JNS.org – A Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Hebrew University of Jerusalem students has found a new ally, the far-left group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP).

The killer is Rasmieh Odeh. The Obama administration tried to deport her for lying about her terrorist past — and the saga is currently playing out in the US legal system.

It all began in February 1969, when the 20-year-old Odeh, together with a fellow member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), set off a bomb in a Jerusalem supermarket. Two Hebrew University students who were shopping in the store, Edward Jaffe and Leon Kanner, were killed.

Odeh and her accomplice were soon arrested. It didn’t take long for the authorities to build an airtight case. Bomb-making materials, including explosives, were found in Odeh’s home. She confessed to the bombing within a day of her arrest, provided details of the operation and even made a videotaped reconstruction of how she planted the bombs. Her co-conspirators also confessed, and they all implicated each other. (Later, in a documentary film, one of her comrades named Odeh as the mastermind of the attack.)

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Not surprisingly, Odeh was convicted of the two murders. She was also convicted of membership in a terrorist organization, the PFLP. Odeh was sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 1980 she was released in a prisoner exchange. In 1995, she moved to the US (under false pretenses), and in 2004, she received American citizenship.

In 2013, federal immigration officials became aware of Odeh’s background and took a second look at the forms she filled out when applying for citizenship. The forms asked whether she had ever been convicted of a crime; she wrote, “No.” The Obama administration indicted her on charges of immigration fraud.

Odeh was convicted by a US court and ordered deported to Jordan. But an appeals court ruled last year that her lawyers were wrongly denied permission to argue that Odeh lied on the forms because she suffered “post-traumatic stress disorder” while imprisoned in Israel. A new trial is set to begin on May 16.

Since she has so little chance of prevailing on the merits, Odeh has been desperately trying to create political pressure that she hopes will influence the legal process.

Odeh has found allies in the Arab-American community in Chicago, where she lives. That’s disheartening, because one would like to think that the Arab-American community is as horrified by Odeh’s terrorism as everyone else is.

As it turns out, though, Odeh’s Arab-American allies have proven rather ineffective. The Arab-American Action Network (AAAN) — a group that Odeh works for — has advanced two arguments in her defense. One is that Odeh “misunderstood” the question on the form; that’s obviously absurd.

The AAAN’s second line of defense is that Odeh confessed to the bombings only after several weeks of “torture” and “sexual abuse” by Israeli interrogators. That, of course, conflicts with the fact that Odeh confessed after just one day in jail. And the AAAN can’t explain the bombs found in Odeh’s apartment, the statements of her co-conspirators or her undisputed involvement with a terrorist group.

So Odeh has been looking for other allies. And she’s found one — on the edges of the Jewish community.

The far-left JVP has announced that Odeh will be one of the featured speakers at its national conference in Chicago at the end of March.

JVP was founded by three undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley. It’s ironic that an organization founded by college students should be embracing someone who murdered two college students. I suppose as long as she didn’t murder any members of JVP, they don’t consider her to be the enemy.

JVP is pretty much as far to the left as you can get in the American Jewish world. The Anti-Defamation League has called it “the most influential anti-Zionist group in the United States.” JVP is well-known for supporting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, and wholeheartedly endorsing the Black Lives Matter platform, which charges Israel with “genocide” and “apartheid.” In other words, the “Jewish” in JVP’s title is essentially a cover for its anti-Israel activities.