Leftist-Beloved Palestinian Terrorist Sentenced to Prison

Posted By Ari Lieberman On March 17, 2015 @ 12:30 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 2 Comments

Last week, a federal judge sentenced a Palestinian terrorist, Rasmieh Yusef Odeh, to 18 months in prison for committing multiple counts of immigration fraud. Odeh could have received as many as 10 years, and prosecutors were seeking a sentence of between five to seven years, but the sentencing Judge, Gershwin Drain, stuck to federal sentencing guidelines. Odeh was also stripped of her US citizenship and faces deportation following her release from prison, but is currently free on bond pending her appeal. Given the sheer volume of documentary and testimonial evidence against her, meticulously compiled by federal prosecutors, a reversal or remand seems highly unlikely and Odeh will almost certainly do time but not nearly enough given her murderous past.

Odeh epitomizes evil. She was an active member of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which the US State Department labeled as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). On February 21, 1969 Odeh, her sister and at least 3 other co-conspirators placed a bomb in a Jerusalem supermarket that claimed the lives of two Israeli university students in their early twenties. The bomb was timed to go off for maximum impact on Friday during pre-Sabbath shopping. A second bomb targeting the first responders – paramedics and ambulance personnel – was discovered in the nick of time and neutralized.

Precise and accurate intelligence swiftly led to the apprehension and arrest of Odeh and her criminal gang. She was tried and convicted of all charges and sentenced to a lengthy prison term. But Odeh evaded true justice and was released just after serving only 10 years, the result of a prisoner swap. Following her release, she resided in Lebanon and then moved to Jordan and in 1995, made her way to the United States to join her father.

In 1995 and then again in 2004, Odeh filled out various immigration and naturalization papers in which she repeatedly lied about her past, including former terrorist affiliations, arrests, prison sentences and residences. Like all common criminals wishing to avoid responsibility for their actions, Odeh claimed ignorance arguing that she had misunderstood the form questions.

Amazingly, Odeh the fraudster and convicted murderer, who according to published reports had as many as 9 aliases, was able to secure employment in Illinois as an Obamacare navigator in 2013. The fact that such a malevolent character with such an odious past could so easily obtain government employment is testament to the low standards employed by the government in their vetting practices. Odeh was given the boot by her employer once federal investigators began probing her immigration malfeasance.

Notwithstanding her murderous past and felonious present, Odeh is not without her supporters. Those who support the killing of innocents and outright Jew-hatred are never in short supply and come out of the woodwork when the opportunity presents itself. About 100 of her devotees congregated by the courthouse and sickeningly cheered “Rasmieh! Rasmieh!” As she exited, she acknowledged the crowd with a smile and a defiant raised fist indicating a complete lack of remorse for her actions.

Her terror apologists have all but ignored the incontrovertible evidence and risibly noted that “the immigration charge was nothing but a pretext to attack this icon of the Palestine liberation movement.” The Arab Daily News characterized Odeh’s involvement in the 1969 terrorist attack as, “part of the ongoing war between Israelis and Palestinians.” This convoluted viewpoint represents an effort to legitimize her criminal actions and create a false moral equivalence between deliberate Palestinian acts of violence directed against civilians and Israeli efforts to protect its citizens against such actions.

Odeh also counts the notorious anti-Semite Max Blumenthal as one of her premier supporters. Blumenthal, whose outrageous antics earned him a lifetime ban from Germany’s parliament building, features a photograph of himself alongside a smiling Odeh, as his Facebook and Twitter profile pictures.

The hate group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organized fundraisers for Odeh to cope with her legal costs. Apparently, the SJP has no qualms about honoring convicted murderers so long as those being murdered are the “Yahuds” and their “Kuffar” allies.

Her supporters – many of whom subscribe to the view that the Jews control the banking system, Hollywood and both Houses of Congress as well as the White House – attempted to portray her federal prosecution on immigration fraud charges as some kind of grand Zionist conspiracy. But despite their best efforts to obfuscate, a judge and jury cut through the nonsense and saw it otherwise. The fact remains that when she filled out those immigration forms, she lied about her past affiliation with Marxist-terrorist organizations, she lied about her residency and most importantly, she lied about her criminal past.

Eighteen months represents a mere slap on the wrist for a person who snuffed out the lives of two innocent people in the prime of their youth simply because they belonged to the wrong ethnic group. But her conviction and sentence should resonate and send a strong message to those wishing to illegally enter the United States in an effort to sever their past terrorist connections and launder their terrorist records. For nearly 20 years, Odeh managed to evade scrutiny but last Thursday, in a Detroit federal courthouse, justice finally caught up with the wretched murderer.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.