nations. This is an idea that has often been floated wistfully by critics of the UN but dismissed as quixotic. The D10 proposal, however, could be the launchpad for just such a body. Going beyond the issue of Huawei and 5G technology, democracies should band together to defend freedom and justice by standing up to the depredations of regimes that seek to extinguish them.
The UN might have been created as a result of the shattering impact of the Second World War. It was founded, however, on a starry-eyed denial of the fact that if a lion lies down with a lamb, the lion doesn’t turn vegan but the lamb gets eaten.
I am a Jordanian Arab from a Muslim family. I was born in 1989. In 2010, I decided to leave Islam after becoming fed up with all the jihadist violence and intolerance and persecution of non-Muslims. What made my decision final was the realization that this violence and hatred was justified by verses of the Koran and Hadith.
From 2010-2012, I was an atheist, though I continued to seek the truth regarding God and religion, even visiting Buddhist temples in Amman.
I was a university student at the time, and announced my newfound atheism through social media, which immediately turned many friends and colleagues against me. They felt I was backwards in my thinking, and I came to feel the same about them.
As you are no doubt aware, atheism is detested in the Arab and Islamic world. I faced a lot of hurtful opposition from those around me, but I kept my head down and focused on completing my university studies. It wasn’t easy. There were those who tried to have me kicked out because of my stance against Islam, but they failed.
In 2012, I decided to visit a church and learn more about Christianity. I was curious about Jesus. After four months of investigating, I joined an international church under the auspices of an American priest. On the very first day, I was asked to pray for salvation, after which one of the Christian brothers gave me weekly Bible lessons. Shortly after, I was baptized in the Jordan River.
Jordan is seen by many as a moderate Arab Muslim country. But even here, it is illegal to leave Islam. The civil courts are still governed by Sharia law, and to have someone complain against you for rejecting Islam can result in criminal punishment.
This didn’t deter me, and in 2012, I made an online video telling people in Arabic about how I’d become a Christian. Several days later, I was attacked by three radical Muslims. I also received threats from a radical Salafi movement under the leadership of Jarrah Rahahleh, an international terrorist, who used to send jihadists to Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and was arrested many times by Jordanian authorities. Further threats came from others.
Thus it was that the group that would come to be known as the “Nakam,” Hebrew for “Avengers,” was born. In the spring of 1945, a Passover gathering of survivors in Bucharest was addressed by Abba Kovner, the young leader of the Jewish uprising in the Vilna ghetto. Kovner was born in 1918 in Sebastopol, Russia, and spent his high school years in Vilna, where he joined Ha-Shomer Hatzair youth movement. When the Germans invaded and occupied Lithuania, they rounded up the Jews and put them in a ghetto. Kovner pleaded with Vilna’s Jews to join the partisans in a popular uprising, but they refused. After briefly fighting the Germans, Kovner and other partisans fled to the forest. While there, they destroyed 180 miles of train tracks, five bridges, 40 enemy train cars and killed 212 German soldiers. He returned to Vilna with the Red Army on July 7, 1944, capturing the city from the Germans on July 13, 1944. After the war, he and 50 other partisans attempted to poison thousands of Nazi and SS prisoners in a Nuremberg POW camp. It is unknown how many Germans were killed. In 1961 he testified at the trial of Adolf Eichmann. In 1970, he won the “Israel Prize” in literature for his poetry.
At that gathering, Kovner spoke passionately and invoked Psalm 94, in which God promises that he shall deal with the enemies of the people of Israel. “He will turn upon them their own violence and with their own wickedness destroy them.” This, Kovner suggested, was the fate that should be meted out to the Germans. And if the courts of international justice would not do it, then the Jews should do it themselves.
Calmly, the group set about implementing the death sentences they themselves had passed. First, they would identify a Nazi who had melted back into civilian life. They would then stage an arrest and spirit the German away. Some of these ex-SS men were strangled, others hanged. The deaths of those who were hanged could be passed off as suicides. Hangings might take place in a garage, with the subject forced to stand on a car roof while his neck was placed in the noose attached to an overhead beam. An Avenger would drive the car away and the man would be strangled. These efforts endured into the 1950s. The executioners kept their mouths shut and took their secrets to their graves.
