22 Years Since Sbarro Bombing
by Jerry Goldfarb
On August 9, 2001, the 20th of Menachem Av 5761, a terrorist bombing of the Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem caused the deaths of fifteen holy Neshamos. Among the victims was a 31-year-old day school and high school teacher – Shoshana Hayman Greenbaum a”h.
The Victims
The 15 other victims of the bombing were: Giora Balash, 60, Zvika Golombek, 26, Shoshana Yehudit Greenbaum, 31, Tehila Maoz, 18, Frieda Mendelsohn, 62, Michal Raziel, 16, Malka Roth, 15, Mordechai Schijveschuurder, 43, Tzira Schijveschuurder, 41, Ra’aya Schijveschuurder, 14, Avraham Yitzhak Schijveschuurder, 4, Hemda Schijveschuurder, 2, Lily Shimashvili, 33, Tamara Shimashvili, 8, Yocheved Shoshan, 10, Chana Nachenberg, an American citizen who was injured in the bombing, remains hospitalized in a vegetative state 20 years later.
Hashem yinkom damam.
The Mass Murderess
The bombing was orchestrated by mass-murderess Ahlam Ahmad al-Tamimi, shaim reshayim yirkav, now 41 years old, who is wanted by the FBI.
Tamimi planned and participated the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing. She caused 145 casualties, including the 15 fatalities, half of them children. Tamimi drove and escorted Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, the suicide bomber. Al-Masri died in the attack as they had planned, but al-Tamimi had left the area before the bomb detonated.
She was imprisoned for her mass-murdering activities, but she was released in the October 2011 prisoner swap for captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. At her sentencing, al-Tamimi had received 16 meaningless and consecutive life sentences with an additional 15 years added
At the time of her mass-murder of innocent people, Tamimi was a journalism student at Birzeit University in the West Bank and a part-time journalist.
A month earlier, al-Tamimi had previously placed an explosive device at a Jerusalem grocery store in Jerusalem which exploded, but did not cause damage.
On that very day of her mass-murder, she then reported on the bombing on a Palestinian news channel.
Tamimi has never shown any regrets. Eleven years after the mass murder and one year after her release, in an interview which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on 12 July 2012 (as translated by MEMRI), this mass-murderess described the reaction of other Palestinians immediately after the bombing:
“Afterwards, when I took the bus, the Palestinians around Damascus Gate [in Jerusalem] were all smiling. You could sense that everybody was happy. When I got on the bus, nobody knew that it was me who had led [him]… I was feeling quite strange, because I had left ‘Izz Al-Din behind, but inside the bus, they were all congratulating one another. They didn’t even know one another, yet they were exchanging greetings…While I was sitting on the bus, the driver turned on the radio. But first, let me tell you about the gradual rise in the number of casualties. While I was on the bus and everybody was congratulating one another..”
After hearing an initial report that “three people were killed” in the bombing, Tamimi stated:
I admit that I was a bit disappointed, because I had hoped for a larger toll. Yet when they said “three dead,” I said: ‘Allah be praised’…Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn’t. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding.
When she had first learned from a journalist who was interviewing her in jail that she had murdered eight children, not just three as she had initially believed, she smiled broadly and continued with the interview.
Following her release from prison, Tamimi gave an interview with the Jordanian Ammon News website, which was later posted on YouTube (as translated by MEMRI):
“I do not regret what happened. Absolutely not. This is the path. I dedicated myself to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and Allah granted me success..Do you want me to denounce what I did? That’s out of the question. I would do it again today, and in the same manner.”
Upon her release, al-Tamimi moved to Jordan immediately. She later met with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal in Cairo, Egypt.
Today, this mass murderess of innocent people hosts a Jordanian talk show, Nasim Al-Ahrar (Breeze of the Free), on the Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds TV.
Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Justice Department filed criminal charges on July 15th, 2013, in the District of Columbia against Tamimi for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death. The criminal complaint was only unsealed on March 14, 2017. Jordanian courts, however, ruled that Tamimi could not be extradited based on a claim that it went against their constitution.
The extradition treaty between Jordan and the United States was first negotiated for the purpose of arresting Eyad Ismoil, a Jordanian citizen who assisted in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and bringing him back from Jordan to the US. The extradition treaty was signed by Jordan’s King Hussein in 1995 and Ismoil was arrested and handed over to the US later that year.
In March of 2021. Interpol dropped its arrest warrant for Tamimi.
One of the few people fighting to get Tamimi extradited is lawyer Stephen Flatow, himself a father of a victim of terrorism (Allysa Flatow a”h hy”d). He writes:
The simple fact is that the United States has an extradition treaty with Jordan. When President Bill Clinton submitted the treaty to Congress on March 28, 1995, his letter stated:
“The Treaty further represents an important step in combatting terrorism by excluding from the scope of the political offense exception serious offenses typically committed by terrorists, e.g., crimes against a Head of State or first family member of either Party, aircraft hijacking, aircraft sabotage, crimes against internationally protected persons, including diplomats, hostage-taking, narcotics trafficking, and other offenses for which the United States and Jordan have an obligation to extradite or submit to prosecution by reason of a multilateral international agreement or treaty.”