Ike Funkhauser

This is Ahlam Tamimi. Born in Jordan to Palestinian parents. Fluent in English. No headscarf. That’s how her brother describes her growing up. Until she enters Ramallah’s Birzeit University as an honors student of journalism. Then comes 2000 and and with it, the Second Intifada. Arafat has already torched peace at Camp David before and is now out to torch an entire generation of Palestinians in the name of that peace. Hundreds of students are radicalized on campuses across Judea and Samaria, among them the university in question. One such student is Tamimi who, according to her own brother, is an easy pick given her non-Islamic appearance (fluent English, no hijab). She’s only 19 when Hamas recruits her for their jihad. The following year, only weeks before 9/11, Tamimi uses her press credentials (she’s also a part-time newsreader) and Western-style clothing to scout targets in downtown Jerusalem. The press card comes in handy at the several IDF checkpoints between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Palestinians from Judea and Samaria are not let into the rest of Israel without valid credentials and other checks and we’ll soon learn why. Tamimi finally zeroes in on a Sbarro pizzeria in downtown Jerusalem. The restaurant is on the ground floor of a building right at the intersection of King George Street and Jaffa Road. There’s a reason for that choice. Pizzerias are typically a favorite among kids and families. She also picks a date, August 9, 2001. There’s a reason for that too. In Israel, weekend is Friday-Saturday. So Thursday after-hours are a good time to go out for a pizza for many families. Like Friday evening in the rest of the First World. August 9, 2001 is a Thursday. That day at about 2 PM local time, Tamimi escorts a 22-year-old Izz al-Din al-Masri to the intersection and leaves him there, herself immediately catching a public bus back to Ramallah. Al-Masri comes from an affluent, land-owning family in Samaria and his father runs a successful restaurant business in the Samarian village of al-Aqabah. The nisba al-Masri, however, comes from Masr, native name for Egypt. At the intersection, al-Masri stands, carrying a guitar case. Needless to say, the guitar case isn’t exactly carrying a guitar. As soon as the girl is out of sight, the boy crosses the street and steps into the restaurant. Within moments, a blast rips through the crowded pizzeria. Pieces of al-Masri lie scattered all over the place. The blast has killed 15, including 7 children and a pregnant woman. More than a hundred more end up with life-altering injuries and amputations due to the nails, nuts, and bolts from the guitar case. One of the victims is a 31-year-old Chana Nachenberg who is thrown into a permanent vegetative state. She would spend another 22 years in coma before finally passing away in 2023. She’d be the 16th fatality of the suicide bombing. While the Sbarro bombing has earned Tamimi her fame as a “resistance fighter,” this isn’t eactly her first such attempt. Only 2 months earlier she had placed an explosive-packed soda can on a supermarket shelf in downtown Jerusalem. Unfortunately for her, the explosion failed to hurt anyone. Weeks after the Sbarro bombing, Tamimi is arrested, tried in a military court, convicted of multiple counts of murder, and sentenced to 16 consecutive life imprisonments. In a highly publicized moment from a prison interview, she is filmed smiling when the interviewer informs her that she’s actually helped kill more children than she originally thought. The sentencing is meant to guarantee she stays in prison forever. But then comes 2006. A 19-year-old Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit is abducted by Gazan terrorists, more specifically Hamas, and held hostage for five years. In October 2011, Israel agrees to an deal where to secure his safe return, the Israeli government offers a massively disproportionate exchange, releasing 1,027 Palestinian terrorists. Hamas has provided a priority list of high-value prisoners they demanded in the exchange, and Ahlam Tamimi is on top of it. On top of a list that also includes none other than Yahya Sinwar, mind you. Tamimi is released. And immediately deported to Jordan. Today she lives a highly public life in Amman as a Hamas talk-show host with a $5 million FBI bounty on her head. Three takeaways from this story: 1. Life sentence for convicted terrorists is the costliest form of humanity. Had the thousand-odd terrorists been executed upon conviction, there would be no Yahya Sinwar to carry out 10/7. 2. Tamimi will likely never face the consequences for her actions and continue to inspire the next generation of suicide bombers and baby rapists throughout the Palestinian diaspora. Life sentencing helped her cause. 3. The Sbarro bombing was carried out by a Jordanian girl and an Egyptian boy at the behest of Hamas, itself an offshoot of an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Palestinian nationalism is a fraud, a subterfuge for jihad, and the more you delay its recognition as such, the more killings you cause. If your heart bleeds for “the children of Gaza,” and if you claim to be a person of compassion unlike us islamophobic barbarians, answer this: Does an individual responsible for the killing of 7 children and a pregnant woman (not even accounting the rest) deserve to live? Because this is the kind of ghoul, Israel will now start executing as a state policy. What does it tell you about a country that absorbed more than 70 years of relentless terrorism before deciding that it’s probably a good idea to execute terrorists? And if you think she should live, would you have the exact same moral standards for an Israeli man convicted of killing 7 innocent Gazans? If not, why? It’s called asymmetry. This conflict is asymmetric because your morals are asymmetric.

استقبالٌ خاص من الجاليةِ العراقية 🇮🇶 في أستراليا 🇦🇺 للمدربِ غراهام أرنولد بعد وصولهِ إلى سيدني ✈️ حفاوةٌ كبيرة… ودعمٌ متواصل لأسودِ الرافدين 🦁❤ Iraqis 🇮🇶 in Australia 🇦🇺 give a hero's welcome to head coach Graham Arnold as he returns home after guiding us to the World Cup ❤️

Even Bill Clinton had to share this about the Palestinian cause. Listen to what he has to say..

What Israel’s then female prime minister, Golda Meir said over five decades ago is almost a prophecy. Every word is still relevant and highly accurate.