Alex Odeh looms giant in Orange County’s consciousness, a long time after he was killed on the age of 41.
One fall morning in 1985 the distinguished Palestinian activist arrived to work on the Santa Ana workplace of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. When he opened the civil rights group’s door, a rigged pipe bomb went off, mortally wounding him.
“How can I neglect that horrible day?” stated Michel Shehadeh, who changed Odeh because the West Coast regional director of the group, which fashioned in 1980 to fight anti-Arab stereotypes in U.S. media. “Concern unfold by means of the group like fireplace.”
Mourners filed into a church in Orange for Odeh’s funeral, quietly discussing whether or not assaults would proceed, and the way they may defend the group, Shehadeh recalled.
Shehadeh described Odeh as a bodily slight man, peaceable and soft-spoken — a lover of poetry. He remembers questioning, “Why this man?”
“He didn’t pose a risk, not in the best way seemed, and never in the best way he behaved, and never in the best way he spoke,” Shehadeh stated.
Odeh’s homicide stays unsolved 40 years later. To many Palestinians and different Arabs in Southern California, his loss of life serves as a grim reminder of the discrimination the group has confronted.
However he’s additionally an emblem of resilience. His reminiscence stands as a name to motion that has taken on renewed significance lately.
When a wave of pupil activism in opposition to Israel’s conflict in Gaza unfurled on college campuses throughout the U.S. final 12 months, college students at UC Irvine hoisted a banner onto a campus constructing declaring the location “Alex Odeh Corridor,” amid protest chants and the banging of drums.
“The entire narrative round Palestine has shifted. Folks went to the streets,” Shehadeh stated. “It’s a distinct world.”
And but, he stated, the backlash in opposition to his group continues.
The detention of current Columbia College graduate Mahmoud Khalil this 12 months reminds Shehadeh of his personal arrest by federal brokers in 1987.
Shehadeh was amongst eight arrested on costs referring to their pro-Palestinian activism, and was threatened with deportation, despite the fact that he’d immigrated to the U.S. lawfully as a young person, and was a grocery retailer worker dwelling in Lengthy Seaside.
“Historical past repeats itself,” Shehadeh stated.
Hostile encounters felt nearly run-of-the-mill, particularly for individuals who have been politically energetic.
The Santa Ana workplace the place Hind Baki labored alongside Odeh, first as an intern after which as a full-time worker contemporary out of faculty, ceaselessly obtained threatening telephone calls.
Baki stated Odeh was “very matter-of-fact about it,” telling her to log the calls and report them to police.
She recalled him saying, “They name my home on a regular basis too, however don’t fear, they wouldn’t dare do something in America.”
When she began getting threatening telephone calls at residence, she informed her mother and father she was alarmed. However Odeh reassured her that it was simply speak.
After the bombing, when Baki took the few packing containers of paperwork she may salvage from the workplace to a short lived workplace in Los Angeles, the calls continued. That’s when she determined to get one other job.
William Lafi Youmans, co-creator of a documentary investigating Odeh’s loss of life, stated he grew up in Detroit listening to about Odeh as a cautionary story concerning the risks of changing into too vocal.
“It was a little bit of a warning,” Youmans stated. “It’s unhappy, as a result of whoever killed Alex was making an attempt to silence the group.”
The movie was accomplished two years in the past, simply earlier than 1,200 individuals have been killed within the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault in Israel, which additionally resulted in 251 Israelis being taken hostage.
Amid a surge of anti-Palestinian sentiment, Youmans gave up his hope of getting the documentary accepted into movie festivals, at the same time as Israel launched its bombing marketing campaign in Gaza, which has since killed tens of 1000’s of Palestinians.
To mark the anniversary of Odeh’s loss of life, Youmans and his co-creator held a non-public screening of the movie in Costa Mesa on Friday evening, and have renewed the method of submitting it to movie festivals.
An FBI investigation into the bombing stays open, and the names of three suspects have been aired publicly within the media. Authorities stated they proceed to hunt the general public’s assist.
“The investigation into the homicide of Alex Odeh has spanned generations, however the FBI has by no means given up and can proceed to analyze new leads on this case,” stated Akil Davis, assistant director for the FBI’s Los Angeles area workplace, in an announcement.
Davis stated the U.S. Division of Justice’s long-time supply of a reward for as much as $1 million for data resulting in an arrest and conviction for the crime nonetheless stands.
“I’m assured that we are going to discover solutions,” Davis stated.
Helena, the eldest of Odeh’s three daughters, stated she thinks about her father on a regular basis.
“It’s nonetheless painful,” she stated. “One other decade has passed by and we’re nonetheless ready for justice. Our lives have grown and blossomed however we haven’t had our father there to see it occur.”
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee gathers annually at a Backyard Grove resort for a banquet memorializing Odeh. Earlier this 12 months, it opened an workplace in Anaheim’s Little Arabia District — for the primary time because the Santa Ana bombing.
Management of the group requested Helena to be its first full-time worker, however the trauma of her father’s assassination gave her pause.
“What if I am going to work sooner or later and I don’t come residence?” Helena stated.
After talking with household, she declined the job supply.
