On August 12, a crowd of over 1,000 people assembled to bid farewell to Rasmea Odeh, who participated in the 1969 bombing of a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two college students. Odeh, then a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was arrested and sentenced to prison, but later released as part of a prisoner exchange. She is now being expelled from the U.S. for lying about her terrorist past on her immigration documents. Jonathan Greenberg describes the gathering, which featured the radical writer Angela Davis as its keynote speaker:
[Odeh’s] supporters on Saturday included dozens of progressive advocacy groups and anti-Israel organizations that sponsored the event, such as Code Pink, Jewish Voice for Peace, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Black Lives Matter.
The convicted terrorist received well-wishers like the bride at a wedding and paused to meet children like a celebrity. Have your kid’s picture taken with a killer! . . . The room was generally young, energetic, . . . diverse, and united around a narrative that included a common enemy: Israel. . . .
[In a speech, one of Odeh’s attorneys], Michael Deutsch, . . . said that her “militancy” had been an inspiration to him. At first, it seemed that word choice might have been a Freudian slip, but as he spoke, it became clear it wasn’t. Deutsch was the first speaker of the night openly—if carefully— to cast terrorism as morally acceptable. He was proud, he said, to . . . “put forward the idea that Palestinians have the international-law right [sic] to struggle against a brutal, illegal occupation by any means necessary.” The crowd cheered. . . .
In the near future, Odeh will be deported from the U.S. The [people present] at this event consider this one grave injustice among many perpetrated against them by a government—and society—that hates them. They are awash in victimhood and antipathy for the broader society in which they live.
Read more on Federalist: http://thefederalist.com/2017/08/17/1000-leftists-gathered-chicago-cheer-convicted-murderer-hates-israel