AVOID MUSLIM JORDAN
The
State Department says it wants Hamas terrorists who attacked Americans
extradited to the US. Except for Ahlam Tamimi, Sbarro massacre murderer.
Tuesday, December 03, 2024
Elder of Ziyon
On November 18, at the daily State Department briefing,
spokesperson Matthew Miller said: What I would say on behalf of the
United States is that we don’t believe the leaders of a vicious
terrorist organization should be living comfortably anywhere, and that
certainly includes in a major city of one of our key allies and
partners. Remember that Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization
that has murdered a number of Americans, continues to hold to this day
seven American citizens hostage, and of course that’s not even to speak
of the citizens of other countries that it has murdered and that it has
held hostage.
So to the extent that members of Hamas are in Türkiye or in any
country, look, a number of these individuals are under U.S. indictment,
have been under U.S. indictment for some time, and we believe that they
should be turned over to the United States.
As soon as I read that, I tweeted: Has the @StateDept told this to Jordan regarding Ahlam Tamimi?
After
all, it is the exact same situation. A Hamas terrorist, who is under US
indictment, is living comfortably under a US ally, Jordan, which is
actively protecting her.
In
2017, the US Justice Department announced: A criminal complaint was
unsealed today charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, also known as
“Khalti” and “Halati,” a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with
conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals
outside the U.S., resulting in death. The charge is related to the
defendant’s participation in an Aug. 9, 2001, suicide bomb attack at a
pizza restaurant in Jerusalem that killed 15 people, including two U.S.
nationals. Four other U.S. nationals were among the approximately 122
others injured in the attack. Also unsealed today was a warrant for
Al-Tamimi’s arrest and an affidavit in support of the criminal
complaint and arrest warrant. The criminal charge had been under seal
since July 15, 2013.
Maybe Matt Lee of the AP read my tweet, because the very next day, he asked Miller:
MATT
LEE: If it is, in fact, true that you press countries to return or to
extradite people indicted in U.S. courts, what about the woman in the
Sbarro bombing in Israel years ago who’s been living free in Jordan
now? There was long talk of her – of efforts to get her extradited, and
nothing has ever come of them. So why should these Hamas guys worry if
you’re just going to —
MR MILLER: Matt, I’m going to admit you’re speaking to a case that
predates my tenure, that I have a limited, at best, factual
understanding of it, so I shouldn’t speak to it. But when it comes to
these terrorists who are members and leadership of a group who continue
to hold Americans hostage, we do think it’s appropriate that they face
justice.
Funny. Because this is not the first time Lee asked Miller about Tamimi. And not the first time Miller deflected the question.
February 13, 2024: Today Secretary Blinken hosted King Abdullah. What
is the State Department doing to get Jordan to extradite Ahlam Tamimi,
a terrorist wanted by the U.S. for a bombing that killed two Americans in 2001?
MR MILLER: So as it pertains to your first question, I’m going to defer
comment to the Department of Justice, as we always do when it pertains
to matters of extradition.
February
14, 2024: Following up on a question I asked yesterday regarding Ahlam
Tamimi, who’s a terrorist wanted by the United States, did Secretary
Blinken bring up that case in his meeting yesterday with King Abdullah?
MR MILLER: I don’t have any further readouts, other than the note we issued publicly.
How can Miller say he is not familiar with the case now when he has been asked about it twice before this year?
The
annual State Department country report on terrorism Jordan said in 2022
under the Jordanian entry: The United States has continually emphasized
to Jordanian authorities the importance of holding Ahlam al-Tamimi
accountable in a U.S. court for her admitted role in a 2001 bombing in
Jerusalem that killed 16 people, including Americans Malki Roth,
Shoshana Greenbaum, and Chana Nachenberg. While the United States
considers the extradition treaty with Jordan to be in force as a matter
of international law, the Government of Jordan’s position, citing the
ruling of its highest court, is that its Constitution forbids the
extradition of Jordanian nationals. The United States continued
to impress upon the GoJ the importance of this case and continued to
seek all viable options to bring Tamimi to justice.
(Even
though the State Department is required by law to issue these reports
every year by April 30, no reports were published in 2023 or 2024.)
It seems disingenuous, at the very least, for the State Department
spokesperson to claim ignorance on a case that has been around for
decades, especially when the State Department itself writes about the
importance of extradition.
It sure sounds like the stated desire to bring a terrorist who murdered
Americans to justice is not real, but only words meant to shut up the
bereaved parents of the victims and the many people who want justice
for Malki Roth and the other victims of Ahlam Tamimi.
Wouldn't the State Department spokesperson be familiar with a "foremost
priority for the United States" as said by the Secretary of State?
