Arnold Roth’s long journey for justice
Twenty-four years after his 15-year-old daughter, Malki, was murdered in a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Arnold Roth is asking a question that remains unanswered: Why is the terrorist responsible for her death living freely as a celebrity in Jordan?
Malki was born in Melbourne. The Roth family made aliyah in 1988.
Roth joined Steve Linde in the JNS studio to discuss the ongoing failure to bring Ahlam Tamimi to justice. Tamimi led the suicide bomber to the Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001, where 16 people were murdered, including seven children and three Americans, one of whom was pregnant.
On Nov. 27, Roth marked what would have been Malki’s 40th birthday with a JNS op-ed titled, “Why is U.S. justice for its victims of terror still thwarted?”
“That’s a terrific question,” he said when asked by JNS why Tamimi remains free. “And since I don’t know the answer, we can end the interview at this moment.”
He did not. Instead, Roth laid out a story that has consumed him since 2011, when Tamimi was released from Israeli prison as part of the Gilad Shalit deal and flown to Jordan. He was referring to the deal in which captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was released by Hamas in exchange for 1,027 Arab prisoners being held, many of them terrorists.
“She, unlike the others, was a Jordanian citizen and went straight to Jordan via a pit stop in Cairo,” Roth said. “She became a hero and a media personality by any measure.”
Tamimi, who is now 45, he emphasised, is not simply free. “What’s appalling in the story is that there’s no attention being paid to the horrifying reality that Tamimi is free; not only free, but a celebrity living a dream life in Jordan. And that has to change.”
JNS
