Lewiston Sun Journal · 12 October 1985

CP-1985-043

Killing of an Arab activist condemned

By FELIX GUTIERREZ Associated Press

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Transcribed from the clipping

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — As the FBI began investigating links between telephoned threats to an Arab-American rights group and a bombing that killed its regional director, both Arab and Jewish organizations condemned the attack.

A bomb Friday ripped apart the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's local office, killing Alex Odeh, 41, the West Coast leader of the 13,000-member organization. Odeh, in an interview the night before, had called PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat “a man of peace.” Eight others were injured in the blast, police said.

Seven received hospital treatent and all were released Friday from Western Medical Center. Odeh, a Palestinian-born naturalized U.S. citizen, died at the hospital about 2½ hours after the 9 a.m. blast. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.

Attorney Richard Ayoob, a director of the National Association of Arab-Americans, said Odeh was “very committed to the idea of dialogue with the leading Jewish organizations.... It would be hard for me to think anyone would harm a hair on his head.” Alan S.

Katz and Adrian Scharlach, regional presidents of the American Jewish Congress in Southern and Northern California, condemned the attack in a joint statement: “We extend our condolences and sympathies to the families of Alex Odeh and those wounded by this inexcusable act of terrorism.

No political disagreement, no matter how critical or deeply felt, justifies attacks on those engaged in peaceful and lawful pursuits.” Before the attack, the committee had told the FBI of receiving harassing telephone calls, and the agency has “assumed investigative jurisdiction” of the bombing, FBI spokesman John Hoos said in Los Angeles.

“Our investigation will be targeted toward determining if a terrorist group was responsible for this,” Hoos said. Odeh, interviewed by KABC-TV news Thursday night, defended the Palestine Liberation Organization's role in negotiating an end to Monday's hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and killing of an American.

The four pirates surrendered to PLO representatives in Egypt on Wednesday. U.S. Navy jets intercepted the plane in which the Palestinians hoped to escape Thursday, forcing it to land in Sicily, where they were arrested. Members of a dissident offshoot of the PLO claimed responsibility for the hijacking.

Odeh said in the televised interview, “I think the media mistakenly linked this incident with the PLO. “The media ought to give the PLO and Arafat recognition. Inform the public about the PLO as a political organization and Arafat in particular as the chairman of the PLO, who is a man of peace.” In Washington, D.C., former U.S. Sen. James G.

Abourezk of South Dakota, national chairman of the ADC, condemned the bombing. “Those people injured in the Santa Ana bombing, including Alex Odeh, are innocent people. They are being made scapegoats for an act committed by four people in the Middle East with whom they have had no connection whatever,” he said.

Referring to a similar bombing at an ADC office in Boston last August, Abourezk said: “The Jewish Defense League initially claimed responsibility in a telephone call, but later withdrew the claim when news reports reported a policeman was injured.”

Irv Rubin, national chairman of the JDL, denied any role in Friday's bombing, but said, “The Jewish Defense League cannot cry about the act that occurred this morning. “Our tears have all been used for the mourning of Leon Klinghoffer, a 69-year-old, wheelchair-bound Jew who was brutally slaughtered and his remains thrown into the Mediterranean by PLO terrorists.”

How this transcription was made

No masthead on the cut; the paper is not named anywhere on the clipping. Attribution rests entirely on Maria's label. The story itself is Associated Press, so it ran in many papers that day — this cut could be any of them on the page evidence alone. — No printed date. The body says 'A bomb Friday ripped apart' the office and that the injured 'were released Friday'; Oct. 11 1985 was a Friday, so a Saturday Oct. 12 paper fits Maria's label. The year is not printed on the cut. — The paper sets 'hospital treatent' (missing m) — kept as printed. Below the article the page carries an advertisement headed 'October Specials', which is not part of the story and is left out.

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