AJC Appalled by DePaul University Student Fundraiser for Palestinian Terrorist

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Feb 02, 2015, 02:52 ET

CHICAGO, Feb. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AJC is appalled by a DePaul University student group's plan to host a fundraiser for a Palestinian terrorist. The event is scheduled for February 3.

The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) event is intended to raise money for Rasmea Yousef Odeh, a Palestinian in Chicago who faces possible deportation after it was revealed last year that she had concealed her terrorist record on forms to immigrate to the U.S. and to become an American citizen.

"SJP's campus activities promoting hatred of Israel have no moral limits," said Amy Stoken, Director of AJC's Chicago Region. "SJP already has demonstrated its hostility towards Israel with its active promotion on university campuses of the BDS movement against Israel," said Stoken. "Now, the SJP Chapter at DePaul has taken another egregious step by supporting a convicted Palestinian terrorist. Both support for BDS and for Odeh are counterproductive to efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace."

In 1970, Odeh was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in Israel for her role in two terror attacks in Jerusalem, one that killed two university students at a supermarket and another that damaged the British Consulate. She was released in 1980 as part of a prisoner exchange, and in 1995 entered the U.S. from Jordan. She became a naturalized U.S citizen in 2004.

Last November, a federal court in Detroit convicted Odeh of immigration fraud. She will be sentenced on March 10, and could face imprisonment in the U.S. or deportation.

SOURCE American Jewish Committee