Those with opposing views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took notice of a heightened Palestinian profile across America. In 1983, a booklet published by the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'rith reported, "Beginning in June with Israel's military action against the PLO in Lebanon, a pro-Arab propaganda network, which had been growing steadily in the United States for many years, erupted in full force."
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18 Years Waiting for a Gavel to Fall
A group of Palestinians have been in legal and personal limbo for nearly two decades as the U.S. has sought to deport them. Their case foreshadowed post-9/11 policy.
THE L.A. 8 | COLUMN ONE
THE L.A. 8: First of two parts
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday July 01, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 64 words Type of Material: Correction
The L.A. 8 -- A time chart that accompanied an article in Wednesday's Section A about a long-running terrorism case known as that of the L.A. 8 made reference to a "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine fundraiser." Whether money raised at the 1986 event went to the Popular Front organization is a matter of dispute and the central issue in the case.
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At the same time, there were suspicions in Southern California that the Palestinian activists might be up to more than political propaganda. An investigative article in the now-defunct New West magazine asserted that Palestinians in Los Angeles had created "an operational base for international terrorism" and that the government was "doing little."
In the article, an FBI supervisor complained about a lack of legal "tools" and said: "We can't even start to investigate a terrorist group until we have solid information that they are planning, say, to bomb a building ... not that they are talking about it. But that they have already bought the fuses and the wires and the electric clock."
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Enter Frank H. Knight, a tall, silver-haired agent who was to become an almost mythic, monster-like figure in the memories of the L.A. 8.
Knight, a Midwesterner, had joined the FBI in the late 1970s. He was well into his 30s, having served as an Army officer in Vietnam and a junior high school science teacher.
He was assigned to the Los Angeles office's counter-terrorism detail in 1980 and picked up the trail of Hamide and the PFLP in 1983. Over the next four years, he would prove himself to be not only determined but also creative, developing theories about domestic terrorism and how to combat it that appear to have been years ahead of their time.
Now 61, retired from the FBI and living in San Diego, Knight declined to answer questions about the case because it remains open. With one exception, other prosecutors and investigators, through public affairs officers, took the same stance, as they have from the start.
The years of litigation, however, have churned up dozens of memos, teletypes and internal reports. Also, Knight was deposed for four days in 1996 by an L.A. 8 lawyer, and his testimony provides significant insights into his conception of the case.
For three years, Knight and fellow investigators tailed Hamide, a Burbank busboy who had immigrated to the United States from Bethlehem, in the West Bank, on a Jordanian passport in 1971.
