In case it's not already plain to you, my wife and I started this petition for two separate, but related, reasons. 

• One: our fifteen year old daughter Malka Chana Roth, was murdered in the 2001 Sbarro atrocity and the Hamas agent who spearheaded it is free today in Jordan. Kept safe from US justice by the Hashemite kingdom, she is an icon of terror there and a major factor behind the wide and deep support that exists in Jordan for murderous Jew-hating bigotry.
• Two: Almost entirely unreported in the mainstream US media, the Hamas woman, Ahlam Tamimi, was charged under seal in Washington in 2013. Four long years later, those charges were unsealed by the Department of Justice and made public. And less than a week after that, a panel of Jordanian judges ruled that the extradition treaty under which she has to be handed over to the FBI on request is invalid. As a result, she remains free in Jordan, never in hiding for even a day, a woman of rare influence in a country with one of the world's highest levels of antisemitic public sentiment.

Tamimi's freedom in Jordan is a disgrace. You won't find a single US government figure who publicly disagrees with that view. 

But don't make the mistake of thinking the people who keep her happy, safe and well in Jordan's capital, Amman, are under constant pressure from US politicians, from US government officials, from US diplomats or from the US media. The best way to sum up Washington's view of this scandal is to quote the White House: "Biden calls Jordan king a loyal ally in ‘tough neighborhood’" 

And note that neither President Biden nor his two predecessors in the Oval Office has ever publicly mentioned the bomber's name or referred to her American victims. But privately, POTUS calls the case "a foremost priority for the United States".

I wrote an opinion piece for the Jewish News Syndicate that they published last month. It gives details and background (including the source of that 'foremost priority' quote) that no part of the mainstream US media has ever revealed.

This week, I posted an expanded version of the piece at This Ongoing War, the blog my wife and I have been writing for years. I hope you will read it and share with your friends. It's here: "24-Apr-24: The Sbarro bomber: Betrayal, lies, politics and grief".

Gratifyingly, more than 23,000 people have signed our petition. The number keeps rising, especially now with Israel's war with Hamas at the top of everyone's mind. But we need more voices.

Thank you for helping the message of a very ordinary family get circulating. The media could help but don't. And in other ways as well our issue gets ignored, suppressed and even derided. This was hard enough for us until October 7. It feels much more urgent now. 

Thank you for being part of the solution. 

Arnold Roth
Jerusalem 
thisongoingwar@gmail.com