On Tuesday night, February 3, 2015, there will be a fundraiser organized by Chicago-area branches of Students for Justice in Palestine, honoring and supporting Rasmea Odeh. Full details are in our prior post, Upcoming fundraiser for convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh at DePaul Univ.
The fundraiser is being held at the student center at DePaul University, the scene of some not-so-pleasant anti-Israel protests in the past.
Rasmea was convicted of the SuperSol supermarket bombing in Jerusalem in 1969 that killed two Israeli students, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner.
Rasmea then lied about her conviction and imprisonment when she immigrated to the United States and became a naturalized citizen. Rasmea was convicted of immigration fraud in November by a federal jury in Detroit, and is awaiting sentencing.
The evidence supporting Rasmea’s Israeli and Detroit convictions was overwhelming, as I documented in Rasmea Odeh rightly convicted of Israeli supermarket bombing and U.S. immigration fraud.
Nonetheless, Rasmea has become a hero to the anti-Israel activist community, particularly in Chicago where she lived since immigrating.
In protest of the SJP fundraiser, students at DePaul are organizing a vigil to be held outside the student center in memory of Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner.
Seth Winberg, an Orthodox rabbi and executive director of Metro Chicago Hillel, serving DePaul University, writes in The Chicago Sun Times, Why does DePaul group honor a convicted killer?
Finally, let’s consider what the fundraiser teaches us about SJP, the most vocal and best-organized pro-Palestinian group on campus. SJP advocates boycotting and divesting from companies that do business with Israel. It defends its efforts as being nonviolent. But now we see SJP does not distinguish between nonviolent and violent.Is there no one else SJP can honor who, say, advocates for an agreement between Israel and Palestine that ensures security and peace for Israel and a viable Palestinian state? Most Jewish and pro-Israel college students advocate for a two-state solution. This fundraiser is anything but an effort towards such an agreement. Leaders of “pro-Palestinian” efforts on campus are on record that their end goal is the destruction of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Now they are celebrating a convicted killer of Israeli civilians at the largest Catholic university in the US.To honor the memories of Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner — the real victims in this story — we are organizing a vigil outside DePaul’s student center as the SJP fundraiser begins. We invite all DePaul students and faculty who wish to honor the victims of terror rather than its perpetrators to join us.
[Featured Image: Mother and Sister of Edward Joffe at his funeral, Jerusalem, 1969, via Investigative Project]
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