It’s not about “the occupation.” It never was.

On August 12, 2017, a farewell gala event honoring Rasmea Odeh was held in Chicago by a coalition of anti-Israel groups, and attended by several hundred people.

This coming Thursday, August 17, 2017, Rasmea will be sentenced in federal court in Detroit after a guilty plea to immigration fraud. By her plea agreement, Rasmea will be deported and will lose her U.S. citizenship, but will not serve any further jail time.

Rasmea’s immigration plea resulted from her lies on immigration and naturalization forms in which she concealed a prior conviction and prison term for a 1969 supermarket bombing in Jerusalem that killed two Hebrew University students, Edward Joffe and Leon Kanner. Rasmea also concealed her conviction for the attempted bombing of the British Consulate that same year.

Rasmea and her supporters have thrown up phony defense after defense to both the underlying bombing and the immigration charges. Those defenses have been methodically debunked in numerous prior posts, including:

Rasmea has become a hero of the anti-Israel movement in the U.S., particularly with groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, as documented in our post, Jewish Voice for Peace’s long embrace of convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh.

JVP honored Rasmea at JVP’s 2017 annual meeting held in Chicago, including this warm introduction by JVP “Rabbi” Alissa Wise, who recently was barred entry to Israel:

Rasmea also received a warm embrace by Linda Sarsour, a co-panelist at the JVP meeting:

Not surprisingly, JVP joined in supporting and attending Rasmea’s farewell party.

Groups like JVP like to claim the conflict is about the 1967 “occupation” of the West Bank by Israel, and that the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement is only about removing that occupation. That argument is a canard — as numerous leaders of BDS have said quite clearly that they consider all of Israel occupied.

At Rasmea’s farewell party, the masked dropped once again.

In the introduction of Rasmea, Hatem Abudayyeh of the Rasmea Defense Committee and Arab American Action Network held out Rasmea as “an example to all of us, the absolute personification of our struggle, the worldwide struggle for the liberation of all of historical Palestine.”

When they say the liberation of “all of Palestine,” they mean Israel. That’s why the common BDS chant, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is a call for the destruction of Israel, not an end to the “occupation.”

Rasmea repeated that call: “We are winning this battle with the Zionists, you are winning this battle and we will never stop organizing until all of Palestine is free.”

(You can view the entire introduction and speech at the Facebook page of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network. IsraellyCool has additional footage and analysis.)

So there’s no denying it anymore.

People who support Rasmea support the destruction of Israel. It’s not about the “occupation,” it never was.



