Loading ...The Murder of Alex Odeh (Part 1/3)
By Richard Habib
Americans for Middle East Understanding (AMEU)
Oct. 11, 2015 marked the 30th anniversary of the cold-case murder of Alex Odeh. The FBI designated the murder as an act of domestic terrorism — a terrorist attack that took place here in the United States, in Santa Ana, California.
A number of disturbing issues are associated with this case. Limited information about it is due partially to a policy of silence and an absence of public accountability by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI regarding steps those agencies have taken to apprehend the person(s) responsible for killing Mr. Odeh.
This has left anguished family and friends dangling on a string for decades, looking for answers. It is a circuitous 30-year-old story begging for logical explanations to lingering questions held by those who believe this matter has not been thoroughly and properly addressed. A congressional hearing to review the facts and evaluate how the case has been processed would go a long way to ease concerns by all of those who held Alex in high regard, especially his family and friends.
It is noteworthy to remind readers that President Obama made the second of two statements within a two-month period reiterating what has presumably been long-term U.S. policy on the matter of pursuit of those who engage in acts of terror. On Aug. 20, 2014, he stated: “The United States of America will continue to do what we must do to protect our people. We will be vigilant and we will be relentless. When people harm Americans, anywhere, we do what’s necessary to see that justice is done.”
To family, friends and colleagues, that resolve and commitment declared by President Obama does not seem to extend to the apprehension and prosecution of the terrorist(s) responsible for the attack on U.S. soil that killed Alex Odeh over thirty years ago.
As will be pointed out in this article, those believed to have some responsibility for setting the bomb that killed Alex were identified decades ago. The outstanding perplexing issues have to do with an incoherent explanation for the failure to question, arrest or indict any of those individuals.
Who Was Alex Odeh?
Iskander “Alex” Michael Odeh was born on April 4, 1944 in Jifna, a small town about 14 miles north of Jerusalem, in Palestine, now commonly referred to as the West Bank. The State of Israel did not emerge as an internationally recognized state until four years after Alex was born. Alex’s family follows the tradition of devout Roman Catholics; of his eight siblings, one brother is a priest and one sister became a nun.
In 1965 Alex left Jifna for Egypt to study at Cairo University and was a student in Cairo at the time of hostilities in 1967 that resulted in Israel’s occupation of Palestine’s East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip (as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula).
Because of Israel’s occupation, Alex was prohibited from returning to his home in Jifna, so after his college term in Cairo, he went to live in Amman.
Meanwhile, Alex’s sister Ellen immigrated with her husband to the United States. She corresponded with Alex and encouraged him to move to Southern California, which he did in 1972. Alex lived in Southern California with another sister, and worked different jobs to support his return to college at California State University Fullerton (CSUF) to pursue his Master’s degree in political science.
Before graduating from CSUF Alex was able to get a travel permit from Israeli authorities that allowed him to return to Jifna for a visit. On that visit he married Norma Ghattas, a neighbor in Jifna, and they returned to the United States together.
While a student at CSUF, Alex’s extracurricular activities included efforts to combat anti-Arab (and particularly anti-Palestinian) stereotypes that had become commonplace in the American print and broadcast media. He also became involved with interfaith dialogue and other groups interested in promoting a process of reconciliation between the American Jewish community and the American Arab community.
In addition to his activity as a civil rights advocate, Alex was a published poet, writing mainly in Arabic, with his works translated into English.
Alex’s activism continued after obtaining his Master’s degree and eventually led to his employment with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a national organization formed in 1980 by former Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota. The founding purpose of the ADC was to combat the growing trend of anti-Arab discrimination and prejudice, particularly in the print and broadcast media, and the protection of civil rights of Americans of Arab descent.
In the early 1980’s Alex became ADC’s Southern California Regional Coordinator, and he was a perfect fit for the job. Alex was both a gentle man and a gentleman. He was intelligent. He was soft-spoken and an empathetic listener – effective attributes at times of discussion with those who may have had a sense of apprehension to share Alex’s point of view. But that is who Alex was – a facilitator who brought people together for constructive purposes. There was nothing threatening about him. On the contrary, he was an instantly likeable person.
