Rasmea Odeh was convicted in Israel in 1970 of the 1969 supermarket bombing that killed students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. She was convicted again in Detroit in November 2014 of falsely procuring naturalization, by concealing her conviction and incarceration in Israel on U.S. immigration and naturalization applications.
Rasmea has become a hero in the anti-Israel activist community and among groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, on the narrative that her original Israeli conviction was unjust as it was the result of a confession extracted after several weeks of horrific sexual torture. The trial judge ruled any such evidence inadmissible, as the immigration charge had to deal with concealment of the conviction and incarceration, not whether Rasmea was guilty of the bombing charges.
Rasmea is due to be sentenced on the immigration charge on March 12, 2015. While she faces 10 years in prison it is highly unlikely she will receive anywhere near that much time. The prosecution has not yet filed its sentencing request (or if it did, it’s not on PACER yet).
In the run up to sentencing, Rasmea’s supporters have organized fundraisers, livestream events, and letter writing campaigns urging the Judge to show leniency. There are dozens of groups organizing the effort:
There are campus events sponsored by groups such as the Middle East Studies Association at Loyola University in Chicago:
There are rallies:
[“South Florida Speaks With Rasmea” — Florida International University)(Image via Facebook)
And music events:
Again, the major focus of all this sentencing activism is the narrative of an unjust Israeli conviction based on a confession obtained after weeks of sexual torture.
In fact, as I demonstrated, the evidence against Rasmea on the Israeli conviction was overwhelming. The fact is that that Rasmea confessed just one day after arrest, which is inconsistent with the claim that the confession was extracted only after weeks of sexual torture. There also was substantial corroborating evidence, all as discussed and shown in Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud.
One important piece of the corroborating evidence was the interview of Ayisha Admad Odeh (no relation to Rasmea) in the 2004 film Women in Struggle, celebrating Palestinian women who served time in Israeli prison. In the film Ayisha, who also was convicted of involvement, describes how Rasmea was the key planner of the Super Sol bombing. Here is the clip, followed by a key screen shot:
If someone were protesting Rasmea’s alleged wrongful conviction in Israel, and using that alleged injustice to call for lenient sentencing in the Detroit immigration fraud case, the last thing they logically should want to do is play Women in Struggle.
Yet that is exactly what is happening in an event planned for the day after Rasmea’s sentencing, a fundraiser in D.C. at the Palestine Film Festival.
The featured film is none other than Women in Struggle.
Have they actually seen the film? Do they realize the film contradicts their claim that Rasmea was innocent of the supermarket bombing?
While Rasmea is celebrated as a hero, the grief of the families of her victims continues, as a letter to the Court from Edward Joffe’s brother and a dying video in 2009 by Edward’s mother attest:
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