We won't be quiet about this horrible miscarriage of justice.
Jordan As Collateral Damage of the Israel-Hamas War
DEC 29, 2023
BY HUGH FITZGERALD
The
war in Gaza has already had a terrible effect on Jordan’s economy.
Since the war started, visitors have been cancelling trips to the
country, out of worries about spillover violence, not just from the
fighting in Gaza, but also the possibility of a major conflict between
Israel and Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon border, and from the upsurge
in violence in Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank. By dint of
repetition, beginning immediately in 1950 with all the Arab and Muslim
delegates using “the West Bank” speeches at the UN, the rest of the
world quickly chose to forget the venerable toponyms that had been in
constant use for 3000 years, not just by the Jews, but by the entire
Western world. Take a look at any American, British, French, German,
Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Russian maps of the area up to 1950, and you
will see “Judea” and “Samaria” clearly marked. And nowhere will you
find “West Bank.” But here we are, in 2023, and practically everyone
now uses, without giving it a thought, “West Bank” for “Judea and
Samaria.”)
No
one likes to visit what is a war zone, and the result has been a body
blow to the tourism sector in Jordan. The country is losing about $250
million each month in revenue from tourism. More on this loss to
Jordan’s economy can be found here: “Jordan Losing Over $250 Million
Per Month Due to Israel-Hamas War,” Algemeiner, December 27, 2023:
The
Israel-Hamas war is having devastating effects on the Jordanian
economy, according to the kingdom’s Minister of Tourism Makram Mustafa
Queisi.
Queisi
said on Tuesday that the rate of tourist cancellation since the
beginning of the war in October is around 60 percent, which translates
to over 200,000 visitors, according to Al-Arab, a pan-Arab newspaper
published in London.
Can
you blame those tourists cancelling trips to Jordan? It’s not just the
violence in Gaza, though that would by itself be enough to dissuade
many tourists, but that exchange of fire across Israel’s northern
border between the Jewish state and Hezbollah in Lebanon. And there is
also the continuing threat of Houthi drones being fired at ships in the
Red Sea, with the Americans successfully shooting down most of those
drones, and just now creating a naval task force, consisting of ships
from major maritime nations, under American leadership, able to answer
the Houthi threat — taking the fight if necessary to Yemen itself — in
order to make the Red Sea safe again for commercial shipping. All of
these stories that dominate the news, about Israel and Hamas fighting
in Gaza, Hezbollah and Israel trading blows across the Lebanese-Israeli
border, the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah attacking American
bases in Syria and Iraq, quite understandably lead hundreds of
thousands of tourists to cancel trips to Jordan. And there is another
worry that puts would-be tourists off. Given that the majority of the
population in Jordan is Palestinian, and angry at the Americans for
continuing to stand by their Israeli ally, attacks on American tourists
in Jordan are another source of justified concern.
If
we want to reflect this number on income, we are talking approximately
180 to 200 million dinars [$253 to $281 million] per month,” which
represents “a loss to the overall economy,” Queisi said.
“There
will be significant losses to the economy, which means that every month
there will be cancellations in hotel reservations and a decrease in the
number of visitors by up to 60 or 70 percent,” he said.
The
violence in the region will not soon die down. The Israelis have
already said that they expect their campaign to destroy Hamas as a
military threat will take “months,” and so the reluctance of visitors
to come to Jordan will last at least as long.
In
recent years, Jordan and Israel have considered cooperating on multiple
joint economic and tourism initiatives including the Jordan Gateway
Industrial Park, the construction of solar-power and desalination
facilities in Israel, and joint tourism in the Gulf of Eilat-Aqaba….
All
of those plans about “joint tourism initiatives” promoted by both
Israel and Jordan, where package tours would include both countries’
offerings, and allow Jordan, whose main tourist attractions are the
rose-red city of Petra, built by the Nabataeans, and Jerash, one of the
best-preserved Roman cities in the world, to benefit from the
attractiveness of Israel as a world destination for both religious
(Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) and cultural tourists. Now, as long as
the Gaza war lasts, all talk about joint Israeli-Jordanian tourism
initiatives has stopped cold.
Jordan's king
hid over $100M in assets offshore, 'Pandora Papers' probe shows
Published
on 10-04-2021
Israel Hayom
Leaked records
open a Pandora's Box of financial secrets, name hundreds of world leaders,
powerful politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug
dealers as having been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive
beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past quarter-century.
The report
released Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries sparked a
political and social firestorm by shedding light on the previously hidden
financial dealings of the world elite and how they have used offshore accounts
to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars.
