TEL AVIV – Convicted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh has been given entry into Germany in order to speak at a BDS event in Berlin on Friday, drawing ire from Israel’s ambassador to Germany.
Odeh, a former member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is classified by the US and EU as a terrorist organization, orchestrated a 1969 bombing at a supermarket that killed two Israeli students.
The Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper on Tuesday reported that Odeh was slated to give a speech on “Palestinian women in the liberation struggle” at the event organized by the “antisemitic alliance of BDS.”
Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff, expressed shock on Wednesday after learning about the event through a report in the Jerusalem Post.
“We are shocked that a convicted Palestinian terrorist, who is personally responsible for the murder of two students in a supermarket, was invited to speak in Berlin,” Issacharoff was quoted as saying in the daily Berlin-based B.Z. newspaper. “Ironically [this is happening] in Berlin, a city that stands for tolerance and freedom and has now written the fight against antisemitism on the flags.”
“We are certain that German society will draw a red line here and oppose the incitement to hatred.”
An unnamed spokesperson for Germany’s foreign ministry declined to answer why it would not block Odeh’s entry: “The federal government is not participating in this event. The federal government does not have contact to the EU-designated terrorist organization PFLP. The federal government rejects every form of the glorification of terrorism.”
Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, “It is very disturbing to learn that the German authorities are allowing convicted PFLP terrorist and murderer Rasmea Odeh to enter Germany for the express purpose of speaking at an antisemitic rally to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel.”
“Odeh never expressed any regret about the murder of innocent persons in Jerusalem that she carried out, and remains a staunch antisemite and supporter of the forces determined to try and destroy Israel, facts which should help convince the German Interior Minister to ban her entry to the Federal Republic.”
The Women’s March came under fire for associating itself with Odeh, who in 2017 urged women to take to the streets to strike against “attacks on Muslim and migrant women.”
In 1980, Odeh was freed from an Israeli jail as part of a prisoner exchange deal, and a decade later emigrated to the U.S. She made headlines again after being charged with immigration fraud for lying about her terrorist background when applying for U.S. citizenship.