The Nakam went to Spain, Latin America, Canada, and other places where Nazi murderers found refuge. In one such operation, the Nakam tracked down Alexander Laak, responsible for the deaths of 100,000 Jews at the Estonian concentration camp of Jagala. One evening they waited for Laak’s wife to leave for the movies, went to his home, and confronted him with his crimes and their intended punishment. They gave him a choice: They would kill him, or he could do it himself. He hung himself.
Benjamin Levi, one of the avengers, recalled that period in his life saying, “I saw a lot of things. I saw very noble people become animals. And very plain people become noble.” He had joined the partisans during the war and helped to liberate Vilna. He and his comrades rounded up Lithuanians who had collaborated with the Germans and shot them on the spot. “We didn’t keep prisoners,” he said. “There was no discussion. It was a normal thing.” All enemies were immediately shot. “The moment I start to think about this more and more memories come,” he said to a later interviewer. “We don’t talk about this anymore. But it’s alive inside.”
After the founding of the State of Israel, the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, undertook the task of tracking down former Nazis and killing them, and in some cases, putting them on trial. But that’s another story.
Malki Roth, 15, was murdered
for eating pizza while Jewish in Jerusalem. That she was with her best friend,
also murdered for eating pizza while Jewish in Jerusalem, is of little comfort,
though the two are buried next to each other, together in death as they were in
life. But what grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you go is that the
mastermind of the Sbarro Restaurant Massacre, Ahlam Tamimi, lives free and
clear in Jordan, a celebrity to her people.
Why a celebrity? It’s simple.
Ahlam Tamimi is celebrated in Jordan for causing Jewish blood to be spilled. In
particular, the blood of Jewish children, which apparently brought her great (and
very public) delight.
Now if you are an American, you
should care about this because Malki Roth was an American citizen. The United
States has an extradition treaty with Jordan. But the United States has done
next to nothing to seek justice for one of her own. Which is shameful.
Jordan gets a lot of money from
the United States, so it would seem to be the easiest and most sensible thing
in the world to accomplish the extradition of Tamimi, a wanted terrorist. Cut
the money pipeline and they, Jordan, will hand Tamimi over quick enough.
But that hasn’t happened.
Why not? And how do Malki’s
parents, Arnold and Frimet Roth, live with that reality and betrayal, even as
their daughter’s blood cries out from the ground for justice?
Arnold and Frimet Roth gaze at a photo of their daughter Malki, HY"D.
Arnold
Roth was interviewed in this space one year ago in an effort to raise
awareness of this story, this travesty of justice. But twelve months on, the extradition
has still not occurred. Tamimi has not been
put on trial. She is still free,
still celebrated as a hero in Jordan. And Malki Roth’s blood still cries out
from the ground.
It seems appropriate, one year
on, to take stock and ask: What has changed in the course of one year? Is there
any hope, any progress at all? I spoke to Arnold to learn more:
Varda Epstein: In our interview of a year ago, you mentioned some
concrete achievements in your efforts to persuade the US to increase the
pressure on Jordan to extradite your daughter’s murderer, Ahlam Tamimi. Tamimi
had been charged and a reward for her capture issued. But there were unnamed
officials who seemed to be blocking this process. Can you tell us more about
this? Has anything changed, at least on this score?
Arnold Roth: A terrific question. Let’s
look first at what hasn’t changed.
A major
news organization recently called fugitive bomber Ahlam Tamimi “the
most wanted woman in the world”. It wasn’t meant as a compliment. But it’s
also not clear what it really does mean. There are 28 people on the FBI
Most Wanted Terrorists list as of today. Of these terrorists, 26 are
men. Tamimi is one of the only two female terrorists on this list.
But it would be a stretch to say she’s
living the life of someone on the run. Tamimi lives with her husband/cousin in
a fancy apartment in Jordan’s capital. That’s where she was when you and I
spoke about her last June. And that’s
where she is now. She’s still free as a bird, unrestricted in her movements,
frequently quoted and published in the Arabic media. Tamimi, above all, continues
to be a figure of malignant influence, a devotee of Islamism in the most
violent sense, a woman who uses every accessible part of the media to keep
pumping out lethal hatred often, widely, and to a hugely appreciative audience.
Tamimi Has Never Been in Hiding
And contrary to its own carefully
manicured public relations, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an ally of Western
governments that has one of the world’s most restricted and tightly controlled
media strategies, continues to be perfectly fine with all of this.
