Truthout leaves the truth out of Rasmea Odeh story

Truthout leaves the truth out of Rasmea Odeh story

I already have demonstrated in great detail how the narrative being peddled by supporters of Rasmea Odeh is demonstrably false and distorted, Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud.

For those of you who are not familiar, Odeh was recently convicted of immigration fraud in Detroit federal court for failing to disclose on her visa and naturalization papers her conviction and imprisonment in Israel for planting a bomb in 1969 in a Jerusalem supermarket killing two students, and related offenses, including an attempted bombing of the British consulate.

The immigration case was open and shut. The conviction and imprisonment were indisputable facts, and Odeh falsely answered “No” to clear questions asking if she had “EVER” (caps in original) been convicted or imprisoned.

Instead of defending the claims, Odeh’s defense team and supporters tried to turn the case into a verdict on the Middle East dispute. The Judge did not allow it.

Once of the most egregious, yet typical, descriptions about the background of the case was published on November 22 in Truthout, by Dahr Jamail, Rasmea Odeh: Victim of Institutional Oppression, From Israel to the US.

While most of the article is just conspiracy and oppression theories, the factual introduction is demonstrably inaccurate [my responses based on the documents in my prior post are bold and in brackets]:

… Odeh is accused of concealing that she was charged by the Israeli military with bombing a supermarket when she was 22.

The charge is based on a “confession” obtained by rape and torture at the hands of members of the Israeli military (IDF) more than 40 years ago…..

Truthout previously reported how Odeh, along with 500 other Palestinians, was arrested at the age of 22 by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during a massive security sweep following the 1967 war and occupation of the West Bank. [No, Odeh was not arrested in connection with some massive sweep, but in response to the supermarket bombing, and explosives were found in her bedroom and house.]

At the time, as now, many Palestinians who were detained by the IDF were later charged with crimes they did not commit to justify their detention. [Almost all of the people detained after the bombing were quickly released, disproving the theory that detentions were just an excuse to create false convictions. There is no evidence that Odeh was detained merely as a pretext to find some crime she committed.] Odeh was charged with bombing a supermarket. [True!] While in prison, she was tortured with electrical shock and raped with batons.

Odeh’s father was tortured in front of her. IDF personnel even attempted to make her father rape her.

She was beaten regularly with metal rods, kicked, threatened, humiliated, denied medical care and access to a bathroom, and – almost needless to say – was denied access to legal resources. She was made to watch a Palestinian man literally tortured to death. She eventually signed a confession to stop IDF personnel from continuing to torture her father. [The preceding several sentences, which argue that Odeh confessed after prolonged sexual torture lasting weeks, are contracted by the indisputable fact that Odeh issued a detailed confession one (1) day after arrest. Such demonstrable timetable calls into question Odeh’s entire story. The claim that Odeh was denied access to legal resources is false, and is contradicted by the Israeli trial record produced by treaty, as well as a contemporaneous newspaper article about her trial and defense. An International Red Cross observer called the trial fair.]

Add to the above the fact that Rasmea’s co-conspirator detailed Rasmea’s role in the bombing in a 2004 interview, and the evidence is overwhelming that Rasmea was guilty.

Truthout and other Rasmea supporters are entitled to all the conspiracy and oppression theories they want.

But they are not not entitled to leave the truth out of their historical account of Odeh’s terrorist past, trial and imprisonment.

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