AP Picture/Paul Sancya
In his new guide, The Trials of Rasmea Odeh: How a Palestinian Guerrilla Gained and Misplaced U.S. Citizenship, Steven Lubet tells the exceptional story of Rasmea Odeh. A Palestinian girl from the West Financial institution city of Ramallah, Odeh was convicted for homicide in Israel in 1969, following a lethal bombing in Jerusalem’s largest grocery store. Twenty-five years later, nevertheless, Odeh was not serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail however as an alternative beginning a brand new life in the US, first in Detroit and later in Chicago, finally turning into a naturalized citizen and dealing as a neighborhood organizer. Her arrest by federal authorities in 2013, and subsequent trial on costs of illegal procurement of citizenship introduced progressive activists to her protection, even because the details of the immigration case, the Israeli conviction, and Odeh's formative years have been obscured or ignored.
Though sentenced to 2 life phrases in jail for her position within the Jerusalem grocery store bombing and one other bombing on the British consulate, Odeh was launched in a prisoner trade with the Standard Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) on March 14, 1979. Three months later she was in Geneva, testifying about her ill-treatment in Israel earlier than a session of the UN Particular Committee investigating human rights violations within the occupied territories.
Throughout the first minutes of her testimony, Odeh started mendacity about her participation within the PFLP’s guerrilla operations. She instructed the committee that she had by no means had explosives in her residence, that she knew nothing about Palestinian commandos or resistance, and that she had no involvement within the Jerusalem bombings or different “army operations.” As we are going to see, all of those assertions have been unfaithful and have been flatly contradicted by Odeh’s personal phrases in later interviews in addition to by different contributors within the bombing.
Shortly after showing in Geneva, when she was dwelling in Beirut, Odeh was interviewed by the Lebanese journalist Soraya Antonius, to whom she described her involvement with the PFLP and her dedication to “army motion,” thus contradicting her personal sworn testimony. Odeh additionally admitted her half within the British consulate operation:
We had positioned a bomb there to protest Britain’s choice to furnish arms to Israel. Really we positioned two bombs, the primary was discovered earlier than it went off so we positioned one other.
I didn’t do it for cash, I used to be making an attempt to defend my residence, and that actual honor lay in combating and rejecting the occupation of our nation.
In a 1990 interview with the American tutorial Amal Kawar, carried out in Amman, Jordan, Odeh acknowledged having been among the many girls “lively first as guerrillas,” and he or she recognized herself as a member of the PFLP Central Committee.
As well as, one in all Odeh’s codefendants has repeatedly named her as among the many bombing conspirators. In a 2004 Palestinian documentary titled Ladies in Battle, Aisha Odeh (no relation to Rasmea) admitted putting the deadly bomb within the Jerusalem grocery store and defined that she had participated within the implementation somewhat than planning. “Rasmiyeh Oudeh was extra concerned than I used to be,” she stated. “I positioned the bombs,” however Rasmea “scouted the placement and selected the targets.” With Rasmea sitting subsequent to her and smiling, Aisha thanked her for “dragging me into army work.” Buthina Canaan Khoury, the filmmaker who carried out the joint interview, acknowledged that Rasmea had acknowledged her involvement within the bombing, saying, “She was a Palestinian at the moment and he or she acted like the remainder of the Palestinians would act.” Ladies in Battle was broadly distributed, profitable awards on the San Diego Movie Competition and the Al Ismailia Movie Competition in Egypt.
Extra not too long ago, in a 2013 interview on Palestine tv, Aisha described her “armed exercise” as a PFLP operative and named Rasmea as a member of the cell that carried out “an operation in western Jerusalem” in February 1969, through which “two have been killed” and plenty of wounded. Aisha was much more particular in her Arabic-language memoir, revealed in Amman, Jordan, explaining how she and Rasmea assembled the bombs with the help of an “explosives professional” at Rasmea’s home in al-Bireh.