Tamimi was not in hiding when we spoke
last time and she’s not in hiding today. She has, in fact, never been in hiding—not
even for a single day since she returned home to Jordan in 2011 after several
years in an Israeli prison cell. Jordan is where she was born and educated, and
Jordan is where Tamimi still lives today, out in the open, though she was
supposed to spend the rest of her life behind bars.
Sentenced by a judicial panel to 16
terms of life imprisonment after confessing to her role in the Jerusalem Sbarro
pizzeria massacre, Tamimi got her freedom back by way of the Shalit Deal. In
this “exchange,” Israel released 1,027 terrorists—more than half of them
killers—for a soldier held hostage for more than five years by Hamas terrorists
in conditions that, according to lawyers, constitute a war crime.
Tamimi's Life is Public
Photos of the Tamimi apartment in Amman,
even more than when we spoke last year, are still easily found on social media.
The Tamimi home has been photographed from the inside, from the outside, from the
terrace looking up and looking down. The trajectory of Tamimi’s life and career are public information. Herwedding got live TV coverage. She earned a master’s degree in journalism the same week your first interview with me was published, and this too, made it into the news. Everything Tamimi does is eagerly scrutinized by her adoring Jordanian public.
Should this trouble thoughtful people?
Yes. Because the U.S. government announced a $5 million reward on her head in
January of 2018. But it’s obvious that the Tamimi reward doesn’t work the way
such rewards normally do. No one needs to be financially incentivized to hand
over the details of where Tamimi is when every relevant person already knows
her location.
If the reward was never intended to apply inside Jordan, why is this never stated publicly and how can U.S. officials claim relentless efforts to bring Ahlam Tamimi to U.S. justice?
High-level U.S. officials obviously
know this particular reward was never intended to apply inside Jordan,
leaving inquiring minds to wonder (a) how it is that this is never stated
publicly, and (b) what goes through the minds of officials as they make eloquent
speeches or issue media releases about Tamimi and their “relentless” efforts to
bring her to U.S. justice?
At a certain point, those
well-composed, emphatically-phrased official statements coupled with the
refusal of a long line of U.S. diplomats and other officials to engage with me
and my wife leave us—picking my words cautiously—troubled.
The regime of King Abdullah II,
meanwhile, is still fully engaged in illicitly blocking U.S. law enforcement’s efforts
to take Tamimi into custody. Amman’s willingness to stare down the United
States, its most important ally and the source of more foreign aid that Jordan
gets from anyone else, remains as it was when you and I last spoke, something deeply
puzzling.
Prominent Officials Heap Praise on Abdullah
Deepening this puzzle further, there’s
no shortage of U.S. institutions, politicians and prominent Jewish community
figures who persist in heaping generous praise upon Abdullah’s majestic head.
First: A
high-ranking official, the kingdom’s foreign minister, let himself be provoked
in November 2019 to break Jordan’s protracted official silence on Tamimi. We
blogged about it here: “13-Nov-19:
Thank you, Mr Foreign Minister”. Our gratitude to Mr Ajman Safadi was
sincere. His statement means that Jordan’s disgraceful, almost incomprehensible
policy of standing firmly in solidarity with the engineer of the Sbarro
pizzeria massacre is now a matter of policy that diplomatic double-talk simply cannot
disguise.
Next: The
United States, after a long period of avoidance and ambiguity, came out with its
own brief but clear statement (as we wrote here)
in November 2019:
In 2018, Jordan continued to cite a court ruling that its
constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals. The United
States regards the extradition treaty as valid.
Until those words in italics appeared
in an official U.S. government publication, the matter was arguably unclear. Now
it’s not. That’s very important.
Important Warning Letter
Another step forward: On April 30,
2020, a small group of U.S. lawmakers sent off a letter to Jordan’s ambassador
to Washington. In their letter, the lawmakers politely asked highly relevant
questions that go to the legal theory behind the March 2017 decision of
Jordan’s Court of Cassation to invalidate the 1995 Jordan/US treaty.
The lawmakers’ letter also touched on a
crucially important development that, again, has gotten almost no media attention.
Here’s the short version:
In December 2019, President Trump
signed into law a powerful sanction that, while it does not mention Jordan by
name, applies to a beneficiary of US foreign aid (Jordan is the third largest
recipient of such aid), has an extradition treaty with the US (as Jordan does,
though it denies this fact), and is in breach (as Jordan surely is, and the
State Department now at last agrees) of its obligations under that treaty.
