US TV documentary: Arafat's wife, daughter live in Paris on expense of Palestinian ai

[Batman]

see posts#8,9 for TRANSCRIPT OF 60MINUTES.
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La "Belle" de Paree.......................POST #10
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not exactly news but 60 minutes finally got around to this incredible hypocrisy , I did not see it, did anyone?
What was the conclusion?
Let me know please.


http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.p...ang=e&dir=news

US television documentary: Arafat's wife, daughter live in Paris on expense of Palestinian aid money
07-11-2003


Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat, transfers $100,000 from funds directed to the Palestinian Authority to his wife Suha who lives in Paris along with the couple's daughter, according to an investigative report conducted by CBS television show 60 Minutes, to be aired Sunday accross the United States.

According to the report, Arafat has accumulated in his private accounts more than $800 million from aid originally appropriated to the Palestinian Authority.

Raymonda Tawil, Mrs. Arafat's mother, is apparently also enjoying life in Paris at the expense of the Palestinian
taxpayers, the report is to claim. Mrs. Arafat lives in Paris with her eight-year-old daughter, Zahwa. (Albawaba.com)


added info:see more on:
http://www.isratv.com/

[Kev]

LOL

The responses to that article are quite telling...
I will never understand such idiocy!

for a man who has been fighting for israeli independence for 40 years and has not house nor business not even his own shoes....this is the least Palestinians can do for him.

President, Yasser Arafat sits in a destroyed building in Palestine under constant threat of assignation. If he had built a house for his mother, wife and daughter the Israeli military would just blow it apart and bulldoze the remains like they have done in the past! Thank God the Israelis can't do that in Paris!

dont not bleived in what had been reported in the CBS television ,as most if not ALL of the USA- based TV.s belong to the ISRAILIS who intend to distort the picture of the historic political leader of the Plastinians whom they are occuping and keep STEELING their home land. if what had been mentioned is true still he is not waisting money in chasing ladies like what some USA leaders DO and not waisting money in gampling like some other leaders do ???!!!!

Well, I guess the PA does not mind publishing this piece of news all over the occupied land for all to see. A poll should follow right after to see what people think. And what people think should also be aired on 60 minutes for all to see.

This one of course gave me a chuckle ;-)

Of course Arafat is a saint and a good leader! Of course he is not a crooked, stealing bastard who allows his wife and child to live in royalty abroad while the rest of his people - THE PEOPLE THAT HE IS SUPPOSED TO LEAD - are suffering and living under the most inhumane conditions...LONG LIVE ARAFAT! Kamil, perhaps its about time you offer your own child as a Shahid or better yet, why not strap your own body full of explosives and kill some Zionists! You are Chicken . You are a closed minded, filty good for nothing. I hope your bomb belt goes off prematurely so that your intestines can be spread all over the road for your donkey and children to step on and eat.

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Kev
LOL

The responses to that article are quite telling...
I will never understand such idiocy!

Arafat has been dipping into the till for ages; this comes as no surprise to most of us. I expect to see him having a news conference, reiterating, “I am not a crook…”. I wouldn’t by a used camel off the guy.


















This one of course gave me a chuckle ;-)

[Canajew]

Originally posted by Kev
LOL

The responses to that article are quite telling...
I will never understand such idiocy!

these comments are disturbing to say the least. Scary to know that even truth will not make a dent on their perception. How can this be fixed?

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Canajew
these comments are disturbing to say the least. Scary to know that even truth will not make a dent on their perception. How can this be fixed?

Disturbing... you've got it! He must have a hell of a P.R. firm doing their bit to cover this guy's stench! It boggles one's mind that, as said, it hasn't put a dent in many folk's perception of Arafat!

[Elisheva]

I'm starting to get used to the fact that many in the world just do not see what's poking them in the eye. There's no worst blind man than the one who does not wish to see. This is further evidence of what we're up against. I tell you guys, newspeak is alive and well. What this bitch is all about is so obvious, yet so few can see it.

