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A TERRORIST BOMBING IN AMERICA
Dr Anthony McRoy
A terrorist bombing on American soil motivated by
religious fanaticism. Death and injury result. The issue is raised with the UN
Security Council. Those responsible are given ‘safe harbour’ by a state refusing
to extradite them. Al-Qaeda and the
World Trade Centre attack? No – the murder of Arab-American Alex Odeh in
California, 1985 by Jewish-American extremists.
Odeh, 41, an
Arab-American Christian of Palestinian origins who migrated to America in 1972,
receiving citizenship in 1977, was Southern California Regional Director of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). On October 11, 1985, a
powerful pipe-bomb trip-wired to office door, killed him and injured seven
others. This was one of series of pipe-bombings in 1985 the FBI believed to be
the work of the same person or group. A pipe-bomb, similar to that murdering
Odeh, was placed at the door of the ADC office in West Roxbury, Massachusetts,
in August 1985. A police officer was seriously injured while attempting to
diffuse the bom.
According to press reports, FBI investigators identified three
members of the US Jewish Defense League - Robert Manning, Keith Fuchs, and Andy
Green - as the chief suspects in Odeh’s killing. All three had been arrested and
convicted of earlier bombings or shootings in America and Palestine. In 1973
Manning was convicted of bombing the home of a Palestinian in Los Angeles. In
1980 Green was imprisoned for 6 months for plotting to blow up the Dome of the
Rock. In 1983 Fuchs was sentenced to 39 months in an Israeli prison for firing
an AK-47 at an Arab car on a highway in the West Bank. They fled America to the
extremist West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron (rather like letting
paedophiles loose in a kindergarten). Manning was later extradited on a separate
charge, the extradition-terms believed to prevent his prosecution on the Odeh
case. The others are currently Israeli army reservists.
JDL
has a history of racist/sectarian violence and intimidation – not only against
Arabs and Muslims, but even against American Evangelical Christians. According
to the Historical Dictionary of Terrorism, law enforcement officials have ascribed at least 37
terrorist acts to JDL members:
‘… the International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist
Events …database developed on behalf of the … Central Intelligence Agency
…recorded 50 such incidents from 1968-1987, making the JDL second only to the
Puerto Rican FALN as the major domestic terrorist group... Bombings accounted
for 78 percent of all JDL terrorist activities; shootings accounted for 16
percent; while arson attacks, vandalism, kidnapping, threats, and verbal
harassment accounted for the rest.’
JDL have threatened the Southern Baptist Convention for proselytising
Jews, calling the Baptist mission the ‘Quiet Holocaust.’ Founded by the
notorious racist Rabbi, Meir Kahane, leader of the Kach Party, JDL support the
expulsion of every Arab from all of Palestine and even all of Jordan. Kach and
its splinter, Kahane Chai, were so violent and extreme that even the Israeli and
US Governments banned them. As with JDL, they harassed not only Arabs, but even
Jewish converts to Christianity. The Butcher of Hebron, Baruch Goldstein, who
murdered worshippers at the Al-Khalil mosque, was a Kach Party member and JDL
activist. The JDL website exclaims: ‘We understand his motivation… and his
actions. And we are not ashamed to say that Goldstein was a charter member of
the Jewish Defense League.’ National Chairman Irv Rubin publicly stated that
Odeh ‘got what he deserved’.
Given this background, surely America should be desperate to apprehend
the suspects in this case, especially since it was raised with the UN Security
Council in 1985? Yet, as ADC President Ziad Asali comments, US authorities have
displayed ‘a singular lack of vigour’. Professor Yvonne Haddad, a leading expert
on Arab-American and Muslim affairs, observed that President Reagan, who
repeatedly condemned the killing of Jewish-American Leon Klinghoffer a few days
earlier, and sent the air force to intercept the perpetrators, was silent about the Odeh murder (The Muslims of America, p. 222). ADC
has repeatedly met with top FBI officials during the past years: ‘We have been
assured that the case has been given “top priority” and that leads … are still
being actively pursued. Yet, not one arrest has been made and no one has been
brought to justice.’
Similarly, when I contacted the FBI, their spokesman was evasive about
their inaction (I got as little help from the Santa Ana investigator), and when
I contrasted this with the WTC bombing, he lamely answered ‘that was a terrorist
act on American soil’, only to be reminded that this was also true of Odeh’s
case. He reacted angrily to suggestions of bias because of Odeh’s race, but
provided no alternative explanation, except the ludicrous statement that
‘different administrations have different policies’ as if a legal case depended
on Government policy. This suggests that US justice is arbitrary – they will
chase terrorists of one religion, but not of another. Granted, as he stated, the
scale is different, but the principle is the same. Or is the FBI saying those
terrorist acts killing only one person is acceptable? Or that terrorists should
choose only to attack during certain Administrations? Similarly, the Justice
Department repeatedly promised, but failed to contact me (embarrassment or
double standards?).
