Any of you who has read this blog for some period of time has seen me use the term NotInMyBackYard, which basically means that if it doesn't affect me personally, I don't care about it. For example, if bombs are going off in Sderot, none of the elites need to care because Tel Aviv is quiet. I have a friend who has a neat name for this kind of behavior - Bishvili Nivra HaOlam syndrome. The name is a takeoff on the Talmudic saying that every person must think that Bishvili Nivra HaOlam, the world was worthy of being created for me. Of course, the Talmud did not intend to say that the world is for me to the exclusion of everyone else.As a people, we Israeli Jews are afflicted with Bishvili Nivra HaOlamsyndrome. We don't timely pay our employees or contractors, we cheat on taxes, we cut in lines at banks and supermarkets, we drive like there are no other cars on the road even in the heaviest of traffic (and especially at night when there seems to be less chance of being caught), we remain indifferent to others' pain.... You all know that at least some of those things describe you... and me to a greater or lesser extent.
Eight months ago, the entire country was endangered to resolve a personal issue belonging to one family that was capable of resolution in other ways. Over 1,000 'Palestinian' terrorists were released in exchange for one kidnapped IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit. What was most striking about the release was the manner in which the families of terror victims were completely ignored. Victim impact statements were nowhere to be found. In fact, families of terror victims were unable to even obtain the most basic information from the government. It was as if they did not exist.
I've known Arnold Roth for about eight years - we were briefly colleagues at the same law firm. My eldest daughter was a couple of years ahead of his daughter, Malki HY"D (May God Avenge her blood) in school. Malki was one of 15 (really 16 - one woman remains in a coma to this day) people murdered at Sbarro's here in Jerusalem ten years ago. The planner of that attack, the woman who brought the bomber into Jerusalem, dropped him off outside the restaurant and then went back to Ramallah to gleefully broadcast the story on the evening news, was Ahlam Tamimi. Tamimi, who was released as part of the Shalit deal despite vehement protests from the Roth's and from many other people, is such a sadistic personality that she smiled with satisfaction at the television cameraswhen she was told in an interview that eight of the dead were children, and not three as she thought. She is a despicable excuse for a member of the human race.
Eleven days ago, in a move that is simply inexplicable, because it was not part of the Shalit deal, Tamimi's cousin Nizar Tamimi, who is also a murderer who was released as part of the Shalit deal, was allowed to move to Jordan to marry Ahlam, so long as he doesn't return to Israel or Judea and Samaria for five years. Once again, the government moved without consulting with either Nizar's or Ahlam's victims, thereby ensuring the perpetuation of a prominent terrorist family for at least another generation. When one compares this to the pitched battle the government fought to prevent Yigal Amir, the alleged assassin of Yitzchak Rabin z"l (of blessed memory), from consummating his marriage, the contrast could not be more striking. That's because Rabin was 'one of us' and Arnold and Frimet Roth, as immigrants from Australia and the United States, respectively, are not. But what's most striking about the Roths' battle to at least keep Tamimi in jail, or to keep her from procreating, is not that the government has not acceded to any of the Roth's requests, but that they have not even been willing to listen to them.
The article linked below, authored by Ben Cohen of Joint Media News Service, currently appears on the web editions of the Canadian Jewish News and of Algemeiner Journal. It describes the Roths' ongoing battle to force Tamimi to pay a price for her crimes. You can also read it here. I urge you all to read it.