That's why this forum is so comforting because it shows that some of us (and I don't mean to be presumptuous) still think somewhat clearly. What is really sad in all of this is that the so-called palestinians are the real dupes in all of this and, rather than wasting their energy by killing innocent civilian Jews, they should wake up and smell the coffee and finally go after the ones who have been manipulating them and enriching themselves on their backs for decades. But the question is: can they see beyond their blind hatred of Jews to realize they're being screwed by their own corrupt leadership?

[frizzer1]

[i] But the question is: can they see beyond their blind hatred of Jews to realize they're being screwed by their own corrupt leadership? [/B]

Nope.

[Batman]

Transcript: 60 Minutes: Arafat's Billions
Nov. 9, 2003
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in582487.shtml

Yasser Arafat diverted nearly $1 billion in public funds to insure his
political survival, but a lot more is unaccounted for.

Jim Prince and a team of American accountants - hired by Arafat's own
finance ministry - are combing through Arafat's books. Given what they've
already uncovered, Arafat may be rethinking the decision. Lesley Stahl
reports.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

"What is Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority worth today?" asks
accountant Jim Prince. "Who is controlling that money? Where is that money?
How do we get it back?"

So far, Prince's team has determined that part of the Palestinian leader's
wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion -- with
investments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a
Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the
Cayman Islands.

Although the money for the portfolio came from public funds like Palestinian
taxes, virtually none of it was used for the Palestinian people; it was all
controlled by Arafat. And, Prince says, none of these dealings were made
public.

"Our whole point is to bring it out of control of any one person," Prince
says.

That's what happened with the portfolio money, which is now under the
control of Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank official who Arafat was forced
to appoint finance minister last year after crowds began protesting his
corrupt regime.

According to Fayyad, "There is corruption out there. There is abuse. There
is impropriety, and that's what had to be fixed."

Statements like that have earned Fayyad, a bookish technocrat who spent 20
years in the U.S., a reputation for courage - which was enhanced when he
immediately posted the details of Arafat's secret portfolio on the Internet.

Fayyad's investigators are treading softly, well aware that their probe may
become too embarrassing for Arafat.

Has he tried to stop them? "We run into obstacles in a number of places,
particularly among the old PLO types," Prince says, adding one might draw
their own conclusions as to whether his statement includes Arafat himself.

Martin Indyk, a top adviser on the Middle East in the Clinton administration
and now head of the Saban Center, a Washington think-tank, says Arafat was
always traveling the world, looking for handouts. Money, he says, is
"essential" to Arafat's survival.

"Arafat for years would cry poor, saying, 'I can't pay the salaries, we're
gonna have a disaster here, the Palestinian economy is going to collapse,'"
says Indyk. "And we would all mouth those words: 'The Palestinian economy is
going to collapse if we don't do something about this.' But at the same
time, he's accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars."

The stockpile went well beyond the portfolio. Arafat accumulated another $1
billion with the help of -- of all people -- the Israelis. Under the Oslo
Accords, it was agreed that Israel would collect sales taxes on goods
purchased by Palestinians and transfer those funds to the Palestinian
treasury. But instead, Indyk says, "that money is transferred to Yasser
Arafat to, amongst other places, bank accounts which he maintains off-line
in Israel."

Until three years ago, Israel put the tax revenues into Arafat's account at
Bank Leumi in downtown Tel Aviv, no questions asked. But why?

According to Indyk, "The Israelis came to us and said, basically, 'Arafat's
job is to clean up Gaza. It's going to be a difficult job. He needs
walking-around money,' because the assumption was that he would use it to
get control of all of these terrorists who'd been operating in these areas
for decades."

Obviously, that hasn't happened. No one knows this better than Dennis Ross,
who was Middle East negotiator for the first President Bush and President
Clinton, and now heads the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He
says Arafat's "walking-around money" financed a vast patronage system.

