Jewish Voice for Peace: We stand in solidarity with Rasmieh Yousef Odeh
By Eli Massey
The Chicago Tribune
President Donald Trump signed a revised executive order Monday, reinstating a U.S. ban on visas for citizens from six Muslim-majority countries and halting the U.S. refugee program for 120 days. On the same day, Israel issued a travel ban of its own, barring any foreigner who publicly supports the call by Palestinian civil society to boycott Israel or its illegal settlements until Palestinians have equal rights.
The timing of these two bans suggests the U.S. and Israeli governments share values of racism and Islamophobia. It was, after all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who heaped praise on Trump’s idea for a border wall, citing the success of Israel’s. And Trump had nice things to say during the presidential campaign about Israel’s use of racial profiling, a tactic he thought maybe the U.S. ought to bring back.
I am of Syrian-Jewish descent, and so these bans have a particular significance for me. During the Holocaust, the American government turned many Jewish refugees away, arguing that they posed a national security threat. President Trump, with his revised executive order, risks repeating history by turning away refugees.
Meanwhile, Israel’s travel ban expands the denial of entry Palestinians and Arabs already often face to now include any noncitizen who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Given the growing number of Jewish BDS supporters, it will be interesting to see how Israel reconciles this travel ban with its laws that grant automatic citizenship and entry to Jews.
As a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, a national, grass-roots human rights organization, I am proud to fight for equal rights and justice for all people against the Trump and Netanyahu agendas.
At the end of March, hundreds of people are expected to gather in Chicago for JVP’s National Member Meeting. The convening will focus on challenging Islamophobia, police brutality and other forms of militarism in the U.S. and Israel, bringing together leaders from across progressive social movements to discuss the way forward for human rights advocates under the Trump administration.
But the participation of one community leader in particular has garnered some controversy: Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, the associate director of the Chicago-based Arab American Action Network. As a leader in the Arab-American community, Odeh developed the Arab Women’s Committee, a female collective aimed at promoting leadership among Arab immigrant and Arab-American women. Her experience as a target of U.S. and Israeli repression makes her a crucial voice on the fights ahead against Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism.
Odeh’s story is a story of Palestinian resistance — of unjust targeting by the security state, political imprisonment and resilience. When she was 21, Odeh was convicted of participating in a 1969 bombing in Israel that killed two civilians.
After 10 years in prison, Odeh was released through a prisoner exchange, subsequently testifying before a United Nations committee about the physical and psychological torture she says she underwent in Israeli custody, including sexual abuse by her interrogators in front of her father. She has denied any role in the bombing and maintains that a confession she signed was forced.
This treatment is not unusual. Israel regularly uses administrative detention to hold Palestinians without charge for extended periods of time. In its most recent report on human rights, published earlier this year, Amnesty International reported that “torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained rife and was committed with impunity.”
Odeh’s confession in the 1969 bombing is now a factor in a case against her playing out in a U.S. federal court. She is accused of omitting information about her past conviction on U.S. immigration forms in 1995 and again in 2004. She was found guilty in 2014, but after an appeal a retrial is scheduled for May.
Without hesitation, Jewish Voice for Peace stands in solidarity with Odeh, a committed advocate for social justice who has worked for the empowerment of Arab women over the course of more than 40 years. In the face of immense repression, Odeh has stood up against an unrelenting campaign waged to silence her, and has continued to fight for our collective liberation. It is because of our belief in the Jewish value of tzedek (justice) that we are proud to host Odeh.