The sanction, which the Secretary of
State can waive, means that in such circumstances foreign aid to the
beneficiary, ceases.
Jordanian Public Opinion Ignited
Jordan’s reaction to the letter from
these members of Congress is worth understanding. Impassioned lectures from
outside Jordan about terrorists and Islamism, justice and core values and dead
children blown up in a pizzeria were easily ignored in Amman. But when the story
turned to money, public opinion was ignited. Jordan’s media was incensed
by an all-too-credible threat that the U.S. might stop shoveling cash into the
Jordanian treasury.
So that’s the most substantive change:
that finally, via baby steps, the Jordanian leadership has been forced to think
about acknowledging the cost of the Jordanian public’s adoration of a
child-killing bomber living in its midst as a celebrity.
Arnold Roth with Malki
Frimet Roth and Malki
Varda Epstein: Am I correct in thinking that there has been more
coverage of your efforts to have Tamimi extradited in recent months? Why is the
media willing to cover this story now, when it was mostly silent until now?
Arnold Roth: Media
coverage, or more importantly its absence, is a cause of considerable ongoing embitterment
for us. The exceptions are, I am pleased to say, significant but they don’t
change the sense we have that for the mainstream news industry, we and our
cause are untouchable.
When I tell people we feel like
the town lepers, I don’t feel like I am exaggerating very much.
·A Hebrew
translation of David Horovitz’s article appeared on the Times of Israel’s
sister publicationZman Yisrael on May 23, 2020. And
that, sad to say, was the first, and so far only effort to explain the
Tamimi/Jordan affair in a serious, analytical way to an Israeli audience.
Let me connect the dots. We live in
Jerusalem and have a broad and varied circle of friends, contacts, and
colleagues. Most of them, and even many of our Israeli family members, have little
or even no idea of what we have done or of what’s been done to us since the
Shalit Deal and the renewal of Tamimi’s terror career in Jordan. No one is
going to persuade me that this—the media suppression of an obviously
significant chain of events, is a normal situation.
Varda Epstein: What progress has been made toward having Tamimi
extradited to the States?
Arnold Roth: Let’s
begin with the first public notification milestone.
But it was immediately clear to us that
unsuccessful secret efforts had been made repeatedly to persuade Jordan to hand
Tamimi over for prosecution in Washington years before that. (Tamimi had returned
to her homeland, Jordan, in October 2011 as a result of her unforgivably being
included in the Shalit Deal walk-free list.)
As to progress, that’s a binary thing.
Either she’s being extradited or she’s not. Currently she’s not. We believe she
will be.
Varda Epstein: Jordan claims it has no extradition treaty with the
United States. Can you tell us about that?
Arnold Roth: On this
aspect, there is a huge amount of disinformation, most of it deliberate and
calculated. In large measure, that’s the outcome of a systemic news industry
failure. It’s shameful that this is still happening and that, by definition, so
few people know.
Jordan’s assertion that Tamimi cannot
be extradited because of Jordanian law has been dismissed by I think every
single expert source we have consulted.
The Jordanian judges in their brief
hearing and terse judgement spoke of a constitutional problem—that the National
Assembly, Jordan’s parliament, ought to have ratified the treaty which everyone,
including the Jordanians agrees, was certainly signed by the two governments
back in 1995.
They Found Their Hook
Non-ratification is the only ground
they cited for invalidating the extradition treaty. The court relied on no
other legal flaw. They found their hook and they hung the conclusion on it: Tamimi
cannot be extradited. That was all they needed or intended to find.
Since then, numerous Jordanian
commentators, including reporters, politicians, assorted charlatans and lawyers,
have gone public with claims that what this is really, truly, honestly is
about, is that Jordan never
extradites Jordanians. Or alternatively that this is not an extraditable
matter. Or that the doctrine of double jeopardy applies. Or that it’s a matter
of Jordanian national pride. Or that anyway what she did was not a crime if she
did it—but she didn’t, or so they claim.
They've Extradited Fugitives Before
In our unanswered communications with
Jordanian officials (not one of whom has ever acknowledged our existence, let
alone our arguments), we have rhetorically asked whether Jordan has extradited
fugitives to the US before. That’s a more significant question than it appears.
