Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 2003, pages 16, 92

Special Report

Low-Key Treatment of Jewish Terrorists Rubin and Goldstein Shows Double Standard

By Delinda C. Hanley

It would have been easy to miss recent news reports of the arrest in Florida of Dr. Robert Goldstein and the violent death in a California prison of Irv Rubin, head of the Jewish Defense League (JDL). The low-key coverage was in sharp contrast to the screaming headlines announcing the arrest of Muslim or Arab “terrorists”—a fact that infuriates Muslim and Arab Americans, as well as any American wishing to be fully informed. Nor is this “merely” a matter of principle—had the two plots succeeded, scores, if not hundreds, of Muslim Americans, as well as a U.S. congressman, could have been killed or terrorized.

On Dec. 12, 2001, Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel were arrested in California and charged with plotting to blow up the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, the offices of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, as well as that of Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is the son of Lebanese immigrants. An unnamed fellow JDL member, who had carried out previous crimes for the organization, informed authorities of the plot and wore a wiretap to gather evidence. The FBI was able to catch Rubin and Krugel red-handed, with weapons and bomb-making equipment, along with the tapes of the pair plotting to send a “wake-up call” to Arab Americans and to show that the JDL was “alive in a militant way.”

Tragically, Rubin, 57, will not face trial—nor may the evidence against him ever come to light. He reportedly slashed his throat with a prison-issue razor on Nov. 4, then jumped or fell over a prison walkway at a federal detention center, landing on a concrete floor 18 feet below. After emergency surgery Rubin was pronounced brain-dead the next day, finally dying on Nov. 13.

Rubin’s violent life ended as he led it—amid bloodshed, controversy and brief headlines. Some press reports seemed to actually glorify Rubin, who had been arrested more than 40 times, and headed the radical JDL from 1985 until his final arrest in 2001. Rabbi Tzvi Block told the Los Angeles Times, “His entire life was for the Jewish people. He was a Jewish hero, and it will be noted for time to come.”

Members of the JDL, founded in New York in 1968 by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, pledge to use “all necessary means” to defend Jewish interests and have been linked to numerous violent—otherwise known as terrorist—attacks in the United States. The organization was tied to bombings of Soviet targets in the U.S. in retaliation for the treatment of Soviet Jews.

Rubin, who often claimed he was the victim of a U.S. government vendetta, was the mouth behind the bullhorn at demonstrations. From O.J. Simpson’s murder trial in L.A. to the opening of Disney World’s Holy Land Experience in Orlando, he could be counted on to hog the media spotlight. Far from being labeled a terrorist, however, he was more likely to be portrayed as a buffoon.

Nevertheless, Rubin was charged with soliciting murder when, during a 1978 press conference, he offered to pay $500 to anyone who killed or maimed a member of the American Nazi Party. In 1994 Rubin praised Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of 24 Palestinian worshippers praying in Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque.

Authorities also investigated Rubin and the JDL in connection with the unsolved 1985 murder of Alex Odeh, West Coast regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Odeh was killed by a booby-trapped bomb when he opened the door of his Los Angeles office. Following the attack, Rubin said Odeh had gotten “exactly what he deserved.”

Arab Americans had hoped that, for his latest crime, Rubin at last might get what he deserved: 40 years to life in prison. They also hoped that during his trial, the taped evidence of him planning the 2001 attack also would prove that Rubin was responsible for Odeh’s murder. Those wiretaps purportedly included warnings that the bombings should strike buildings and not human targets—because they “still had not heard the end of the Alex Odeh incident.”

Rubin was awaiting transport from prison to a court hearing in preparation for his January 2003 trial when he had his untimely accident. Mark Werksman, a lawyer for Rubin’s co-defendant, Krugel, had anticipated a “watershed” hearing at which the defense would seek any evidence of prior FBI investigations of the JDL.

Rubin’s family and some of his supporters have said they do not believe that Rubin tried to kill himself. Shelley Rubin reported her husband “was not happy” in prison, but gave no indication that he intended to commit suicide. The father of two left no suicide note.

Supporters claim he was the victim of an assault. “I’m saying he was killed,” Bill Maniaci, retired police officer and Rubin’s successor as JDL leader, told the Los Angeles Times after the funeral. Why, skeptics wonder, didn’t prison cameras record Rubin’s suicide? Claiming a government conspiracy to silence him once and for all, Rubin’s supporters have called for an investigation. Others speak of enemies “inside” who might have tried to kill him—although authorities say there was no one within 15 feet of Rubin when he plunged over the railing.

The American public may never know how or why Rubin was killed, or whether or not he murdered Alex Odeh. Irv Rubin will probably just join the ranks of “mentally unbalanced” Jewish individuals who, like Baruch Goldstein, are never labeled “terrorists.”

Another mentally ill Jewish American, whom skimpy news reports described as a “podiatrist” rather than a “terrorist,” was Dr. Robert J. Goldstein, 37. Only by accident—when they were called to look into a domestic dispute on Aug. 23, 2002—did authorities discover the Tampa, FL doctor’s detailed three-page plan to blow up an Islamic Education/Cultural Center, along with a list of 50 other mosques.

Police coaxed Goldstein out of the house, took him into custody and then entered his home. They found it rigged with trip wires, surveillance cameras and enough explosive devices—including a 5-gallon gasoline bomb with a timer attached—to destroy the entire 200-unit townhouse development where he lived. Among Goldstein’s cache of weapons were hand grenades, mines, and 30 to 40 guns, including semi-automatic weapons, .50-caliber machine guns and sniper rifles. He had assembled more than 15 homemade bombs, with enough bits and pieces and “how to” books to make 30 to 40 more explosive devices.

Goldstein’s mission objective was to “kill all ‘rags’ at this Islamic Education Center—zero residual presence—maximum effect.” His wife and a friend Dr. Michael Hardee, a dentist, were charged as accomplices.

“If it was a Muslim who had possessed that same amount of ammunition,” said Altaf Ali, executive director of the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Davie, FL, “he would have been called a terrorist, mosques would have been investigated and there would have been a national response.”

Because the doctor was Jewish, however, there was little national media attention to Goldstein’s arrest, and virtually no follow-up.

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report.