One other of the bombing conspirators who appeared in Ladies in Battle, Rasheida Obeideh, was by no means apprehended by the Israelis, having efficiently crossed into Jordan earlier than she could possibly be arrested. In 1993, Obeideh was interviewed in an Arabic-language video about Palestinian girls, through which she described organizing cells and gathering weapons to withstand the Israeli occupation. Recognizing that a few of their planning had been haphazard, she defined that she and her colleagues “didn't have the persistence” to delay “army assaults.” Relating to “the operation on the tremendous sol in Jerusalem,” Obeideh stated “me and my buddies Aisha and Rasmieh participated within the one operation.” Lastly, Odeh’s personal father, Yousuf Odeh, who was a naturalized American citizen, admitted to a U.S. consular officer that he had been “current when police discovered explosives” in her bed room.
For European and American audiences, Rasmea Odeh has offered herself because the harmless sufferer of an Israeli frame-up, through which a false confession was extracted by torture. There is no such thing as a doubt that she was fiercely brutalized by her interrogators, resulting in a confession that may not be admissible in American courts. However inadmissibility doesn't change the truth of her participation within the lethal bombing. Confessions could also be coerced from the harmless and responsible alike, and Odeh has freely admitted her participation within the grocery store bombing—though solely when talking Arabic.
And why not? In a lot of the Arab world, armed battle towards Israel is a matter of satisfaction, somewhat than one thing to be hid. As one of many first younger girls to have interaction in guerrilla operations towards the occupation of her homeland, Odeh is due to this fact somebody to be celebrated, as certainly she has been within the Arabic press. Upon her arrival in Jordan, following deportation from the US, the Arabic language information web site Arab 48 reported that “the struggler Rasmea Odeh” had carried out an operation “within the coronary heart of Jerusalem” that resulted in killing two Israelis and injuring 9 others. A launch from the Palestine Data Heart additionally praised Odeh as having resisted the occupation “with all of her energy and willpower,” together with participation in “the army resistance” and involvement, with Aisha Odeh, within the Jerusalem bombing.
Odeh’s false assertions of innocence served her nicely as each public relations and authorized technique. Israel’s safety providers could possibly be condemned much more when proven utilizing violent interrogation methods on harmless civilians chosen at random. Likewise, her protection to the U.S. costs of immigration fraud could possibly be made extra convincing, and entice extra common help, when she was portrayed as a torture sufferer somewhat than a guerrilla operative. Largely, the stratagems have been profitable. The U.N. Particular Committee members requested Odeh no questions on her position within the bombing, and quite a few neighborhood organizations rallied to her aspect in the course of the U.S. prosecution, all of them assuming that her Israeli conviction had been a whole miscarriage of justice. In 2017, Odeh was the keynote speaker on the nationwide membership assembly of JVP, the place she was applauded as an emblem of “Palestinian resilience” whereas her “false confession” was dismissed as purely the results of Israeli coercion.
The complete story of Rasmea Odeh, nevertheless, requires a better recognition of the particular details. Whether or not considered a terrorist or freedom fighter, and regardless of how cruelly she was handled by her Israeli interrogators, Odeh was
undoubtedly a participant within the 1969 bombing operation that took two lives in Jerusalem.
In 1995, Odeh was dwelling in Jordan, having fun with what she later referred to as “one of the best interval in my life.” As she recalled, “I've two jobs, I've a home, I've a automotive, I've a checking account, and I used to be completely satisfied there.” Sadly, her father had developed a malignancy and wanted to be handled in the US. Odeh’s brother Mustafa, who was dwelling in Stockbridge, Michigan, requested her to maneuver there to maintain their father. As the one single daughter, she agreed. Odeh utilized for an immigrant visa on the U.S. embassy in Amman, offering a number of untruthful solutions on the shape. Requested to checklist “all locations you've got lived for six months or longer,” her solely reply was Amman, Jordan, omitting her prolonged imprisonment in Israel and the 4 years she had spent in Lebanon. Most importantly, she denied that she had ever been convicted of “offenses for which the mixture sentences have been 5 years or extra,” regardless of her two life sentences for homicide and ten years of precise imprisonment.
Nobody questioned or challenged Odeh’s solutions. Her visa was issued and he or she arrived in the US on April 18, 1995, prepared to start a brand new life that may finally result in citizenship. Her utility remained on file, however her false statements wouldn't be found for nearly twenty years.
Reprinted fromThe Trials of Rasmea Odeh by Steven Lubet, revealed by George Mason College Press and distributed by the College of Virginia Press, copyright 2021