And the answer is: yes, it
surely has, even if the highest court in Jordan and no mainstream media anywhere
want this to be known.
We have tried to draw them out on other
questions. Does Jordan have extradition treaties with other countries? Is extraditing
Jordanians foreign to Jordanian constitutional law or jurisprudence or
political philosophy or royal decree? Is treaty ratification always done? Or
never done? Or done only once a treaty takes effect?
Jordan Remains Silent
The answers are clear to us even while
the Jordanians stay silent.
Look at the issues dispassionately and
it’s hard to avoid an irksome conclusion: that for people engaged in politics
and diplomacy, what’s true about Jordan’s egregious breach of its treaty
with the U.S. takes a backseat to what’s flattering and complimentary
and helpful to our Hashemite allies.
Even if I weren’t the father of a
child murdered by the main beneficiary of this odious fig-leafing, I would be
disgusted by it. And by those who know and yet still engage in it.
Varda Epstein: What are the risks and benefits for King Abdullah in
refusing to honor Jordan’s extradition treaty with the United States?
Arnold Roth: Let’s distinguish
between risks/benefits that are real and those that are illusory.
Here’s how it’s often said to us. Good
King Abdullah’s freedom to act is limited by the realities of a kingdom that
could explode at any moment. Of course he wants to do the right thing. Of
course he feels Tamimi is an embarrassment to his country’s fine name. Of
course he respects and wants to do honor to his father’s values and
achievements and treaties. But put yourself in his shoes, and etc.
All of this is nonsense. It’s also
doubtful whether other heads of state would be spoken of in terms as
condescending and contradicted-by-the-facts as these.
What Jordan Risks
So to your question, the risks Jordan
faces by continuing to demean its treaty obligations come down to:
·Potential loss of U.S. foreign aid;
·The continued growth and normalization of
overt antisemitic and violently-hostile-to-Israel sentiments at every level in
Jordanian society;
·Ditto for anti-U.S. sentiment and activity;
·Growing instability because of unchecked
forces active in Jordan that happen to be the same forces with which Tamimi is
aligned.
Jordan stands to keep benefitting
hugely if it chooses to stay a U.S. ally. But Americans need to ask themselves
whether Jordan’s actions make that possible.
Varda Epstein: There have been some signs that Tamimi is laying low,
that she is nervous about extradition. Can you tell us about that? What does
this indicate?
Arnold Roth: You’re
perceptive. We don’t communicate with our child’s vicious killer. But we track
her statements in the conventional media as well as via the social media where
she has always been happy to play. And to be clear—in the age of online
translation-on-demand, I am referring to what she says in Arabic. Only
the Arabic counts.
The Tamimis claim the pressure for
extradition is coming from “Zionists” when it’s actually the U.S.
Congress and the executive arm of the US government. They declare their trust
in “Jordan's leadership, government and people.” But that’s not true
either.
"Where's Abdullah?"
Ahlam Tamimi herself says that: “We
are still awaiting the Jordanian official response to the latest escalation…I was amazed at the silence of the Jordanian political side and its failure
to respond to the message of the seven members of the American Congress...”
Translation: “Where is King
Abdullah II?”
The answer may be related to something
she herself published just days before the U.S. Congress adopted its
Jordan-centric sanction: “15-Dec-19:
The Sbarro bomber trashes the ruler who protects her from the FBI” in
which Tamimi compares King Abdullah II unfavorably with his late father, King
Hussein.You might wonder after reading her post, as I do, why Jordan’s proud and capable king troubles himself to keep
this dangerous ingrate safe. It doesn’t make sense.
And something to note about her social
media presence: Tamimi, a journalist, gets op-ed space in the Arab media on
request. She’s frequently featured on the vastly influential Aljazeera platform, for instance. But she’s
evidently devoted to social media.
One By One They Shut Her Down
I mention this because whenever we
find them we report her accounts to the security people at Twitter, Instagram,
et al, and one by one we have seen them shut her down. The most recent shut
down was yesterday. She keeps coming back but each time, she has to rebuild her
following.
I also want to mention something
important your esteemed host, Elder of Ziyon, noted in the past couple of
weeks: “Ahlam
Tamimi says she’s “terrified” she will be extradited.” What onlookers
ought to be asking is: Why is this happening only now? Which homicidal fugitive
from the law, with the blood of at least sixteen people on her hands, is
entitled to sleep peacefully in her bed at night? How did this ever happen?