Dubbed the
"Pandora Papers," for
the Greek mythology artifact the opening of which unleashed countless evils
into the world, the leaked records name hundreds of world leaders, powerful
politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers as
having been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront
property, yachts and other assets for the past 25 years.
The more than
330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret
accounts include Jordan's King Abdullah II, former UK Prime Minister Tony
Blair, Czech PM Andrej Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuador's
President Guillermo Lasso, and associates of both Pakistani Prime Minister
Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to name a few.
Many of the
accounts were designed to evade taxes and conceal assets for other shady
reasons, according to the report.
The
ICIJ's latest investigation dug into accounts
registered in familiar offshore havens, including the British Virgin Islands,
Seychelles, Hong Kong, and Belize. But some of the secret accounts were also
scattered around in trusts set up in the US, including 81 in South Dakota and
37 in Florida.
Some of the
initial findings released Sunday painted a sordid picture of the prominent
people involved.
The documents
show, for example, how King Abdullah of Jordan created a network of offshore
companies and tax havens to amass a $100 million property empire from Malibu,
California to Washington, and London.
Data shows
that advisers helped the monarch set up over 35 shell companies from 1995 to
2017, as well as helped him buy 14 homes worth over $106 million in the US and the
UK. One was a $23 million California ocean-view property bought in 2017 through
a British Virgin Islands company. The advisers were identified as an English
accountant in Switzerland and lawyers in the British Virgin Islands.
There was no
immediate comment from Jordan's Royal Palace.
The details
are an embarrassing blow to Abdullah, 59, whose government was engulfed in
scandal this year when his half brother, former Crown Prince Hamzah,
accused the "ruling system" of corruption and incompetence. The king
claimed he was the victim of a "malicious plot,"
placed his half brother under house arrest and put
two former close aides on trial.
UK attorneys
for Abdullah said the king is not required to pay taxes under his country's law
and hasn't misused public funds. They stressed that all the properties were
bought with King Abdullah's personal wealth, and it was common practice for
high-profile individuals to buy properties via offshore companies for privacy
and security reasons.
"Any
implication that there is something improper about ownership of property
through companies in offshore jurisdictions is
categorically denied," said DLA Piper, the law firm that represents the
monarch. "[Abdullah] has not at any point misused public monies or made
any use whatsoever of the proceeds of aid or assistance intended for public
use."
Annelle Sheline, a Middle East scholar. was cited by Arab media as
saying that "Jordan doesn't have the kind of money that
other Middle Eastern monarchies, like Saudi Arabia, have to allow a king
to flaunt his wealth. If the Jordanian monarch were to display his wealth
more publicly, it wouldn't only antagonize his people, it would p**s off
Western donors who have given him money."
The Pandora
Papers are a follow-up to a similar ICIJ project released in 2016 called the
"Panama Papers."
The latest
bombshell is even more expansive, porting through nearly 3 terabytes of data –
the equivalent of roughly 750,000 photos on a smartphone – leaked from 14
different service providers doing business in 38 different jurisdictions in the
world. The records date back to the 1970s, but most of the files
span from 1996 to 2020.
In contrast,
the Panama Papers culled through 2.6 terabytes of data leaked by one
now-defunct law firm called Mossack Fonseca that was
located in the country that inspired that project's nickname.
Trump
Administration Weighs Cutting Aid to Pressure Jordan to Extradite Convicted
Terrorist
Haaretz
6-16-20
Amman has
refused to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, released in a prisoner
exchange nine years ago after being jailed in Israel for her role in a 2001
Jerusalem suicide bombing whose victims included U.S. citizens
WASHINGTON –
The Trump administration is increasing its pressure on Jordan to extradite a
Palestinian-Jordanian involved in the murder of U.S. citizens who has been
living in that country since her release from an Israeli prison nine years ago.
On Tuesday,
The Associated Press reported that the White House is considering withholding
or cutting military aid to Jordan if it continues to refuse to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, who the United States wants to try
for her role in a 2001 suicide bombing in a Jerusalem pizza parlor.
Tamimi was
convicted of being one of the organizers of that attack, which killed 15
people, including two U.S. citizens. She was sentenced to 16 life sentences by
an Israeli court in 2003, but was released from prison in 2011 as part of a prisoner
exchange deal in which the government released more than 1,000 Palestinian
prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli
soldier held hostage by Hamas.
After her
early release from prison, Tamimi moved to Jordan, where most of her family
resides. Over the past nine years, she has become a public persona there,
appearing on television programs and giving media interviews. Throughout, the
parents of Malki Roth, a 15-year-old Israeli and
American dual citizen who was murdered in the Jerusalem
attack, have waged a public campaign demanding that she face trial
in the U.S.
