Many of the security prisoners released by Israel killed or wounded American citizens. It would be a real treat to see them prosecuted in United States courtrooms.
Dr. Paul Teller used to keep a running list of Americans killed and wounded by Palestinian terrorists during the second intifada. Dr. Teller at the time was with the Republican Study Group. Unfortunately, the number of Americans wounded or murdered since 2000 has grown into the hundreds. Some are known, like Force Taylor, who had a law passed in Congress named after him. Most are unknown. But the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the FBI have a Congressional mandate to keep track of all such harmed American citizens. To date, not one Palestinian terrorist has been tried in the U.S. Only one indictment is known, that for Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the Sbarro bombing of 2001. The time has come to hold Palestinians responsible for their actions in harming United States citizens.
The Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) passed by Congress in the 1990s included both criminal and civil clauses. We have been involved in a civil suit against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and PLO since 2004. We won a $655 million judgment against the parties in 2015 but the case has been thrown out due to a lack of standing for the bad guys. We have a date at the Supreme Court in April. All prayers are greatly appreciated.
As the FBI had to keep a running tab on Americans harmed by Palestinian terrorists, they needed someone to manage the information. In the day, they had one agent or even a Capitol Police employee take care of what was around 72 files at the time. My experience with these people was generally pleasant but they did not seem interested in doing much. Something I did not know but was told later was that there was an unofficial agreement between DOJ and Israel’s Ministry of Justice: whichever country prosecuted a terrorist, the other country would stand down. This has nothing to do with double jeopardy, as each country has the right to charge a suspect, independent of charges pending in a different jurisdiction. Simply put, the U.S. was just fine with Israel doing all of the heavy lifting: they had the intelligence, the informants, the confessions, and the physical evidence. They also had the bigger stake: in the Sbarro bombing, the Americans killed and injured were far outnumbered by Israeli victims.
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One exception to the rule for agents was one fellow who actually wanted to work on our case. He asked to meet and that I bring all of the material I had on our bombing. We met and I showed him the indictments, the newspaper reports, and the like. I was certain he had seen it as I had sent it all to FBI headquarters via FedEx years earlier. “Your file is empty” was the response. I was furious on the one hand for their throwing out my evidence but I was happy that at least one person in the massive federal government gave a hoot about the Bauers. He worked on the case for a while and then wrote to me that he could not move any further forward. The DOJ was still not interested in handing out orange jumpsuits to Palestinians who had harmed American citizens.
Israel, in its agreement to release hostages held in Gaza, is letting go of Palestinian terrorists who killed and wounded American citizens. I know that the two top guys from our attack are getting out. One was a top intelligence officer in the PA. He got the bomber, a PA policeman, out of jail, provided him with the bomb from the PA Intelligence Ministry, and gave him instructions on what to do. The other guy was a senior Fatah official in the West Bank and worked with Mahmoud Abbas’ No. 2, Hussein Al-Sheikh. When Al-Sheikh went to Washington to visit Tony Blinken, I begged DOJ and the FBI to arrest him for his role in the attack in which this American citizen and his American citizen son were injured. No dice. They all smiled, the terrorist and his new American best friend.
I hereby ask Kash Patel and Pam Bondi to go over the list of Palestinians released by Israel of late. If there are those whose actions led to the death or injury of American citizens, I would ask that you use all available means to put together legal cases against these individuals. When Israel granted these terrorists amnesty, she did not speak for the United States—at least I assume not. The U.S. has every right to enforce the ATA criminal statutes against people and organizations that intentionally harmed American citizens through international acts of terror. There is no reason that these murderers should be sitting peacefully under a palm tree while drinking sweet tea. The U.S. should demand all relevant evidence and assistance in tracking the worst of the worst. The U.S. should tell King Abdullah of Jordan that if he does personally turn over Tamimi for the murder and injury of American citizens who just went to get a pizza, 200,000 Gazans will be arriving monthly in Amman until Tamimi arrives in the U.S. The U.S. has enormous leverage over Israel and the other countries in the region if there is a will to capture, extradite and prosecute people who killed and maimed American citizens.
I have sitting on my desk two pieces of rusting metal. One is a big Philips screw. That one came out of my left arm. The other is the head of an exploded Philips screw. That one came out of our son’s brain. When the trials begin for Nasser Shawish and Akrim Aweis, I will be delighted to bring those heirlooms along with my burned Lands End jacket and other pieces of evidence.
The nascent Trump 2.0 administration has made a clean break from the way things were done in Washington. It is my hope that they will extend this behavior and prosecute Palestinian terrorists who harmed American citizens and today are free, while their victims are either dead or nursing their injuries for the rest of their lives.
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