Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Controversial Palestinian Activist Accepts Deportation In Plea Deal

A Palestinian-born activist who spent 10 years in an Israeli prison on a terrorism conviction before moving to the United States and gaining citizenship pleaded guilty on Tuesday to immigration fraud, agreeing to be deported rather than sent to prison.

Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 69, is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 17 and subsequently stripped of her U.S. citizenship and expelled from the country.

Odeh, who once served as the associate director for the Arab American Action Network in Chicago and was involved last month in organizing rallies opposing President Donald Trump’s policies, said she did not know yet where she would go. Her attorney told U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain that Jordan had agreed to take her in.

“This is very unjust, very wrong,” Odeh muttered, wiping tears and embracing dozens of supporters as she left the courtroom. “That they can just send you away from this country after 24 years that I’ve been living here, it is wrong.”

The case revolves around the 10 years Odeh spent in an Israeli prison, after confessing to a 1969 supermarket bombing in Israel that killed two people.

Odeh had said her confession to the bombing was the result of torture.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.