Solving the Alex Odeh Murder

When Arab rights leader Alex M. Odeh was murdered last October by a terrorist bomb that exploded in his office in Santa Ana, the community was saddened by the loss of a friend and neighbor and angered by the introduction of terrorism to Orange County.

So it was with continued hope that the county greeted the recent FBI testimony before the House judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice. The FBI said that it is “pursuing suspects” and that “the Alex Odeh case is the highest priority investigation in our domestic terrorism program and will continue to be until it is solved.”

Odeh, a Palestine-born naturalized American citizen, was the West Coast director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. He was a man of peace who preached nonviolence and often spoke out against racism, terrorism and discrimination of any kind. Odeh, at the time of his death, had been working closely with the county Human Relations Commission, setting up meetings between Arab and Jewish leaders to open up more discussions between them.

That made his killing even more senseless. The bomb blast not only took his life but violated all that he had lived for--the peaceful resolution of differences and the promotion of human and civil rights.

The capture and prosecution of his killers will serve notice that terrorism will not be tolerated and will repudiate the violent approach to resolving disagreements that Odeh had dedicated his life to fighting.