The Assassination
On the morning of Oct. 11, 1985, Alex Odeh approached the Santa Ana, California west coast office of the ADC. Another day of outreach meant more letters to write and more phone calls to make. He had plans that evening to give a presentation to the Congregation B’nai Tzadek, a Jewish synagogue about eight miles away from his office.
It wasn’t unusual for either Alex or his assistant Hind Baki to open the office in the morning – it just depended on who arrived first. Hind would try to arrive by 9:00 a.m., but on this morning it was Alex who arrived first. As he entered his office, a trip wire from the entry door detonated an explosive device that was planted from inside, which caused massive damage to the building and injury to several bystanders. Alex took the full force of the explosion and was pronounced dead at a local hospital a short time thereafter.
Bob Navarro of KNBC television in Los Angeles, in a live report on the day of the incident stated: “Investigators aren’t talking for the record, but there is a consensus this was a carefully planned assassination.”
Within hours of the bombing the FBI, Treasury agents and members of the Los Angeles Anti-Terrorism Task Force and the Santa Ana Police Department were on the scene. According to a May 13, 1990 Los Angeles Times article by Robert Friedman, even at this early stage, while the investigators were in front of the bombed-out building, the names of Jewish Defense League (JDL) members Keith Fuchs, Andy Green and Robert Manning were mentioned as the bombers.
This writer personally knows of two individuals who were told by law enforcement officials almost immediately after the bombing that they (law enforcement) knew who did it.
Alex was 41 years old at the time he was killed. He left behind his wife Norma and three daughters: Helena, Samya and Susan, ages seven, five, and two respectively. Similar to their despair was the anguish of Alex’s siblings. His sister Ellen articulated their sadness in a summer 1989 Link interview.
Alex’s younger brother Sami with his wife and their two children lived close to Alex and Norma. Sami was at the hospital when Alex was pronounced dead, and for decades on he became the family spokesperson to interface with various law enforcement agencies, the news media and everyone wishing to know what was taking place in the investigation. Sami died in 2013 at 62 years of age after suffering from multiple health maladies. There is no way to know the extent to which Sami’s health was compromised by trauma brought on as a result of his brother’s murder. The same can be said for Sami’s wife Lisa who passed away in Dec. 2015 at a relatively young age. The stress that radiated as a result of Alex’s murder was tremendous. Sami’s son Michael recalled to this author the efforts that his parents and relatives made to shield the children from the trauma of Alex’s murder. The adults tried to put on a “normal” façade around the children, taking them to amusements parks and other outings to distract the children and themselves from the living nightmare of the tragedy. Michael described the atmosphere after his Uncle Alex’s death as being haunted by “evil up close, not at a distance.” Different family members were afraid to accept packages or flowers for fear that they might contain a bomb.
Another group of persons traumatized by Alex’s murder were friends and colleagues with whom Alex worked, this writer being among that group. Alex worked diligently, and was quite successful at developing personal relationships. The list of individuals this writer knows who were friends or associates of Alex is only a fraction of the people with whom Alex had developed friendly and constructive relations.
Hind Baki had taken the position with the ADC’s Los Angeles office as Alex’s assistant primarily because of her faith in Alex’s gentle outreach approach to matters of civil rights. After the bombing and Alex’s death it was an unpleasant task for Hind to sift through shreds and pick up pieces of the Santa Ana office for a move to a replacement facility. Eventually a new, but smaller ADC office was established, but unnerving and threatening calls continued to come in to the new office, extending the atmosphere of fear and tension. Hind kept logs of those threatening calls and reported them to law enforcement, but eventually the stress of feeling like a target and her desire to develop a career in journalism prompted her to leave the ADC position to pursue her long-term professional interests.
Beyond the circles that included Alex’s immediate family, his siblings, his friends and associates, the impact of his death (and especially how he was killed) was recognized as a tragedy by officials of foreign governments and, of course, in Jifna, the village of his birth, where a memorial in his honor was erected.
