Anaheim : Panel to Honor Slain Arab Rights Leader

Arab rights leader Alex Odeh, killed in a Santa Ana bomb blast last October, will be honored this month with the Orange County Human Relations Commission’s first posthumous award, the panel announced Tuesday.

Odeh, who was regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was selected for the unusual award because of his “exemplary” involvement in promoting human and civil rights, commission spokesman Benedict Boyd said.

“Alex had been involved with the commission for a number of years on several issues surrounding things like the Arab-Jewish dialogue, immigration policy, efforts for medical care for the poor,” Boyd said. “For those kinds of work and because his life and his death exemplify his work in human and civil rights, he was cited for a special award.”

Odeh, 41, a Palestine-born, naturalized U.S. citizen, headed the 5-year-old association that represents an estimated 150,000 Arab-Americans in Southern California, speaking out frequently against racism, discrimination and terrorism.

On the night before the bomb exploded in his Santa Ana office, Odeh had appeared on a local television news broadcast, in which he criticized the media for linking the Palestine Liberation Organization with the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and he praised PLO leader Yasser Arafat as “a man of peace.”

The FBI has said it believes that the Jewish Defense League was responsible for the bombing, as well as two similar East Coast bombings.

Boyd said there will be “representatives” accepting the award on Odeh’s behalf at the March 22 banquet, but he declined to identify them. “We’re not releasing those names for obvious reasons--because it may imperil the family,” he said.

At the banquet, to be held at the Brookhurst Community Center in Anaheim, awards will also be presented to 18 others in recognition of their contributions to civil rights. The banquet marks the 15th anniversary of the commission.