The New York Times · 6 December 1985
CP-1985-035
Inquiry on Attacks on U.S. Arabs
Transcribed from the clipping
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 — The Justice Department announced today that it had ordered recent attacks on Arab-Americans to be investigated under the Civil Rights Act. A spokesman for the Justice Department, John V.
Wilson, Jr., said the directive had been transmitted to the civil rights desk of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is already investigating one of three incidents — the death on Oct. 11 of Alex Odeh, an official of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, in a bomb explosion at his office in Santa Ana, Calif.
Two other attacks, a bombing of the committee’s Boston office in August, which injured two members of the police bomb squad, and a fire last weekend at the committee’s Washington office, are being investigated by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Today’s decision will bring the F.B.I. into those cases as well.
Former Senator James G. Abourezk, the chairman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, had urged the F.B.I. to make an investigation. Mr. Abourezk said today that he would be meeting Friday with the F.B.I. Director, William H. Webster, to discuss the recent bombings.
The former Senator and other officials of the committee have said they have reason to believe that one person or group may be responsible for the fire and the two bombings. Mr. Abourezk said he was pleased that the Justice Department had ordered the investigation.
Cite this clipping
"Inquiry on Attacks on U.S. Arabs," The New York Times, 6 December 1985. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1985-035. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1985-035
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Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
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