Peloni: Regarding Jordan’s embrace of terrorism, it must be recalled that America hands Jordan an impressive more than $1 billion dollars in humanitarian aid, even Jordan refuses, year after year to do more than deny American demands for Jordan to turn the self proclaimed butcher of Sbarro over to the US for the prosecution of having murdered and maimed Americans. In such a relationship as exists between a superpower and a nation which has trouble keeping their people above the poverty line even with the princely payment of Yankee dollars, it remains an inexplicable example of a cerebral disconnect that this butcheress remains free and at large in the sanctuary of Jordan, which only survives due to those Yankee dollars coming regularly every year. America has the means by which to force this terrorist to justice, even after these decades which places Sbarro on the distant side of so many additional slaughters.
by Rafael Medoff
Released Hamas Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi on Palestinian Public’s Delight at Suicide Bombings. Memri TV. Screengrab via Youtube.
A new study of the books used in Jordanian schools has found that they “continually justify” the October 7 atrocities as “a response to Israeli oppression.”
That’s consistent with the assortment of rationalizations, minimizations, and denials of October 7 that have been heard from prominent Jordanians. Recall what Queen Rania said: “It hasn’t been independently verified…that Israeli children [were] found butchered…There’s no proof of that.”
The new textbook analysis, undertaken by the London-based educational group IMPACT-se, found that Jordanian schoolbooks use classic antisemitic stereotypes, erase Israel from maps of the Middle East, and encourage jihad.
One textbook teaches 9th graders that “treachery and violation of agreements are some of the traits of the Jews.”
That’s particularly striking, because Jordan has had an extradition agreement with the United States since 1995, which the Jordanians have been violating in order to protect a notorious terrorist, Ahlam Tamimi.
Tamimi played a central role in planning and perpetrating the August 2001 bombing of the Sbarro Pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem, killing 15 customers and injuring more than 100.
Among the dead were three American citizens: 15 year-old Malki Roth; Mrs. Shoshana Greenbaum, a teacher who was pregnant at the time; and Mrs. Chana Nachenberg, who was severely injured and remained in a coma for 22 years before passing away in 2023.
Tamimi is living safely and happily in Jordan, where at one time she hosted a television show on which she boasted of her role in the bombing.
Whether it’s the Sbarro killer or the October 7 killers, Jordan seems to have a soft spot for terrorists who massacre Jews. That’s not exactly consistent with the public image of Jordan as moderate and peace-seeking.
But it is consistent with what Jordan’s schoolbooks teach. And those teachings have an impact.
Remember Ahmad Daqamseh, the Jordanian solder who massacred seven Israeli schoolgirls in 1997? The Jordanian authorities released him after serving just 20 years in prison. When he returned to his hometown, “dozens of relatives and well-wishers gave him a rousing welcome…People flocked to see him,” Reuters reported at the time. “The release of this hero has cheered us,” a prominent member of the Jordanian parliament, Saleh Armouti, declared.
Can anybody imagine Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer receiving a hero’s welcome if they returned to their hometowns? Of course not. Because American schools do not teach that killers are heroes. Jordanian schools do—at least when the killers’ victims are Jews.
Dr. Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and the author of more than 20 books about Jewish history, Zionism, and the Holocaust. Follow him on Facebook to read his daily commentaries on the news
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