Rasmea Odeh is not one of the victims in the Rasmea Odeh story (#Justice4Rasmea)

Rasmea Odeh is not one of the victims in the Rasmea Odeh story (#Justice4Rasmea)

As you know, we have covered the Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh trial extensively, including research that demonstrated that the victimization narrative pushed by anti-Israel groups was contradicted by the historical record, Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud.

As part of my continuing effort to reach new audiences, I have a column that ran in the print edition of The Detroit News this morning and the online version late this afternoon, Rasmea Odeh is no victim.

I thought it was important to have the column run in the Detroit News, because Angela Davis had a column there in early November spreading the same false narrative of Rasmea as a victim of Zionist and American repression.

Here is an excerpt, but please head over the Detroit news for the whole thing, and share it on Facebook and Twitter — the true story needs to get out:

On Nov. 10, 2014, a federal jury in Detroit returned a guilty verdict against Chicago-based Rasmieh (Rasmea) Yousef Odeh for illegally procuring naturalization by falsely answering questions whether she “EVER” had been convicted or imprisoned….

But there is another story here, in which Odeh now is portrayed by anti-Israel activist groups as a victim of Zionist oppression. Odeh has become, in the words of one supporter, “a Palestinian woman who embodies the Palestinian history of dispossession, struggle and resilience.” …

That narrative does not hold up based on the record….

The only victims in the Rasmea Odeh story are the two Hebrew University students killed in the 1969 supermarket bombing.

Odeh is no victim, just a terrorist bomber rightly convicted in Israel, who then lied on her visa and naturalization applications to the U.S. and was rightly convicted a second time in federal court in Detroit.

(Newspaper headline “The War Came to the Supermarket”)(via Live Leak)

In related news, the prosecutors have filed an opposition to the motion of the National Lawyers’ Guild to enter into the case as amicus curaie (friend of the court). As part of that filing, the prosecutors cited and linked to my research post(emphasis added):

Even if one assumes that, as a legal matter, a district court may properly permit the filing of an amicus brief in a criminal case, it is a bad policy idea and certainly ought to be rejected here. Simply put, if the National Lawyers Guild’s position is correct that it has a sufficient interest to justify an amicus filing here, then there is no logical stopping point as to when courts should and should not permit such filings. If the National Lawyers Guild is permitted to file an amicus brief on the merits of some aspect of a criminal case, simply because it supports Palestinian statehood or the defendant’s political views, then it invites similar responses by other individuals and groups, who have no more legally cognizable interest in the outcome of the case than does the National Lawyers Guild, but who have a different agenda.

Thus, for instance, this case has generated significant interest not only in the Arab-American community, but among other organizations as well, including those interested in counter-terrorism issues. See, e.g., http://www.investigative project.org/4654/spinning-a-terrorist-into-a-victim-epilogue; see also https://legalinsurrection.com/2014/11/rasmea-odeh-rightly-convicted-of-israeli-supermarketbombing-and-u-s-immigration-fraud. Such groups might, for instance, wish to file an amicus brief arguing that in light of her past history of involvement in bombings which targeted and killed innocent civilians, defendant Odeh is not only a risk of non-appearance, as argued by the government … but also may wish to argue that she is a danger to the community….

(Featured Image: Mother and Sister of Edward Joffe at funeral, Jerusalem, 1969, via Investigative Project)

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