Arnold and Frimet Roth, parents of Malka Chana Roth, a 15-year-old American citizen killed in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001, presented a petition bearing some 30,000 signatures to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee during a private meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on May 13.
The petition urges the United States to pressure the Kingdom of Jordan to extradite Ahlam Tamimi, 44, a Hamas terrorist who helped plan and engineer the bombing, which killed 16 people, including seven children and a pregnant woman. Some 130 were injured.
Three Americans were killed in total, two on that day: Malka, and Judith Shoshana Greenbaum, a pregnant 31-year-old teacher. A third American, Chana Nachenberg, died in May 2023 after 22 years in a coma.
In 2013, the United States charged Tamimi with participating in the attack. She is at the top of the FBI’s “Most Wanted” terrorist list. The U.S. State Department’s Rewards for Justice program has offered up to $5 million for information leading to her arrest.
The Roths, who have been stymied by successive U.S. administrations in their efforts to bring Tamimi to justice, were encouraged by their meeting with Huckabee. It left them with the hope that the second Trump administration will act differently than its predecessors.
“Ambassador Huckabee himself is a man who projects integrity and he was clear about how appalling it is that Jordan continues to harbor this woman,” Arnold Roth told JNS.
The experience was entirely different from encounters with nearly all his predecessors, said Roth, (the Roths found themselves sitting with the ambassador within a week of sending an email requesting a meeting).
“How welcome it was to be in his company and to be having the kind of conversation that we had,” said Roth. Huckabee told Roth: “I’m going to be asking questions.”
Roth described Huckabee’s statement as a “courageous step,” noting that he had to date only received “utter, humiliating silence” from those speaking on behalf of the U.S. government.
During the one-hour meeting, the Roths presented to Huckabee a framed photo of their daughter and her shattered cell phone, recovered by the police from the site of the attack.
“This phone is one of the few physical traces we have left of Malki,” said Arnold Roth. “Malki had written onto it a brief Hebrew text reminding herself that it’s forbidden to speak ill of other people.”
Another reason for optimism is that Jordan has started to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Tamimi is closely identified. She hosted a weekly television show on one of two Muslim Brotherhood satellite channels in the country, said Roth.
A third reason is that the Trump administration has shown its readiness to take drastic action, he said. Countries that cross America are learning that there’s a price to pay, he added.
“It just underscores how the cards have always been in the hands of the United States government, but the government hasn’t played those cards,” Roth said. “Under President Biden, there was really no hope. All we received in our dealings with the Biden administration was humiliation and disdain,” he added.
It is clear that Jordan is worried about the current U.S. administration. In February, there were reports that Jordan had informed Hamas that the terrorist group must take Tamimi off its hands, or it would deport her to the United States.
However, these reports turned out to be a “deliberate piece of disinformation,” said Roth. Jordan’s King Abdullah had been set to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, and there were fears that Trump would steamroll him on various issues. The reports were a ruse to lighten the pressure, and it worked, said Roth.
Roth described as “absolutely inexplicable” America’s refusal to date to insist that Jordan fulfill its obligations under a 1995 extradition agreement.
“Jordan is immensely dependent on the United States, as well as being tied by treaty … The Jordanians’ obligation is 100% clear,” he told JNS.
From the start, it was obvious that the United States was only going through the motions, he said, noting it took a full nine months from the day the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed the charges against Tamimi on March 14, 2017 before the $5 million award was announced.
Speaking to State Department officials, Roth learned that “everyone knew exactly where this woman lived and worked and traveled and ate her breakfast and everything else.”
“It’s absolutely clear that the United States has various ways of taking into custody people it wants. This is a self-imposed restraint by various parts of the United States government down through four administrations,” said Roth.
Roth has never received an explanation for America’s recalcitrance. “I’ve been told absolutely nothing. And when I say absolutely nothing, take me in the most literal way,” he said.
“It means that everyone is fine with the U.S. disregarding its own treaty and allowing a terrorist to become a celebrity and an icon [Tamimi has reached celebrity status in Jordan], and it’s not going to do anything about it for reasons that it won’t say,” said Roth.
While Roth is critical of the United States, he doesn’t ignore the elephant in the room, which is that Israel had Tamimi in custody and let her go.
Israel caught up with Tamimi mere weeks after the bombing. In 2003, she pled guilty and was sentenced to 16 life terms. She served only eight years before being released as part of the Gilad Shalit deal in October 2011.
She was bused to Cairo on the day of her release and then flew to Jordan, her country of birth. She received a tumultuous welcome and was greeted as a hero.
“Releasing Tamimi, along with hundreds of others in that release of 1,027 [terrorists for Shalit,] was a catastrophe,” said Roth.
“It completely negated everything we knew about the principles that Israel stands for, and in particular the personal, published principles of the man who stood at the head of the government at that time and still stands there today,” he said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Tamimi not only has never expressed remorse for the Sbarro attack, she continues to express pride for her part in it.
She picked the Sbarro location as it bustled with schoolchildren on holiday. She accompanied the suicide bomber to the target, helping him pass through the Israeli checkpoints.
The killer entered carrying 10 to 20 pounds of explosives hidden in a guitar case slung over his shoulder. The resulting blast gutted the restaurant at the height of the lunch hour on a Thursday.