Jordan and the
U.S. have a joint extradition agreement, but Jordan’s reply to the growing
pressure over the years to extradite Tamimi has been that the agreement is
invalid. Last year, the State Department rejected the Jordanian claim and
insisted in a written report that the extradition agreement was valid and
applied to Tamimi’s case.
The U.S. filed
terrorism-related charges against Tamimi in 2017, but just days later, Jordan’s
highest court ruled that Jordanian law prohibited her extradition. Ever since,
Jordan has consistently refused to take any action regarding the extradition
request.
In September,
two senior members of Congress were pressing the Trump administration to act on
the subject. Democratic Congressman Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House of
Representatives’ Judiciary Committee, and Republican Congressman Doug Collins,
the committee’s ranking member, sent a joint letter seeking answers to the
Justice Department.
The two
lawmakers noted in their letter that despite previous indications that legal
action against Tamimi would move forward, no progress had been made. The main
obstacle, they wrote, had been the Jordanian government’s refusal to cooperate
with U.S. authorities.
This week, the
Trump administration’s nominee for ambassador to Jordan, Henry Wooster, told a
Senate committee that when it comes to the Tamimi extradition, “all options are
on the table.” He further said that Washington “has multiple options and
different types of leverage to secure Tamimi’s extradition.”
Wooster added that
“[w]e will continue to engage Jordanian officials at all levels not only on
this issue, but also on the extradition treaty more broadly. U.S. generosity to
Jordan in Foreign Military Financing as well as economic support and other
assistance is carefully calibrated to protect and advance the range of U.S.
interests in Jordan and in the region.” Wooster was specifically asked about
using military aid as a form of leverage and did not deny this was one of the
options.
Jordan is one
of the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East, but there have been
tensions in the relationship in recent months over the Israeli government’s
plans to annex parts of the West Bank. Jordan strongly opposes Israeli
annexation, and has been trying to convince the Trump administration to stop it
from happening. Jordan also opposed the administration’s decision to move the
U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2017.
A large part
of Jordan’s population has Palestinian origins, and Israeli security officials
are also worried about how annexation could impact stability in that countrt, which has had a peace agreement with Israel since
1994. Jordan’s King Abdullah is supposed to brief senior members of Congress on
the annexation issue later this week, in an attempt to increase opposition in
Washington to potential annexation moves.
The U.S. has
provided billions of dollars in aid to Jordan in recent years, and in 2018 the
Trump administration committed to provide more than $6 billion in aid over a five year period. Jordan has used much of the aid to handle
the millions of refugees that have settled within the country from the wars in
Syria and Iraq over the past two decades.
Jordan Charges Stabbing Attack Suspect with
Terrorism
Sunday, 26 January, 2020
Asharq Al-Awsat
A Jordanian court on Sunday leveled terrorism
charges against a man suspected of wounding eight people in a November knife
attack at the popular Jerash tourist site.
The suspect, Moustafa Abourouis,
22, faces up to 20 years in prison after the stabbing of three Mexicans, a
Swiss woman, a Jordanian tour guide and a security officer.
At a hearing open to the press, prosecutors accused Abourouis
of committing a "terrorist act" and "promoting the ideas of a
terrorist group" -- a reference to the ISIS group.
Abourouis, who is of Palestinian origins and grew up
in the refugee camp of Souf, was arrested immediately
after the attack at Jerash, close to the camp and around 50 kilometers (30
miles) north of Amman.
The Jordanian prosecutor accused Abourouis of trying to
join ISIS, an operative of which in Syria had "ordered him to commit
attacks against foreigners".
Two alleged accomplices, also Jordanians of Palestinian origin, were charged
with "terrorism" in the same case. All three pleaded not guilty,
reported AFP.
The court is scheduled to hear witnesses next Sunday, with the date for a
verdict to be confirmed.
In December 2016, in Karak, 10 people were killed in
an attack claimed by ISIS that also left 34 wounded.
Four violent incidents struck the country the same year, including a suicide
attack in June claimed by ISIS that killed seven Jordanian border guards near
the frontier with Syria.
How "progressive" is Jordan now? New court
ruling on veiled women may suggest otherwise....
Published March 23rd, 2014
albawaba.com
The Jordanian Women’s Union, along with lawyers across
the Hashemite Kingdom, expressed shock last week after a ruling discriminating
against women who do not wear the Islamic hijab was issued by the Amman Sharia
Court of Appeal, according to Al Medanah News.
