Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter was murdered in the 2001 Sbarro pizza bombing, wants Twitter to shut down the account of one of the terrorists involved.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
Malki Roth was 15 when she was blown up in August 9, 2001 when a suicide bomber walked into a Sbarro pizza restaurant located at the busy intersection of King George Street and Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. Fourteen others were killed, including eight children and a pregnant woman.
The terrorist who scouted out the location and drove the suicide bomber, Izz al-Masri, to the restaurant was Ahlam Tamimi, then a 20-year-old female university student and journalist, (She has described how her journalism credentials proved useful in giving her the ability to move inside Jerusalem and plan the attack.)
Tamimi is now in Jordan, protected from extradition to the U.S. where she is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list. She is, among other things, actively tweeting.
Arnold Roth, Malki’s father, wants it to stop. He tweeted on March 30:
“The fugitive @FBIMostWanted terrorist who says she carried out the #SbarroPizzeria massacre, who is wanted in the US on terror charges, who has a busy Twitter account, who lives free in Jordan… still has an active Twitter account. Why?”
Mr. Roth said that he “already asked @Twitter’s guardians of decency to shut #Tamimi’s account down. Their response so far: ‘You can learn more about reporting abusive behavior here. IF we take further action, we’ll let you know.’”
Tamimi has become a kind of “pan-Arab media celebrity,” Mr. Roth said. In a March 31 tweet, he wrote:
“IN A large part of the very significant population of people who excuse what Jordanian terrorist #AhlamTamimi did (and does) view her as a hero, a figure to emulate. They’re totally opposed to her being extradited to face US criminal charges as the Jordan/US treaty requires.”
Tamimi, who had been in Israeli prison, was set free in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal, in which Shalit, a captured IDF soldier was set free by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners.