Arafat's Billions

[NewsGuy]

Arafat's Billions

The business of Palestinian terrorism is apparently a lucrative one, according to IDF intelligence reports released today. While various UN relief agencies bemoan the “poor” Palestinians, some of whom are allegedly even suffering from malnutrition, the father of modern-day terrorism, Yasser Arafat, has amassed a fortune to the tune of $1.3 Billion. Yes, that’s Billion with a ‘B.’

By means of corruption and outright looting of foreign funds intended for the Palestinian people, Arafat and his henchmen have managed to squirrel away enough money to provide five-star housing for the residents of Jenin, Nablus and the entire Gaza strip combined –and still have plenty to spare to feed the rest of the Palestinian nation for the next fifty years. Instead, however, Arafat’s murder machine is placed in high gear to beg and con the Europeans and Americans to pour yet more Western taxpayer money into the Palestinian money abyss. If successful, we can expect the Palestinian people to remain as penniless as now, while their campaign of terror continues unabated. At the same time, Arafat’s Swiss bank accounts will swell to heights not even reached by the Swiss Alps.

Nonetheless, at this very moment, the Western nations are poised, hanging on the edge of their seat, hand on pen, salivating at the prospect of giving more money to official Palestinian con men and beggars. No one has yet even contemplated demanding that the Palestinians use their own funds, such as the billions stashed by Arafat and his henchmen. Again, the Western taxpayer can expect to foot the bill for the Arab billionaire terrorists who are destabilizing the world while feeding their bottomless bank accounts.

But with whom does the fault lie? We cannot only blame the professional Arab swindlers who rely on misguided Western sensibilities to make a mockery of the West’s generosity. Instead, a large part of the culpability lies with the West itself, which should know better by now, but is still willing to be shamelessly ripped off by the Arabs. Like the old cliché goes, “Fool me once -- shame on you. Fool me twice -- shame on me.”

[Adversary2Arabs]

Man...you're a really good writer..thats all I can say! :)

[Mr. Pumps]

All Dictators are self-serving, it is inherent trait of that type of Mankind.

Power and Greed are the key words for the Dictatorial.

Without those two fixed traited all the men like Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, Vlad Tepes, Castro, Arafat who "graced" mankind with their presence would'nt have had a shot for power.

[Teacake]

For a people so dispossessed, they certainly are well organized and well funded.

http://www.shaml.org/links/index.htm

[Mediocrates]

Fascintating stuff - the footnotes to their own refugee lists state that they are their own (unsupported) estimates.

[L@mplighterM]

Why should Arafat hand out his loot when Hussein is forking out his right and left to the Palestinians?

Seriously I?m considering writing a letter to Saddam Hussein asking him to make a generous donation to a victim of terrorism fund.

He?s most likely crazy enough to send a check.

[Simon]

About $1.3 Billion is what Arafart's net worth is estimated to be.

Islamic Terrorism (IT) is sure a lucrative business.

[Simon]

Here's the link: http://www.theage.com.au/breaking/2002/08/14/FFX7H8C4U4D.html
Arafat a billionaire, says Israel

[cerulean]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1028814689656
Aug. 13, 2002
IDF intelligence: Arafat's wealth estimated at 1.3 billion US dollars
By THE JERUSALEM POST INTERNET STAFF

[Vic]

Any ideas on how to relieve Mr. Arafat of his billions? :D

[Adversary2Arabs]

Originally posted by Vic
Any ideas on how to relieve Mr. Arafat of his billions? :D

Get the internation community to pressure him to FIRST use his money to help his people, before Israel has to. But that won't happen because the world will choose anything of "the Jews."

[Mr. Pumps]

Anyone know the GNP of the territories?

I know the current conflict has created mass poverty for the Palestinian people, so Yasser taking billions out of a bankrupt government is treacherous, even against his own people.

[cunard]

i wish i would have 1.3 billion dollars,


and if they do get the money back , i think PL infrastructre should be built, this way there would hopefully be less anger.

[chrisjohn316]

Is there anyone that will show that Arafat is not an evil man?

... and there was silence.

[Oh Jerusalem]

Originally posted by chrisjohn316
Is there anyone that will show that Arafat is not an evil man?

... and there was silence.
Someone opened a mouth:

You might like or dislike Arafat. But there are two things that we shouldn't forget: one is that he is the legitimate, elected president of the Palestinian Authority — that's a fact. Again, you might like or dislike him, but that is a fact.

The second point is that we should give our support to the Palestinian prime minister of course, but I think that people should realize that to achieve an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, everybody will have to agree to concessions, including the territorial concession. Things being what they are, we should realize that Arafat is the only individual in a position to get the Palestinian people to agree to those concessions for peace. Nobody else can do that. So we have to be realists. It's not a question of passing judgment on Arafat. If you want to do away with Arafat, then in fact you're taking a very high risk for a possible peace. And that's why we oppose doing away with Arafat. And that's a European position, a position that all the Europeans share, including our British friends.
- Transcript of Interview of President Jacques Chirac with USA TODAY, Sep. 25, 2003 (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2003-09-24-chirac-interview_x.htm)

[Binyamin]

You might like or dislike Arafat. But there are two things that we shouldn't forget: one is that he is the legitimate, elected president of the Palestinian Authority — that's a fact. Again, you might like or dislike him, but that is a fact.
Israel should also take this line. Since he is the legitimate elected leader, his people can be hael responsible for his decisions, like in any other democracy. If they do not like that, they can legitimately replace him.

[Oh Jerusalem]

Originally posted by Binyamin
Israel should also take this line. Since he is the legitimate elected leader
Wrong from point number one. It's my fault. I should have pointed it out.

Ask Chirac if Saddam Hussein was the "legitimate elected leader" of Iraq. After all, "democratic" elections were held.

Arabfat was elected as Chief Poo-Bah of the PA in 1996. There were no contendors. His term was to expire in 1999. There have been no more elections since 1996.

Also see Israel: Myths & Facts (http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf22.html#rr) on this subject.

his people can be hael responsible for his decisions, like in any other democracy. If they do not like that, they can legitimately replace him.
After debunking point number one, point number two is obviously in the wrong. The PA never was a democracy. Chances are it will never be. My hopes are that there will not be a PA at all in the not too distant future.

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by Binyamin
Israel should also take this line. Since he is the legitimate elected leader, his people can be hael responsible for his decisions, like in any other democracy. If they do not like that, they can legitimately replace him.


The world already does not hold him accountable. I can't imagine that pointing out that fact would change anything. But on a deeper level it points to what the west really thinks about so called democracy and the arab world. After all, the arab world is littered with One Man One Vote One Time dictators who rule their fetid little compost heaps decade after decade even if they are not the genetically annointed Grand Wazoo of the Sands. And that seems to suit the west's concept of democracy there just fine. Let's be honest, for better or worse, if you look at it objectively what will probably happen in Iraq in the near term is revolutionary in terms of the history of the region: a real mulipartate elected quasi-parliamentary government. It may fail & it may be corrupt but it will be a huge change in the basic equation of how governance is done in the middle east.

We like to pooh-pooh symbolic gestures as being trite and simplistic but in truth the political internal risks to all of Iraq's neighbors with Saddam are close to what they are without Saddam; a semi successful secular state that isn't founded on 1000 year old religious oppression and superstition and ignorance. Imagine what the mullahs and the wahabbi imams must be thinking what will happen in their own blighted junk heaps if their own people see even a modicum of success for a secular state in Iraq. All of a sudden the 75% of the population in Iran born after the Shah and the 75% of the population Saudi population born since the first oil crunch in the 70's starts to get harder and harder to manage. They will understand that sharia and oppression and ignorance blindly following in the Bronze Age ways yore will be very unattractive to those people.

Similarly in Palistan one can draw analogies. For 40 years they've been held under the thumb not of relgious fanatics but of vaguely communist inspired criminal fanatics. They have been told that their best bet to 'preserve' their culture is to stick with a program of fascist dictatorship both because there is no other option, and, to be clear, they will get disappeared in a ditch somewhere if they don't. What might be the effect if they see the relative success at least on a macro level, of semi-democratic non dictatorship in Iraq especially if the lives of ordinary Iraqis is no worse than before and probably marginally better - at least in terms of an emerging middle class?

[Hisardut]

maybe some hackers can hack his account and spread the 1.3 billion dollars evenly to all 14 million jews around the world?
thats approx 100 american dollars each... thats about 130 australian dollars for me... i could buy 10 UFC tapes for that...

[Isiah 2:4]

August 15, 2004

Arafat ‘heaped cash’ on cronies
Justin Sparks and Tom Walker

THE Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, has enriched a privileged inner circle of cronies and salted away billions of dollars in secret bank accounts, according to his former treasurer.

Jaweed Al-Ghussein, 74, described last week how, during his 12 years as chairman of the Palestine National Fund, the financial arm of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, he gave Arafat a monthly cheque for $10.25m — amounting to $123m (£67m) every year.

He was told the money was being spent on the Palestinian movement’s paramilitaries and on families who had lost “martyrs” in the struggle.

He was troubled by Arafat’s fondness for a system of patronage whereby he would hand bodyguards wads of cash from a briefcase he kept in his office and instruct them to take it to individuals he had decided to help. Each day the briefcase would be refilled from bank accounts that Arafat controlled.

Al-Ghussein, who resigned in protest at Arafat’s financial practices in 1996, has urged his former friend to let a new leader take over the Palestinian Authority.

He is seeking a public apology from Arafat, whom he accuses of having him abducted and held for 16 months, and is pressing the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to explain why, on two separate occasions, Arafat’s bodyguards were able to seize him and take him to Gaza.

