Saturday, October 15, 2011

Stop the Release of Ahlam Tamimi

Dear friends,

Please pass this heartfelt request along urgently to your contacts. It's a request to sign a petition, online here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/remove-ahlam-tamimi-from-the-list-of-terrorists-to-be-f.html

Under normal circumstances, requests to sign a petition are unlikely to lead to any significant outcomes. In this case, we are hoping to do something important.

The petition asks for the removal of one specific name from the list of more than one thousand terrorists, including hundreds of convicted murderers, to be published by the government of Israel tomorrow, Sunday. That list is the basis of a transaction by which Israel will get back Gilad Shalit, held hostage by the terrorists of Hamas for more than five years. The deal involves Israel throwing open the gates of its top-security prisons and issuing wholesale pardons. My wife Frimet and I have expressed our principled objection to the deal. While others are busy trying to stop it in the courts, we are focusing our energies on one specific person, and getting her off the list.

Her name is Tamimi. An article in today's New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/world/middleeast/israel-prisoner-swap-touches-old-wounds.html ] provides some background:

Among those is Ahlam Tamimi, a 31-year-old woman who was a key figure in the pizzeria attack. She is often described as the driver of the car that brought the suicide bomber to the Sbarro restaurant and killed 15 people. But the Roths say her role went far beyond that, to the actual planning of the attack. In interviews from prison, Ms. Tamimi, who was a journalist, has told of having brought the suicide bomber to Jerusalem and then going on Palestinian television’s afternoon broadcast to announce the news of the attack without acknowledging her involvement. “I’m not sorry for what I did,” she told an Israeli news organization in 2006. “I will get out of prison, and I refuse to recognize Israel’s existence. Discussions will only take place after Israel recognizes that this is Islamic land.”

The Roths said their anger over the prisoner exchange was focused on Ms. Tamimi, who is being sent to Jordan. She is young, fervent and charismatic, Mr. Roth said, and proud of what she did. In a documentary on Palestinian prisoners, she was asked whether she knew how many children had been killed in the attack. She did not. When told the number was eight, she smiled.
There is a fuller background about the circumstances in which our daughter was murdered on the Keren Malki website: http://www.kerenmalki.org/Sbarro_Massacre.htm

And there are many articles on the web tonight showing her family and supporters celebrating her impending return to freedom and to a full and active life as a heroine and inspiration.

Even if you do not normally sign petitions, or pass them along to friends, we ask you to seriously consider signing this one. Once again, it's online here:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/remove-ahlam-tamimi-from-the-list-of-terrorists-to-be-f.html

Time is very limited. We really only have until Sunday (16th October) to get a significant number of signatures. If we succeed, we can then put pressure on the Prime Minister's Office and the Justice Ministry and publicize this in the media.

Finally, allow me to mention that Keren Malki, the not-for-profit we created in our daughter's memory in 2001, does very important work in our murdered daughter's name for the benefit of families raising a special-needs child. Your support for that work will be much appreciated. More at www.kerenmalki.org

Thank you for reading this far. Together with our friends and their friends, we hope - despite the odds - to do something constructive in the face of the terrible transaction being done with the terrorists of Hamas.

Arnold Roth

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

She is just a monster,how can Isreal Government want to let this kind of monster come out to the out side world ?a woman that feel happy of killing an innocent children without even has a repentance mind,she will come out to kill and aid more terrorist.

Anonymous said...

Ahlam Tamimi,is a monster she don't merit to see the sky

Winged Hussar 1683 said...

This individual was convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of playing a role in the murder of 16 people. Her counterpart Terry Nichols, who aided the mass murderer Timothy McVeigh, is doing life without parole in the maximum security prison in Florence Colorado.

This individual's prospective release, along with that of Samir Kuntar (convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of murder) is a strong argument for Israel to apply Rule 303 to terrorists. If they are not captured alive in the first place, Hamas cannot demand their release.

In the absence of (1) a death penalty for terrorists and/or (2) credible and effective life imprisonment without parole for terrorists, Israeli soldiers and similar personnel should therefore make every effort possible to avoid capturing terrorists alive without going so far as to practice overt extrajudicial executions.

Nobody need give an illegal order to kill prisoners (terrorists whose surrender has been accepted and who have clearly been disarmed). The rules of engagement should simply be changed so the terrorists are not offered an opportunity to surrender in the first place--that is a courtesy that soldiers offer other soldiers who have conducted themselves according to the Hague and Geneva Conventions.

Precedent for the application of Rule 303 to terrorists has already been set by the Russian (and reputedly Danish and Dutch) navies with regard to Somali Pirates. The Russians "freed" a batch of them hundreds of miles from shore in an open raft with no navigational equipment. A commentator wrote, "That is how pirates walk the plank in the 21st century." The pirates now avoid Russian shipping. Drumhead courts martial, hangings from yardarms, hanging executed pirates in chains, and the equivalent sound very 18th century but it is obvious that they WORK.

Finally, Israel should have never negotiated for Gilad Shalit's release in the first place. Israel should have told Hamas, "Prisoners of war are not held during peacetime. Since you are holding one, you must be at war with us. Our tanks and bombers would like to know within the hour whether you want to be at war with us, and you can answer that question by handing Mr. Shalit over to us immediately." Releasing terrorists will only encourage Hamas to kidnap more Israelis.