Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh was convicted on Monday by a jury in Detroit, after only 2 hours of deliberation, of unlawful procurement of naturalization.
Odeh failed to reveal on her initial visa application and subsequent naturalization application that in 1969 she had been convicted of a terrorist bombing at a Super Sol supermarket, and served time in prison. Odeh served 10 years before being released by Israel as part of a prisoner release for a captured Israeli soldier in Lebanon.
Her Israeli conviction was not just for the bombing.
The pro-Rasmea propaganda campaign by anti-Israel Palestinian activists has been a textbook example of how anti-Israel propaganda works in the U.S.
Odeh claims that her confession to involvement in the bombing was the result of her being sexually tortured in front of her father by Israeli soldiers, and even made to watch another prisoner being tortured to death. There is no way to verify or not her story.
But there is evidence that Odeh was involved in the bombing apart from her confession. In this video, part of a pro-Palestinian Women in Struggle documentary, a woman identified as either her sister or “comrade” talks about how Rasmea was involved in the bombing (watch the video here).
National Review reports:
When Odeh was 21 years old, she was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist group and original member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, according to the indictment.On Feb. 21, 1969, PFLP members planted bombs at the Shufersol supermarket, as well as the British Consulate in Jerusalem. “One of the supermarket bombs malfunctioned and did not detonate,” the indictment says, adding that “the bomb left in the courtyard of the British consulate was discovered and removed to a safe place.” Less than a week later, the indictment says, the PFLP members left another bomb at the British Consulate, which detonated but caused only structural damage.On March 1, 1969, Odeh and four others were arrested for these bombings. According to a Nov. 19 discovery notice, a military court in Israel convicted her for membership in an illegal organization, as well as for participating in all three bombings. Odeh was sentenced to life in prison, the indictment says.In a 2004 documentary, Women in Struggle, a woman named Ayesha Oudeh—identified in news reports as either Rasmieh Odeh’s sister or her “comrade” – said in an interview: “Rasmiyeh Oudeh was more involved than I was [in the grocery store bombing] … I only got involved during the preparation of explosives. We wanted to place two bombs to blow up consecutively. I suggested to have the second bomb go off 5 or 6 minutes after the first bomb so that those who get killed in it would be members of the army and secret service, but it did not explode. They diffused it 20 seconds before it exploded.”
Despite independent evidence of Odeh’s involvement in the Super Sol bombing, Odeh’s supporters claim that the entire immigration prosecution is about punishing the victim of torture. Charlotte Silver, who also writes for the virulently anti-Israel Electronic Intifada and attended Odeh’s trial, wrote on November 4, 2014 in The Nation:Will Rasmea Odeh Go to Prison Because of a Confession Obtained Through Torture?. That article was tweeted over 1000 times, and its theme is repeated at anti-Israel websites like The Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss.
On Twitter, the #Justice4Rasmea hashtag is filled with hundreds of tweets about how Odeh supposedly is being convicted of immigration charges because of Israeli torture, as if it is a fact and there is not independent evidence of Odeh’s involvement in the bombing.
The activist reaction to the immigration charges and verdict is a reflection of the larger insistence on turning Palestinian perpetrators into victims. Rasmea Odeh was involved in bombing a supermarket, then lied when applying to immigrate to and become a citizen of the United States — yet Odeh somehow is the victim.
That is how the defense wanted the trial conducted, to put Israel instead of Rasmea Odeh on trial, to make the case about supposed torture rather than lying on immigration forms. The Judge would not allow it, and rightly so. Odeh was not charged in Detroit with being a terrorist, she was charged with not disclosing her conviction and imprisonment despite the form asking if the applicant “ever” had been arrested, convicted or imprisoned.
Odeh’s defense was that she thought the question only applied to arrests, convictions and imprisonment since she came to the United States a decade before her naturalization. The prosecution, and apparently the jury too, scoffed at the suggestion that “ever” doesn’t mean “ever.” The prosecution used the analogy in closing argument about a woman asking her husband-to-be if he “ever” had been married, and the husband answering “no” even though he had been married in a foreign country before coming to the United States. It was a ridiculous defense, and rightly rejected.
At The Blaze, Sharona Schwartz reports on the delusional reaction of the protesters outside the courthouse after the verdict, where they chanted “Yes We Can”:
An Arab-American community activist was found guilty by a federal jury in Detroit Monday of immigration fraud for hiding that she was once convicted for a deadly terrorist bombing in Israel.Pro-Palestinian activists decried the conviction of Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 67, calling it a “travesty of justice” and a “sham trial.”After the verdict, Odeh spoke in English and Arabic to several dozen of her supporters gathered outside the courthouse.“We can find the justice in some place, maybe not in this court, maybe in other place. There’s a justice in this world. We will find it,” Odeh said through a megaphone. “Don’t worry. We will find it. We will find the justice.”Her supporters – some who traveled from Chicago to be at her trial – began chanting in unison, along with Odeh, the slogan of President Barack Obama’s 2009 campaign: “Yes we can! Yes we can!”
The daughter of one of Rasmea Odeh’s bombing victims recently wrote at Huffington Post about the case:
On Friday, Feb. 21, 1969, my dad’s brother, Edward Joffe, and his best friend, Leon Kanner, went to the supermarket Supersol at the intersection of Agron and Hamelech George in Jerusalem to make some purchases for a botany department excursion. As they approached the meat counter, an explosive device, a biscuit can filled with five kilograms of dynamite, which had been placed there by Rasmieh Yousef Odeh and Ayesha Oudeh, was suddenly detonated, and Eddie and Leon were both instantly killed.And so again I ask the supporters of Rasmieh Yousef Odeh: At what point will you stop defending her?
The unfortunate answer is never. Because it’s not about truth, and certainly not about justice.
It’s about anti-Israel agitation and propaganda, whether in Detroit or Ferguson or the United Nations.
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