Speaking at his flat in west London, Al-Ghussein said he had no idea whether the monthly payments he gave to Arafat had reached the paramilitaries. “Whether he did or didn’t pay them I leave it up to you,” he said. “There was never any audit on that money.”

Al-Ghussein, an economist who first met Arafat at the American University in Cairo, said he had no means of checking whether all the donations made by Arab countries were paid into the fund. Later he discovered payments — including three cheques for $50m each from Saddam Hussein — that he had known nothing about.

“No one ever knew how much he got from Arab states,” he said. “It could have been billions.”

Following the Oslo peace accord in 1993, European Union countries began sending aid. Arafat is said to have ordered that the money be paid to the finance ministry, which he in effect controlled. Al-Ghussein said he never saw any accounts of these donations.

When he resigned after criticising Arafat for his secrecy over money, the relationship between the two men had already been badly strained by the first Gulf war. Al-Ghussein objected to Arafat’s support for Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.

The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1217133,00.html)

[Isiah 2:4]

Thought i'd raise this thread, because with Suha Arafat's incessant whining over the PA and the imminent death of her dear Yasser, people are going to talk after he's gone. Or no, i forgot, of course they won't, they'll be too interested in speculating how Israel 'poisoned' the old bugger


Mysteries multiply over Yasser Arafat's missing monies

By Arnon Regular



In the wake of Yasser Arafat's unstable condition, rumors have multiplied concerning funds that were previously under the Palestinian Authority chairman's control and which various elements in the PA are trying to locate. Reports have also abounded concerning a power struggle between Arafat's wife, Suha, and his financial adviser, Mohammed Rashid, who is in Paris.




A conservative estimate of the total sum held by Arafat in various places around the world is about $1 billion, and is largely based on monies that were clearly taken out of the territories and withdrawn from PA accounts between 1995 and 2000.

According to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which reviewed PA accounts and, in particular, the activity of the Palestinian Commercial Services Co. (PCSC) - Rashid's main agency, which oversaw cement, tobacco and building supplies' monopolies - an astronomical $897.6 million that was accrued by the PCSC and its offshoots during those years was spirited out of the Palestinian treasury and transfered to mysterious accounts in the course of 1999.

All attempts to trace that money came to naught, but several months after the report was written in mid-2003, a French prosecutor launched an inquiry into suspicions of money-laundering involving accounts belonging to Suha Arafat in France and Switzerland. She claimed the investigation stemmed from information given to the French authorities by "the Sharon government."

The bottom line is that the investigation continued, but its results are not known. The sum discovered in her accounts totaled $11.5 million.

According to the IMF report, entitled "West Bank and Gaza: Economic Performance and Reform under Conflict," when the PA was hit by a recession at the beginning of the intifada, particularly after Israel stopped transfering taxes it had collected, about $119 million was returned to the PA's current operational account - but the remaining $778 million or so disappeared.

International officials, especially those from PA donor countries, demanded that Arafat return the money to the PA's account, particularly following criticism within the donor countries over lax supervision of the PA's accounts during the Oslo years, and in view of Israel's charge that donations were being used to finance terrorist activity.

The money transfered to mystery accounts is apparently not the only sum that Arafat moved outside the territories. The IMF report explicitly states that the allegedly smuggled sums do not include the PA's income from taxes, about which no record has been found, nor investments that Mohammed Rashid made exclusively outside the territories. Additional monies that may have gone missing from PA accounts derive from various taxes levied on PA bureaucrats throughout the years.

In the case of the Karin A ship (seized in 2002 on its way to PA territories laden with weapons), at least, it is known that the ship's purchase was handled by the treasurer of the Palestinian security forces, Fuad Shubaki, who is in detention in Jericho, but it's unclear where the millions of dollars came from to buy the weapons in Iran.

Additionally, the money that disappeared does not include the income of the PA monopolies between the beginning of the intifada and the end of 2003, when they were placed under the auspices of the Palestine Investment Fund, which belongs to the PA and is headed by Finance Minister Salam Fayyad.

Mohammed Rashid served until two weeks ago as a member of the PIF's board of directors and was active on all its committees. Immediately after the news of Arafat's deteriorating health, Rashid resigned from this fund, which consolidates investments he made over the years. The fund was set up at the behest of the donor countries, which demanded sweeping reforms and brought in international accounting firms to audit Rashid's assets.

The fund reported holdings as of December 2003 that were worth $799 million. The sums in the fund are under the ongoing supervision of Fayyad and its board of directors, and cannot be withdrawn without the board's consent.

Other question marks concerning assets and monies held by Arafat remain with respect to accounts that the PLO and Fatah operate separate from other PA accounts. The extent and origins of the money in these accounts have never been fully ascertained.

Ha'aretz (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/498628.html)