The court announced late last week that it agreed with
one lawyer's statement - based on a fatwa - that says a woman who does not
cover up or wear a hijab is considered a “slut” and shouldn't be allowed to
testify in court.
In response, The Women’s Union released a statement
published on Amman net that describes the court’s decision as discrimination
against women and a violation of the Jordanian Constitution, which considers
all Jordanian men and women as equals.
“The Amman Sharia Court of Appeal has accepted the
lawyer’s objection to a female witness from testifying for not wearing the
hijab, which the court said would affect the fairness and honesty in her
testimony from 3/2/2014.
According to the fatwa, which the court’s decision was
based on, women who aren’t covered up are “sluts,” and that gives those women a
bad name. Furthermore, the court was unable to support this fatwa apart from
with something written in the introduction of a book by Egyptian Islamic
Theologian Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi.
Seeing as this decision violates the provisions of the
Jordanian Constitution which calls for equality between all Jordanians, and
which protects their personal freedoms, we are demanding all the concerned
parties to reconsider the mentioned decision above. Meanwhile we stress the
following:
1. Women’s attire is a personal choice and no one should challenge it as long
as they’re not breaking the law and stepping out of line. An attack on those
freedoms is considered a crime and explicitly violates Article VII of the
Constitution.
2. The court’s decision is an attack on women and their
honesty and dignity, especially that the decision was made by the highest court
in the religious judiciary.
3. The Personal status Law is unconstitutional as it affects the principle of
equality as between men and women.
4. Making room for jurisprudence in courts is dangerous, and gives the judge
the opportunity to rule according to his own beliefs.
The Women’s Union therefore demands the following:
1. Going back on the court’s decision to consider those
who aren’t wearing the hijab as not fit or honest to testify in court.
2. We stress the importance of revising the Personal Status Law as it still
discriminates against women."
Lawyers throughout the Kingdom have also expressed opposition to the ruling
publicly, with some calling for wider scale protests and demonstrations.
Jordanian
Parliament Supports Impunity For Honor Killings
(01/27/00) -- Human Rights Watch today condemned the
failure of the Jordanian Lower House to end impunity for men who murder female
family members in the name of preserving the "honor" of the family.
"For too long, men in Jordan have been getting away
with murder," said Regan Ralph, executive director of the Women's Rights
Division at Human Rights Watch. "This vote is a slap in the face of
Jordanian women who have been organizing to stop the killings." Since
August 1999, women's and human rights activists have gathered over 13,000
signatures calling for an end to honor killings. An estimated 25-30 women are
killed in Jordan every year to protect family "honor."
This is the second time in two months that the Jordanian Lower House has failed
to abolish Article 340 of the Penal Code, which provides for lenient sentences
when men kill their female relatives in the name of "honor."
Parliamentarians justified their defense of honor killings as protection of
Jordan's traditional and moral values against western influences. The Upper
House last month had agreed to abolish Article 340. The Upper and Lower Houses
will meet for a final vote before the end of the parliamentary session in
March.
Jordan is a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, both of which proscribe discrimination based on sex. The UN
Committee on Eliminating All Forms of Discrimination Against Women criticized
yesterday Jordan's performance on "honor" crimes.
Human Rights Watch further called on the Jordanian parliament to provide
protection for women threatened by their family members on the basis of
"honor," and to abolish other laws that discriminate against women,
including the rape law, citizenship law, passport law, and social security law.
AMMAN, Jordan, April 12 (UPI) --
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's invitation to Christians and Jews to visit
Mecca, Islam's holiest shrine, has sparked outrage among Jordanian Islamists.
The outlawed but tolerated Muslim
Brotherhood Organization also blasted Sudanese Islamic leader Hassan al-Turabi for issuing edicts allowing Muslim women to wear a
less rigid veil.
Salem Falahat,
spiritual guide of the Brotherhood, whose political wing, the Islamic Action
Front, controls the biggest opposition bloc in parliament, told United Press
International Wednesday, "al-Turabi is condemned
for issuing edicts rejected by any Muslim ulema."
Falahat
said "we are used to President Gadhafi's crazes as he makes edicts as he
pleases... He invited Christians and Jews to enter the grand mosque in Mecca
although he knows that such a thing is prohibited by Islamic laws."
He argued that Gadhafi might have
made such declarations "only to outrage the Saudi authorities due to his
country's tense relations with Saudi Arabia."
Falahat
said he believes there are political motives behind issuing the controversial
edicts which contradict religious texts.
For his part, the head of the Shura
Council of the Islamic Action Front, Hamza Mansour, said "the declarations
made by certain Arab leaders and thinkers are strange and indicate a complete
ignorance and submission to Western culture."