Varda Epstein: What could the U.S. do to pressure Jordan, if it were to
get serious about extraditing Tamimi?
Arnold Roth: So, as we
have already discussed, the U.S. now has a well-focused sanction in its
arsenal. But given the close and strategic ties between the leadership of the
two countries of Jordan and the U.S., and given the very black-and-white nature
of the criminality at the heart of this absurdly stretched-out affair, there’s
really only one thing the U.S. ought to be doing and that’s to say to the
powers in Jordan: We’ve been left waiting for far too long. Send Tamimi for
trial in Washington now.
And the only possible answer is: Which
flight?
Varda Epstein: Why would the U.S. not want to pressure Jordan on the
extradition issue?
Arnold Roth: I’m an
ignoramus on such matters. The more I engage with people from the U.S.
Congress, or with Washington insiders, or senior-level Jewish community
leaders, the more I realize how little I actually grasp about how they approach
questions like the one you just asked. I wish you would ask the people in those
groups. Especially those who refuse to take my calls. I will give you a list
after we finish here. Good luck.
Varda Epstein: What would it mean to you and your wife Frimet,
personally, to see Tamimi extradited, and hopefully sentenced: behind bars or
executed?
Arnold Roth: We want
justice to be done. So long as it’s not, there’s an ongoing pain deep inside us
that it makes no sense to talk about because those who have it inside them already
know and those who don’t are fortunately immune from empathizing.
Best friends Malki Roth, left, and Michal Raziel were enjoying a slice of pizza at Sbarro, when the busy, popular Jerusalem eatery was bombed.
Gravestones of best friends Malki Roth, left, and Michal Raziel, buried next to each other in the Holy City.
Varda Epstein: What can we, as regular people, do to help bring justice
for Malki?
Arnold Roth: First, and
easiest: give us the chance to share and explain the Tamimi/Jordan scandal to
you and the people among whom you live. You, Varda, have earned my deep
gratitude for having understood that without anyone saying it. Thank you, thank
you. We’re nowhere close to achieving this and our progress is plainly impacted
in a negative way as a result.
For everyone else: Frimet and I write
and talk with the passion, with the credibility, and in my opinion with the
clarity that comes from being at the heart of this for the worst of all
possible reasons. Please try to help us reach out to people who have never
heard of the Sbarro massacre, of Malki, of the ugly games politicians play in
order to see that Tamimi stays safe and untouched by U.S. justice.
That might mean Zoom events; interviews
or op-eds in the media that serve your community; introductions to senior
politicians with the backbone to speak out in ways that the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan will hear and gradually understand. In other words, please help us
create awareness because darkness and gloom—some of it generated maliciously,
some of it simply the result of apathy and neglect—need to be dispelled by
light.
About the less obvious and more
complicated things, we don’t talk much. We share (some of) them with our
activists’ mailing list. To be part of our campaign for justice, please sign on
to the list by emailing your name and city and email address to thisongoingwar@gmail.com
Thank you, Varda. Two final thoughts—one
from Benjamin Franklin. “Justice will not be served until those who are
unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” The other is from the Torah: “Justice,
justice shall you pursue.” Or in Hebrew: “Tzedek tzedek tirdof”
which is not so much a quotation as an actual divine precept, a commandment for
life.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Although we had technical problems – no video and the audio is a bit hard to hear – it is very worthwhile to listen to J.E. Dyer’s take on the current unrest, the potential role of the National Guard or US Army, Israel’s riot control expertise, the military/strategic importance of the Golan and the Jordan Valley, the cyberhack of Iran’s major port and its implications for future cyberwar, and what she thinks of both Biden and Trump as commanders in chief.
Despite the temptation to draw a comparison, the struggle of black people in the U.S. has nothing in common with the struggle of the Palestinians. The struggle being waged by blacks in the U.S. is a racial one, while the Palestinian struggle against Jews is nationalist in character.
The Palestinians refused the UN partition plan in 1947. They refused then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peace proposal in 2000. They refused to turn the Gush Katif settlement bloc, which was evacuated for their benefit in Israel's 2005 disengagement from Gaza, into a heaven on earth, choosing instead to create terrorist strongholds there. They chose Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Some chose, and still choose, terrorism.
