As you may be aware, Rasmieh (Rasmea) Odeh pleaded guilty on April 25, 2017 to one count of unlawfully obtaining naturalization. In the plea agreement, Rasmea admitted she knowingly had lied, among other ways, by denying ever having been convicted or imprisoned.
In fact, Rasmea was convicted in Israel in 1970 of the bombing of the Supersol supermarket, which killed Hebrew University students Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. She served 10 years before being released in a prisoner exchange.
Rasmea concocted a defense that she falsely answered the questions because she was suffering from PTSD, which made her “filter” the plain wording. At multiple levels that defense was as big a lie as her lies on her immigration forms, and in the plea agreement she admitted her false statements were not the result of PTSD or any other mental condition.
But if you need a refresher on the case, and Rasmea’s other nonsense claims, see our coverage of the guilty plea, Rasmea Odeh pleads guilty to immigration fraud, and follow up post, VIDEO: Terror victim’s brother says Rasmea Odeh supporters “have to eat their words”.
The Investigative Project on Terrorism was on the Rasmea Odeh case even before we were. IPT has just released a video about the guilty plea, Spinning a Terrorist into a Victim: Justice, At Last, for Rasmieh Odeh:
Rasmieh Odeh’s April 25 guilty plea to naturalization fraud contained clear-cut admissions, including that she knowingly lied to U.S. immigration officials to hide her terrorist past. As this report shows, however, Odeh is selling a dramatically different story in public, one her supporters blindly follow.For more details about Odeh’s case – the charges against her and her terrorist past – see our 2014 series, “Spinning a Terrorist Into a Victim.”
The video does a good job at demonstrating the pathology behind Rasmea’s conduct, where even after pleading guilty, she still portrayed herself as the victim:
The video also featured Basil Joffe, brother of Edward Joffe, one of the students killed in the supermarket bombing. Basil is the only one of the siblings of Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner I have not yet met.
I was pleased that the video included several segments of an interview I gave to IPT about the case”
“This is their star, their rock star, their idol, and it’s a very cult-like atmosphere there.”
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“They have tried to turn this into a social justice case, when it’s not. This is a case of non-disclosure of a conviction and imprisonment. Whether she should have been convicted in Israel of the bombing, or whether she shouldn’t have been, whether she should have been imprisoned or not, they are facts that happened, and that had to be disclosed on her immigration and naturalization forms. She didn’t get to lie about that and keep her citizenship, and that’s what’s being taken away from her.
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My guess is that her emotions probably were real, but they were not necessarily motivated by what you might think. I think she legitimately is upset that she’s going to have to leave the United States, that the fruit of the lies on her immigration forms is being taken away from her, her U.S. citizenship. So I believe she really is upset. But just because she’s upset doesn’t mean she’s been wronged. She committed a wrong.”
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This is not a case about racism. This is not a case against anti-Palestinian government action. She lied to get into the country. And it was the worst type of lie. It was a lie about prior terrorist activity. This was not an innocent lie. This was a lie went to the heart of the screening that takes place to keep terrorists out of the United States. Rather than acknowledging what she did, and acknowledging how she lied to come into the country, she presents herself as the victim. And that is very typical.”
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I really did not expect this to happen because her lawyers and her defense committee and her supporters have been bragging for months how she’s going to put Israel on trial. So I thought, given her background, that would be one of her life goals, to try to put Israel on trial in a U.S. courtroom.”
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“Whatever else she is, I think she’s a very smart woman. And I think she correctly assessed the risks to her. She did not believe the BS that her supporters spout. She understood that she was guilty, she understood she was going to get convicted, she understood that she was going to get at least 18 months, probably longer, and she took the deal. So I think she’s a very smart woman. She’s a smart women, though, who lied to get into the country.”
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“The Twitter hashtag that Rasmea’s supporters use is #Justice4Rasmea. When she’s deported and stripped of her citizenship, I think Justice will have been done for Rasmea.”
Legal Insurrection reader Dan Cutler, who stood outside the courthouse with a sign remembering Edward and Leon, also is in the film.
Here is the video:
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