The Motive
From the beginning, one particular side-story has so deeply penetrated the narrative of Alex’s murder that this writer believes it is necessary to debunk its illusion as a legitimate motive.
What happened is this: in the immediate days before Alex was killed, a terrible and dramatic development was taking place thousands of miles away in the Mediterranean Sea. That development was the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro by terrorists of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF). Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly and disabled Jewish American was killed during that event. News networks were seeking stories for their outlets, and the Achille Lauro hijacking event was a hot topic. According to Robert Friedman (GQ Magazine, October 1991), shortly after PLF terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro, nationally renowned Arab-American disk jockey and radio personality Casey Kasem was asked by KABC (the Los Angeles ABC affiliate) to comment about the chaos taking place in the Middle East, including the Achille Lauro hijacking drama that was currently playing out. Mr. Kasem had become active in the Arab-American community and was working with the ADC to combat anti-Arab stereotypes, but at this point in time when KABC reached out to him, Casey was preoccupied with concern about the condition of his mother who was hospitalized and critically ill. So, when contacted by KABC news, Casey referred the inquiry to Alex Odeh, ADC’s Regional Coordinator.
Alex agreed to be interviewed by both KABC and Cable News Network (CNN). In those interviews Alex discussed the role of the ADC as a civil rights organization, concerns of prejudice felt by Americans of Arab descent, the need to fight against discrimination, the need for non-violent strategies to combat racism and a general discussion about the Middle East and the Achille Lauro hijacking. The entire, original interview between Alex and KABC lasted 30 – 45 minutes. That evening (the day before Alex was killed), KABC selectively omitted most of what Alex stated in the interview and edited snips of Alex’s statements that focused solely on his opinion that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under the leadership of Yasser Arafat was playing a constructive role in diffusing the situation, and that Yasser Arafat himself was a “man of peace.”
Almost every broadcast and print report makes reference to Alex’s death taking place after his appearance on television “defending” the PLO and commending Yasser Arafat. The implicit suggestion of that narrative is that Alex was targeted after and because of his statements of support for the PLO and Arafat.
In reality, the decision by Alex to engage in the interviews was a decision made shortly before the interviews took place when Alex agreed to be a substitute for Casey Kasem. So it’s unlikely that surveillance for, and success at planting the bomb in the Santa Ana office of the ADC could have taken place between the time after conclusion of the evening interview broadcast on Oct. 10th and the next morning of Oct. 11th when Alex was killed.
Furthermore, whoever was responsible for setting the bomb at the ADC’s Santa Ana office had no way of knowing whether Alex or his assistant Hind Baki would be the first one to open up the door in the morning and take the impact of the bomb. Hind would try to be in the office by 9:00 a.m., but there were times she ran business errands before arriving or would be delayed by traffic. Alex made his own schedule, sometimes arriving to the office before Hind’s 9:00 a.m. arrival target.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Oct. 12, 1985, the day after Alex was killed, that FBI spokesman John Hoos stated the [FBI] “has no evidence linking Odeh’s remarks to the bombing.” But for reasons unknown, that logic as stated by agent Hoos never fully penetrated the psyche of those who continue to assert a causal effect between Alex’s television interview and the planted bomb that killed him the next morning.
Hind Baki offered a more rational explanation to this writer who, along with everyone else who has studied this case at length, believes that the ADC office was a target of terrorism in order to silence, intimidate and stop the successful outreach made by Alex, the ADC, and those espousing their point of view to solicit understanding and support from other communities.
Readers interested in an analysis comparing the murders of Leon Klinghoffer and Alex Odeh, might read a book written in 2004 by Michael K. Bohn titled “The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in The Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism,” which describes the relentless pursuit of the killers of Leon Klinghoffer compared to the less publicized hunt for Alex Odeh’s killers. Mr. Bohn was the director of the White House Situation Room during President Reagan’s second term when both murders took place.