Bomb Victim Pursued Non-Violence, Lived With Threats

Alex M. Odeh, who led the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee on the West Coast, spent his last night telling others that “violence breeds violence.” It was a message to which he committed his adult life, relatives and friends said Friday.

“He was trying to put forth some truth about what is going on in the Middle East. He was trying to shed some light on what makes some people (act) temporarily insane,” Ellen Nassab, his sister, said.

Odeh, 41, a Palestinian-born naturalized U.S. citizen, died of injuries Friday from a bomb blast that injured seven others at the committee’s regional headquarters in Santa Ana.

The previous night, Odeh, a published poet and part-time Arabic instructor at Coastline Community College in Fountain Valley, was part of a KABC Channel 7 news interview that focused on the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and the killing of an American passenger from New York City.

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Although concerned relatives urged him not to appear on television, Odeh used the air time to condemn terrorism, saying that in the Middle East: “We are witnessing that violence breeds violence.”

He blamed the media for “mistakenly” linking the ship hijacking to the Palestine Liberation Organization, and he praised PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s role in the ship’s release.

Nassab, other relatives and friends of Odeh who watched the television interview expressed concern over his personal safety. He responded, “Why are you worried?” his sister said.

But threats were a constant concern of Odeh’s and of those who worked at the Santa Ana office.

The 5-year-old group is a service organization for people of Arab descent. The purpose is to “give them pride in their ethnic heritage,” said Hind Baki, a spokeswoman and committee secretary.

Committee officials said the group is active in speaking out against racism and discrimination and supporting human rights.

Basically, the committee acts as a media watchdog. Odeh often wrote letters to the editor and articles defending Arab Americans and, at times, the PLO.

Arabs ‘Disgusted,’ Too

At the time of last June’s hijacking of a TWA 747 jetliner, for example, the committee held a news conference, emphasizing that American Arabs were “just as disgusted” as other Americans with the hijack situation.

Through a monthly newsletter and in articles written by Odeh, the committee on many occasions took exception with pro-Israeli opinions expressed in newspaper articles and editorials.

“He (Odeh) said they used to get bomb threats all the time. He used to have all the mail they received at the office go through a metal detector after they started receiving a lot of threats,” said a spokeswoman with the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

In the past, a letter-writing campaign by committee members to various Southern California newspaper editors resulted in threatening phone calls, Baki said. The callers said, “Long Live Israel. Death to the PLO,” Baki added.

“He (Odeh) was devoted to trying to unify Arabs, like the NAACP does for blacks or LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) does for Latin Americans,” she said.

Mounzer Cha’Arani, a close personal friend who had dinner with Odeh Thursday night, said: “In my opinion, he accomplished a lot.”

“His motivation (was) like any other active American individual and he (liked) to work in politics . . . . He (was) the dynamo of most of the Arab-American activities in Orange County and Los Angeles County.”

At the dinner, Cha’Arani said Odeh was “happy” and in good spirits.

Rabbi Henri E. Front, chairman of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, who knew Odeh, praised him as a man who chose to speak on “the path of understanding.”

“We were not strangers. We worked together on many projects,” Front said. “He chose to speak on the path of understanding while still defending and representing his own people.”

Odeh, Front said, was to be recognized at Temple Beth David’s weekly evening service Friday night. The synagogue is in Westminster.

In addition to coordinating activities for the committee, Odeh was president of the Arab American Organization Council, which represents some of the estimated 150,000 Arab-Americans in Southern California.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s national chairman, former U.S. Sen. James Abourezk, said Odeh was “one of our best people.” As “our first regional director” in charge of the West Coast, Odeh had helped Arab-Americans with health and immigration problems. “He would send in reports of stereotyping and discrimination, make TV appearances, and he put out a local newsletter,” Abourezk said.

The former Democratic senator from South Dakota said the committee has more than 13,000 members nationwide, organized into about 70 chapters.

About 1,500 members are in Southern California and 3,000 statewide, a committee spokeswoman said.

Odeh was “not flamboyant at all,” Abourezk said, just “very quiet; he didn’t talk loudly, he didn’t talk a lot.”

He “believed in what he was doing,” Abourezk said, adding: “And he sure wasn’t in it for the money.” The pay was less than $30,000 a year, Abourezk said.

Baki said Odeh “was a man very involved in human rights who wanted to combat discrimination against all people, particularly Arab-Americans.”

One of Odeh’s sisters, Angela Odeh, collapsed and burst into tears at her home in Orange after being told that “Alex is gone.”

‘Hero for Peace’

Ellen Nassab, who informed Angela Odeh of the tragic news, said Odeh’s death was an “international loss because he was a hero for peace.”

“He was a peacemaker, and he was trying through the media to spread the truth about the Palestinians because people condemn them as terrorists,” Nassab said. “We’ve been living here for a long time and we are not terrorists--we are good Americans, and we condemn terrorist actions, and all he was doing was explaining why these actions take place.

“Our people have suffered since the 1940s, and there’s a history of why terrorism takes place. We have relatives who live on the West Bank, and our people are suffering from oppression. My father lives there and I don’t know (how) he’s going to take it (the news).”

Odeh’s brother-in-law, John Nassab added:

“People don’t look at why there is terrorism. We want to make it clear that we’re not against Jews. We’re against the Zionist movement.”

Odeh’s family is from the West Bank Palestinian village of Jisna, near Jerusalem. Some of the family still lives in the village, Sami Odeh, the victim’s brother, said.

Friend Cites Irony

A close friend of Odeh, Christina Boutrof, who was public relations director of News Circle, a magazine and publishing house for the Arab-American community in the Los Angeles area, said it was ironic that Odeh, who preached non-violence, was killed by a bomb.

“He did not condone violence,” she said. “He wanted to educate people on the cultural aspects (of turmoil in the Middle East), not the political ones. His approach was that the better approach was through education, not as a radical, activist terrorist.”

As an instructor in Arabic at Coastline Community College since February, 1979, Odeh often was asked to lecture on Middle East history and politics. He recently was elected to the college’s Academic Senate.

He also previously had taught Arabic at Cal State Fullerton, where he had received a master’s degree in political science in 1978.

“I’m shocked and paranoid,” said a man who said he had been a student and close friend when Odeh taught at Cal State Fullerton. “If my government doesn’t take real action against terrorism here, I’ll lose faith in my government. We are just American citizens,” said the man, who identified himself only as “Marwan.”

Odeh has worked at the committee’s regional office since it opened four years ago.

He was a prolific letter and essay writer, particularly on the Middle East. He wrote a book of poetry, “Whispers in Exile,” in Arabic and it was published by a small Glendale firm called the News Circle Publishing Co.

Associates Left Work

Writers and editors at the publishing company who learned of Odeh’s death Friday morning were deeply upset and left work for the day, said Lila Koucy, a sales representative for the firm.

Koucy said she didn’t know Odeh well, but “he was just a really nice guy; he always had a smile on his face.” She said a second book by Odeh was being typeset at the time of his death.

Odeh studied at Beir Zeit University on the West Bank and later studied economics at the University of Cairo, Egypt.

He arrived in the United States in 1967 and became a naturalized citizen in 1977. He worked at the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission in Washington for several years.

At the time of his death, he was a member of the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission.

Odeh’s widow, Norma Odeh, was unavailable to talk to reporters. The couple have three children: Helena, 7, Samia, 5, and Suzanne, 2.

Times staff writers Robert Schwartz, Gary Jarlson, Kim Murphy and Hector Gutierrez contributed to this story.