‘Who Killed Alex Odeh?’ Trailer: True Crime Meets Geopolitics In Story Stretching From Southern California To Israel
A new documentary, "Who Killed Alex Odeh?", reopens the unsolved 1985 assassination of Palestinian American civil rights advocate Alex Odeh, who was killed by a tripwire bomb in his Orange County office. Directed by Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans, the film alleges that members of the radical Jewish Defense League carried out the bombing to silence Odeh's advocacy for Palestinian rights, and that the perpetrators fled to Israel with the tacit discouragement of US State Department officials pursuing them for political reasons. The case remains significant as an unresolved act of political violence against an Arab American public figure, with the FBI still treating it as an active terrorism investigation more than 40 years on.
The documentary won two awards at Sundance, including a Special Grand Jury Prize for Journalistic Excellence, and will be released theatrically by Watermelon Pictures in New York and Los Angeles on 30 October before a wider rollout. The filmmakers, one Jewish American and one Palestinian American, describe the project as a shared journey of discovery about Jewish extremism and Middle East politics. The FBI continues to offer a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to a conviction, with the Los Angeles field office reaffirming last year, on the 40th anniversary of Odeh's death, that the case remains open.
- Documentary revisits unsolved 1985 assassination of Alex Odeh
- Film blames Jewish Defense League and alleges US cover-up
- Watermelon Pictures releases it in cinemas from 30 October