In contrast to blacks in the U.S. who seek to live in peace with their American compatriots, the Palestinians don't want genuine peace. It's true that we and the Palestinians do not belong to the same nation, share the same language, or were raised with the same values, but that doesn't mean we cannot live in peace. But for that to happen, the Palestinians will have to recognize Israel's Jewish character and its link to Zionism.
In fact, such Palestinians already exist: Israeli Arabs, who enjoy full equality in terms of civil rights. The Israeli national anthem is addressed to the yearning Jewish soul and it will remain that way. Nevertheless, Arab citizens are not asked to sing it, the way that American Jews sing the U.S. national anthem and French Jews sing the French national anthem. They need only to recognize that it is the national anthem of the country of which they are a part.
If not for the extremist worldview adopted by many Palestinians and their supporters, which seeks to change Israel's Jewish-Zionist character, perhaps they would have their own state already.
The difference between the hoodlums of Mailer’s day and the antifa “insurgents” of Thrasher’s and our time is that our insurgents are fully aware there is a phalanx of media and academic apologists at the ready, who will not only excuse their behavior but laud it. This both provides them internal psychological cover for the unleashing of the evils inside them and a vocabulary to explain away the evils they release.
Business owners from Mercado Central, a cooperative of largely Latino-owned businesses on Lake Street, nail pieces of white cloth onto the boarded-up building as a symbol of peace and a possible deterrent against rioting, in Minneapolis.Business owners from Mercado Central, a cooperative of largely Latino-owned businesses on Lake Street, nail pieces of white cloth onto the boarded-up building as a symbol of peace and a possible deterrent against rioting, in Minneapolis.AP
Making excuses for rampant violence has been a reflexive habit among the cognoscenti in the United States since the 1960s, from the Leonard Bernsteins hosting the Black Panthers at the elegant party immortalized by Tom Wolfe in his essay “Radical Chic” to the aftermath of the 1977 New York City blackout, when the looting of entire neighborhoods causing more than $1 billion in damage ($4.5 billion in today’s dollars) was justified in the op-ed columns of The New York Times as a consequence of (wait for it) a cutback in city-provided teenage summer employment.
Ideological partisans of all stripes face this temptation every day — the temptation to believe that those who seem to be making the same argument you make but then add violence to the mix only do so out of an excess of zeal. In other words, the violent people may be wrong in their tactics, but their passionate loathing of injustice simply got the best of their good intentions.
Perhaps they feel it necessary to do so because they don’t want the bad behavior to discredit their beliefs, or because they can’t bear to examine their beliefs in light of the violence and wonder if they are a part of what made the violence happen.
Or they double down and come to think that the violence is a mark of virtue — that the violent are even more committed than the cowardly couch potatoes who sit on the sidelines bemoaning injustice but refuse to put it all on the line. That was also the story with the cop-killing and bank-robbing terrorism by the Weathermen and others that erupted from the anti-Vietnam-War student protests.
The perpetrators were romanticized rather than vilified. That was half a century ago. And the spiritual virus that provided such rancid moral “immunity” has surged anew with a recurrence of the evil.
The tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of police has triggered an ongoing outcry across the country. Anger has generated protests from coast to coast. These started off as peaceful protests and many of those protests continue to be organized as peaceful protests. But many have turned violent. And others have been violent from the start. For its part, the media has made a point of emphasizing that these are protests as opposed to riots -- and 'peaceful' protests at that. For example, early on, a reporter from MSNBC was determined to convince viewers that the protesters were "not generally speaking unruly" -- while a building was in flames behind him.
For a week, cities across America have been theaters of dissent. The protesters are in the torched neighborhoods of Minneapolis. They are banging the barricades outside the White House, surging through New York’s Union Square, smashing shop windows in Beverly Hills.
