Arnold Roth is an American and the father of Malka Roth, one of the victims of the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem that took place in August 2001. Sixteen people, including seven children, were killed in that attack, and 130 were wounded, many of them severely. One of those wounded remained in a coma for 20 years before finally dying. The mastermind of the attack was Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian woman, who selected the target — later saying she knew it would be full of families with children — and drove the terrorist to the site. After the attack, she was eventually arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison. In 2011, however, Israel freed her in the lopsided prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit. Since then, she has been living in Jordan, where the public has lionized her; she even had her own television show for several years, called Nasim Al-Ahrar (Breeze of the Free) on the Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds TV. The program was produced locally in Jordan and focused on the stories of “Palestinian” prisoners held in Israeli jails. She continues to appear frequently on Jordanian television, where she celebrates the Sbarro pizzeria attack, and more recent attacks, too, such as the one Hamas carried out on October 7, 2023. She remains a star, someone for girls in Jordan to emulate. The FBI has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to her arrest. But she stays safe in Jordan, our “ally” that still refuses to extradite her. More on Arnold Roth’s public demand for Jordan to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the attack, to the United States, can be found here: “Father of child murdered in Sbarro bombing slams Jordan, demands terrorist extradited – interview,” by Sam Halpern, Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2026:
Arnold Roth, the father of one of the child victims of the 2001 Sbarro massacre in downtown Jerusalem, slammed the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan for harboring Ahlam Tamimi, the woman behind his daughter’s murder, and likened the kingdom to the Palestinian Authority and its “pay-for-slay” stipends, saying that it continues to materially support terrorism.“The woman who masterminded the Sbarro massacre is free today in Jordan, living free all these years,” Roth told The Jerusalem Post at a StandWithUS event in Jerusalem last week. “She was charged in the United States in 2013, and she’s been saved, protected, and harbored by Jordan.”Roth’s daughter, Malka Roth, was 15-years-old when she and 15 others, including six other children and a pregnant woman, were murdered in Jerusalem by a Palestinian suicide bomber who operated alongside Tamimi.In an interview published in the 2006 documentary “Hot House,” while in an Israeli prison and hearing from Israeli director Shimon Dotan that eight children had been killed, Tamimi responded, repeating “eight” with a smile on her face.Five years later, Tamimi was released to Jordan as part of the 2011 Gilad Schalit deal. Jordan, Arnold Roth said, has an obligation, per its 1995 extradition treaty with the US, to extradite Tamimi, something it has yet to do. Roth says that Jordan’s rationales for not doing so have been “ridiculous, convoluted excuses” appealing to constitutional technicalities that it argues render them unbound from the treaty in this case….
Further, despite the warrant for her arrest, Roth argued that the US was failing to sufficiently act. He said he fully agreed with the argument that the US could get Jordan to deport Tamimi, but has simply failed to apply the pressure.
“The United States can bring Jordan to do anything it can conceive of doing. In this case, there’s a treaty that goes back to 1995.”…
The Jordanians claim they do not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. They are simply lying; that treaty was signed in 1995.
“Jordan has no option,” he asserted. “Jordan has to hand her over, and if that isn’t enough, why in heaven’s name do they allow a woman like this, with blood, in this case, the blood of American victims, including my daughter, who’s an American, to get away with this?” he asked. “She’s been free in Jordan longer than my daughter was alive. There’s something very, very wrong going on, and there are no secrets. It’s very clear who can fix the problem.”
In Washington, our government should stop insisting that Jordan is our “ally,” and that, therefore, we mustn’t to anything to anger it. But what kind of an “ally” would get angry if we merely remind them to respect the extradition treaty they signed with us more than thirty years ago?
The American government has several ways to pressure Amman to hand over the murderous Ahlam al-Tahimi, who has American blood on her hands (three of the Sbarro victims were Americans). The first way would be to impose huge tariffs — 100% might do — on all goods imported from Jordan. At present, the U.S. imports more than $3 billion in such goods, mostly apparel, all of it duty-free. A 100% tariff will put paid to those sales.
The second way to force Jordan to extradite the mastermind of the Sbarro terror attack is to threaten to ban Jordanians from entry to the United States, both those who come to study and those who come to work. Jordan has long depended on American institutions to train its graduate students at the highest level, and an end to student visas would ultimately damage Jordan, that depends on those American-educated students to return and build up the economy.
The third way to pressure Jordan is simply to cut off all American foreign aid to the country, which for 2024, the last year for which data is available, amounted to $1.82 billion. Jordan is now the second highest recipient of American aid. A threat from Washington to cut off all that aid will get the attention of the Jordanian government.
Best of all, why not threaten to use all three methods simultaneously to force Jordan to extradite Ms. Al-Tamimi? Threaten, that is, to slap 100% tariffs on all Jordanian goods, to stop issuing both work and student visas to Jordanians, and to cut off all American aid to the country. Ahlam Tamimi, no longer smiling and strapped to her seat on a Royal Jordanian Airlines jet, with burly Jordanian policemen on either side, will be winging her way from Amman to Dulles Airport in Washington, where the feds will be waiting for her arrival.
commonsense says
We know why Jordan protects her, and won’t honor its extradition treaty with the U.S. In the latter case, think of the Treaty of Hudaibiyya Muhammad made (and then violated) with the pagan Quraysh, the paradigm for all treaties made by Muslims with infidels. In the former case, killers of Jews are, according to Islam, to be lionized, especially those Jews – the Zionists – who Muslims view as usurpers and occupiers of what Muslims deem part of dar al-Islam. After all, the Koran describes Jews thusly: “Among the disbelievers you will find that those greatest in enmity to the believers are the Jews and the polytheists.” (5:82) Why, then, should Jordan feel any obligation to extradite this murderous monster? To them, she’s a *mujahidah* – a female warrior who fights in Allah’s cause. Judging from the current dismissive attitude toward Israel (and, yes, Jews in general) evinced by Washington, no one will take any action whatsoever to sanction Jordan in any way; our leadership will cling to the delusion that Jordan is our ally, and continue to reward them accordingly.
somehistory says
The terrorist murderer of babies, will reap as she has sown, whether or not the muzzlims of Jordan send her here.
If she lives to see Judgment Day, she’ll be begging for the rocks to fall and hide her from “the Wrath of the Lamb.”
RJ Katz says
It will never happen. Someone should take her out
OLD GUY says
Thats probably the only way she will pay for her part in these murders and violence against innocent men, women and children.
Gary D Zaetz says
Great recommendations. All three actions you recommend should be endorsed immediately by all major American Jewish organizations. In addition, the US should sever diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Jordan, formally designate Jordan a state sponsor of terrorism, and have SecState Rubio make a detailed prime time televised statement justifying these actions.
gravenimage says
Forcing Jordan to Extradite the Mastermind of the Sbarro Pizzeria Bombing
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About damn time–but as noted, this may never happen. Time for another strike by Mossad?