According to an internal FBI memo made public in 1987, the Israeli
government has not co-operated with the US investigation of this murder. Neither
has there been any co-operation in the investigation of a series of seventeen
JDL terrorist incidents in America from 1981-1986. The FBI made numerous
requests for information about terrorist suspects and had meetings with Israeli
representatives, but Israeli responses have been ‘untimely, incomplete and in
certain cases no response was rendered.’ US officials believe that the Israeli
government will not extradite them because it would stir up a “fire storm” of
protest from right-wing legislators. Many Israelis view those who commit
terrorist acts against Palestinians or their supporters as “heroes.”’
Hmm. Al-Qaeda are considered
‘heroes’ by some Muslims, and demands for bin Laden’s extradition - accompanied
by force - are rejected by Afghanistan and have certainly caused a ‘fire storm’
of protest from Muslims worldwide. The parallels, with the exception of scale,
are almost exact. Yet no pressure of any kind been exacted against the Israeli
regime; the case has effectively been quietly dropped, with a veil of silence
over it by both Government and media. This totally undermines current American
action against Afghanistan – unless it takes action against Tel Aviv. Readers
should contact their MPs, the Foreign Office and the US Embassy to demand that
the suspects in the Odeh case be immediately extradited and prosecuted, if
claims of ‘double standards’ and even racism/sectarianism are to be dismissed.
Chris Doyle of
CAABU commented ‘This case emphasises that justice must be universal. It is
exactly this sort of outrage that perpetuates the belief that the rule of law
does not apply to Americans and their friends. It is time to prove that this is
not the case. The fact that media has ignored the case also raises questions.’
The Islamic Human Rights Commission press release on Odeh drew an analogy with
the situation in Afghanistan ‘in the case of Alex Odeh, the
US failed to take any action against Israel for harbouring terrorists and for
its refusal to extradite them, even in the light of overwhelming evidence. One
must ask, do the principles of justice differ when Arabs or Muslims are
involved?’ The National Association of British Arabs regretted that America has
not pursued ‘its avowed policy of justice with equal consistency for all its
citizens by its refusal to seek the extradition of the
murderers of Alex Odeh. This raises the obvious question of whether justice is dependent upon the
ethnicity of both the victim and the perpetrators of this
crime.’
In Santa Ana, a statue has been erected to
Odeh, and ADC established a
‘Humanitarian Award’ in his honour. A more fitting tribute to his grieving loved
ones would be the prosecution of the murder-suspects. Certainly, perpetrators of
terrorist murder should be extradited and prosecuted, but this rule must be
consistent. How can America win Arab and Muslim ‘hearts and minds’ with such
blatant double standards? In 1998, ADC urged regarding the Odeh case that ‘The FBI and the United States government could and should
do far more in using its considerable influence with the Israeli government to
elicit cooperation in this matter. It must make clear that it will not tolerate
terrorism in the United States and that Israel cannot act as a safe haven for
those who would commit terrorist murders in our
country.’ justice, and
complained that their names were not added to the 22 ‘most wanted’ terrorists
that America has named. The innocent blood of Alex Odeh cries out for justice:
let us not allow America – or anyone else - to forget
him.
Photo of Odeh*
www.fbi.gov/headlines/odeh100908b.jpg (This comment
was added
to the artilce/website on 18
June 2009 - see * below)
Effectively, US Government foot-dragging on the Odeh case sends a
message to bin Laden; if he is searching for a new safe haven, he need only
convert to Judaism and migrate to Kiryat Arba,
where the Zionist regime will shield him and any other
Jewish terrorist killing American citizens, and the US Government will quietly
forget his case. Alex’s brother Sammy Odeh, told me that the
family wanted ‘closure’, which could only happen when the perpetrators are
brought to tine38.html )
(FBI
notice on Odeh at http://www.fbi.gov/mostwant/seekinfo/odeh.htm )
* In seeking a picture of Odeh for this article,
our site simply performed a Web image search, and unintentionally and
unknowingly accessed one reproduced on a site whose policies and views both our
site and the author of the article find obnoxious and repugnant, and are not
endorsed in any way by either our site or the author. We apologise for any
distress caused. We have since found another picture of Odeh at the following US
government site'
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