Will now be a little harder for Ali to hang out with her
A Palestinian woman who had not told U.S. immigration authorities that she had been imprisoned in Israel for two terror attacks accepted a plea bargain that forces her to leave the country.
Rasmea Odeh, 69, would not spend time in U.S. prison or detention but would lose her U.S. citizenship, according to a Thursday statement by the Rasmea Defense Committee.
News of the plea bargain came amid criticism from some in the Jewish world about the anti-Israel views of Odeh and Linda Sarsour, two pro-Palestinian activists who have recently taken public roles in various feminist events and are speaking together at a plenary at an upcoming conference for Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that backs the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
In 2015, Odeh was sentenced in the U.S. to 18 months in prison for covering up her conviction and imprisonment in Israel when she entered the country in 1995 and applied for citizenship in 2004, but the conviction was later vacated.
Odeh was convicted by Israel of involvement in a 1969 bombing in Jerusalem that killed two and injured nine. She was sentenced by an Israeli military court in 1970 to life in prison for two bombing attacks on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and spent 10 years in prison before being released in a prisoner exchange in 1980.
Odeh confessed to planting the bomb in the 1969 attack, though in recent years has claimed the confession was given under torture, which is disputed by Israeli officials.
It was not clear if under the plea bargain Odeh, one of the leaders of the grassroots feminist International Women’s Strike, would still be able to participate in the JVP conference scheduled for March 30-April 2 in Chicago.
Well, it won’t bring her victims back, and it’s not the same as being in prison – where she deserves to be – but it is something
Under this current, racist political climate, and facing 18 months or more of imprisonment, as well as the possibility of indefinite detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Rasmea has made the difficult decision to accept a plea agreement. She will plead guilty to Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization, lose her U.S. citizenship, and be forced to leave the country, but will exit the U.S. without having to serve any more time in prison or ICE detention
And the detestable Jewish Voice for Peace once again show what they are truly for.
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