The people giving voice to their anger are individual pieces of a movement, like drops of water to a wave. Their strength is in cohesiveness. Yet they are strangers, divided by geography, age, color and experience. [emphasis added]
There is an agenda, of course. The politicians want to play down the violence, because their failure to control the situation makes them look bad. As for the media, they see the 'protests' as a cause to be promoted, not as a news event to report. And if they can play up police's frustrated reactions while playing down the mob violence and then blame it all on Trump -- so much the better. Matters have come to the point that some want to control the narrative by controlling the language that is being used:
But there is more than just a passing similarity in the narratives the media is trying to pass off on its readers. There are some who are very determined that people should draw a connection between the riots in the US and Israel. The US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) claims that programs that send police from the US to be trained in Israeli techniques in law enforcement are the direct cause of the death of George Floyd in general, and police abuse in general. Former Israeli politician and author Dr. Einat Wilf is among those who address the issue, which assumes there is no other source or history of police brutality in the US (let alone in other countries)
The Guardian tries to draw a comparison between the police killing of George Floyd and the death of Iyad Halak who was shot and killed by Israeli police who apparently mistook his cellphone for a gun. Both policemen were questioned and one was put under house arrest. In reaction to the effort to compare the two incidents as examples of deliberate neglect, CAMERA UK notes:
Though Palestinian Arabs were, from the earliest Jewish return to the land in the 19th century, subjected to bad decisions by their leaders, who rejected any Jewish presence in the land, many if not most are willing participants in the decades of war, terror, incitement, antisemitism, and rejectionism that’s driven the conflict. The conflict in general, and the occupation of disputed land in particular, isn’t fueled by race, but by the failure of two people to reach a political agreement on how to share the land. The black civil rights movement in the US was overwhelmingly non-violent, and based, to this day, on co-existence and classical liberal principles of freedom and equality expressed in the US Constitution. Martin Luther King often characterised his movement as one dedicated, by peaceful means only, to encouraging the country to fulfill the moral and political creed of the founders.
Again, the underlying point is the distinction between Blacks and their history in the US in contrast to the Arabs in Israel. There is a world of difference both in terms of their situations among the larger population and in how they deal with it. But none of that matters to those who want to exploit the tragic killing of George Floyd and are determined to never let a crisis go to waste.
Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi on Tuesday warned anti-government protesters against insulting political leaders, the blocking of roads and what he described as “provocation.”
“Insults against the President and the Parliament Speaker are unacceptable,” Fahmi said, commenting on the latest protests outside the Baabda palace and the Ain el-Tineh palace.
“Let them be peaceful during protests and I'll be with them, but provocation is prohibited,” Fahmi went on to say.
Indeed, Lebanese law has a string of prohibitions against freedom of speech, including against libel and defamation of public officials, insulting the army, president, flag or national emblem.
Lebanon is probably the most liberal nation in the Arab world in regards to freedom of speech. While there are occasional articles complaining about the lack of freedom of speech in Lebanon – I found this one from The Guardian in 2010 - and other Arab countries, in general this topic is widely ignored.
Some of the protests have included speeches against Hezbollah, and one that is aimed specifically at Hezbollah is planned for Saturday.
The anti-government protests have slowed down with the coronavirus but have been growing again in the past couple of weeks.
Speaking of insulting Lebanon’s army, anonymous Internet users seem unworried about it, as these commenters said in response to a tiny incident on the Lebanese border with the IDF yesterday:
This is Lebanon is the name of a group to protect migrants in Lebanon. The stories of the migrant workers reveals a system of slavery and sexual abuse for people of color who went to Lebanon hoping to make money as domestic workers.
The stories are horrific.
Do black lives matter in Lebanon? More than two domestic workers die every week. All Black and disposable. Faustina: “I feel so weak. My body is swollen, I can barely stand for five minutes. I don't want to die.”
A domestic worker from Ghana named Faustina Tay was killed by her employer in March after months of beatings and torture and sexual abuse and false promises of her being paid. When she wanted to go home her employers, Hussein Dia and Mona Nasrallah, told her that she had to work for two more months for free and they would pay for her tickets. They lied and then accused her of theft, threatening her with jail unless she worked several more months as a slave. The exact circumstances of her death are still unclear but she was found fallen from a fourth story window, her head hitting the pavement first, shortly after telling her story to the NGO. The employers even got a Lebanese doctor to lie for them about her injuries to claim it was a suicide while he ignored her known injuries from being beaten.
A similar story is told here, of a Filipino woman who was a slave for 13 years working for a wealthy Lebanese family – the husband the cousin of Walid Jumblatt. When she complained yet again about not being paid the woman of the house – a lawyer - accused her of theft and had her jailed. She says that another domestic worker was raped by the husband of the family; the wife was infertile. They took the boy she gave birth to and deported her.
The site has story after story about workers, many African, who are treated literally like slaves. Today.
Do black lives matter in Lebanon and in other Arab countries that bring in domestic workers from Africa?
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Thursday, June 04, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
