The Algemeiner: The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is widely considered one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East. US aid to Jordan has quietly tripled in the past 15 years, overtaking every regular US aid recipient in the world except Israel. December’s Congressional omnibus spending bill gave the kingdom $1.65 billion – $200 million more than the two countries had agreed to in a seven-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed in September. A White House press readout from July of President Joe Biden’s most recent meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II describes the “unwavering support” the US provides Jordan.
One item conspicuously absent was the case of Ahlam Tamimi, a Jordanian-Palestinian woman who sits at #4 on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists for her role in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria suicide bombing in Jerusalem. The Sbarro bombing, deliberately timed to hit the busy lunchtime crowd at the restaurant, took the lives of 15 people.
Two of the dead were American citizens — Malki Roth and Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, a 31-year-old New Jersey native who was pregnant at the time. More than 100 people were wounded in the attack, including four other Americans.
“It was the most traumatic experience of our lives,” said Malki’s father, Arnold Roth. “Very quickly it became clear that the woman who did it was Ahlam Tamimi, she drove the whole project. She was the one who scouted the site. She was the one who brought the bomb.”
Following her capture by the Israeli authorities, Tamimi was sentenced to 16 consecutive life terms in jail. She served just eight years before she was released along with more than 1,000 other convicted Palestinian terrorists in the 2011 deal between Israel and Hamas that secured the freedom of Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier held captive in Gaza.
Since then, Tamimi has been living free in Jordan. The kingdom refuses to extradite her to the United States, where she has been charged with a capital crime, despite a 1995 extradition treaty between the two countries. Jordan’s highest court in 2017 blocked her extradition to the US, arguing that the treaty was never ratified by Jordan’s parliament.
In media appearances since her release, Tamimi has gloated about her role in the bombing and her continued escape from justice. Read More …
Opinion: In a time of heightened racism accusations, anti-Semitism is ignored and growing. I have heard it said from Christians that Israel today is a secular state, implying that modern day Israel is not God’s people any longer.
Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi celebrating freedom is further proof of growing western antisemitism.
If not for the small group of Dispensationalist Bible teachers/students who believe that Israel is separate, but equal to Christianity in God’s redemptive plan, there would be no Christian supporting the Jewish state.
While I have covered the prophetic reason why Israel is mostly secular today (see “Three Regatherings of God’s People” HERE), today I want to focus on Israel and Jordan and the short memories of secular leftist politicians.
1917:
Britain signed the Balfour Declaration that committed Britain to establish a national home for the Jewish people.
1918-1919:
World War I ended, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and the Middle East was to be divided up.
1922:
- League of Nations awarded Britain mandates over Transjordan, Palestine, and Iraq.
- League of Nations awarded France mandates over Syria and Lebanon.
- Britain awarded the entire land of Palestine to Israel with no territorial restrictions.
Israel was granted both sides of the Jordan River, totaling 43,075 square miles. - A few months later, Britain, under pressure from Arabs, altered the Balfour Declaration and took back 32,460 square miles, or 78 percent of the original land grant.
That land was then given to establish Transjordan (modern-day Jordan) for the Arab peoples, leaving approximately 9,500 square miles for Israel.
By the time Israel became a state on May 14, 1948, the land grant had dwindled down to 5560 square miles, 75% of which was desert.
The two state solution was established 101 years ago and while no one on earth cares, the God of Israel (Jeremiah 33:14-18) does:
“Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah:
‘In those days and at that time
I will cause to grow up to David
A Branch of righteousness;
He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
16 In those days Judah will be saved,
And Jerusalem will dwell safely.
And this is the name by which she will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