"I used to see that people came in, you know, with their requests," Ross
says. "'I need a phone. I need an operation. I need a job.' Arafat had money
to dispense."

Like a Chicago ward boss, he still doles out oodles of money; Fayyad says he
pays his security forces alone $20 million a month, all of it in cash.

All told, U.S. officials estimate Arafat's personal nest egg at between $1
billion and $3 billion.

Arafat may have $1 billion, but he sure isn't spending it to live well. He's
holed up in his Ramallah compound, which the Israelis all but reduced to
rubble a year-and-a-half ago. Arafat has always lived modestly, which you
can't say about his wife, Suha. According to Israeli officials, she gets
$100,000 a month from Arafat out of the Palestinian budget, and lives
lavishly in Paris on this allowance.

He also uses the money to bolster his own standing. Both Israeli and U.S.
sources say those recent outpourings of support at Arafat's compound were
"rent-a-rallies," and that Arafat has spent millions to support terrorists
and purchase weapons.

Did he steal from his own people?

"He defines himself as being the embodiment of the Palestinian people," Ross
answers. "So what's good for him is good for them. Did they benefit? The
answer is no. Did they lose? The answer is yes."

Palestinians certainly paid dearly for something else Fayyad uncovered: a
system of monopolies in commodities -- like flour and cement -- that Arafat
handed out to his cronies, who then turned around and fleeced the public.

Fayyad says it could accurately be seen as gouging his own people. "And
especially in Gaza which is poorer, which is something that is totally
unacceptable and immoral, actually."

Of all the monopolies, none was as lucrative or as corrupt as the General
Petroleum Corporation, the one for gasoline. The corporation took the fuel
it purchased from an Israeli company and watered it down with kerosene, not
only defrauding the Palestinian drivers, but wrecking their car engines.

Fayyad says the Petroleum Corporation charged exorbitant prices, and Arafat
got a hefty kickback. "To the president, I can tell you, if there was not
money in the treasury, he went to the Petroleum Corporation."

When Fayyad dismantled the corporation, the man who had run it fled to
California. Ever since, with the monopoly broken up, Palestinian drivers
have paid 20 percent less for gas and 80 percent less for diesel fuel. Gas
stations now advertise 100 percent pure products.

Fayyad became a hero, like the Robin Hood of the Palestinians. Millions of
people were affected by this one move.

He says he was just doing his job. "A lot of this is about, you know,
distinguishing between right and wrong. And that's a straightforward
proposition."

Mohammed Rachid, Arafat's economic adviser who set up his tangled web of
investments and monopolies, says he's cooperating with Fayyad's
investigators. Rachid left the Palestinian territories about a year ago
under a cloud. He asked CBS News not to reveal where we met him for his
first television interview.

"I'm proud of what I did till now," Rachid says. "I think I showed a good
performance."

He's referring to the investment portfolio he managed for Arafat. He also
opened that account at the Leumi Bank in Tel Aviv. According to a recent
report by the International Monetary Fund, that secret account was: "Under
the control of President Arafat and his financial adviser Mohammed
Rachid" -- and no one else.

"If we are having a secret account, we should have it in Israel? You think
this is logical?" Rachid asks.

But that's what the Israelis, and the people working for Fayyad, say it was.

Rachid says that "transfers to Leumi Bank account never stayed. It was
receiving the revenues and transferring the revenues to the Palestinian
Authority's account in the Arab bank in Gaza."

He's saying the Leumi money was sent to the Palestinian Authority. But, in
fact, much of it was sent to Switzerland, to the prestigious Lombard Odier
Bank, for yet another secret investment account that held over $300 million.
In a letter obtained by CBS News, Rachid tells the bank that the funds will
come from Palestinian "taxes" and "customs revenues."

"It was all under the name of the Palestinian authorities," Rachid says.
Doesn't he mean Arafat? "No, Palestinian Authorities, Palestinian
Authorities."

continued

[Batman]

Actually, it was under a code name, "Ledbury" -- not the Palestinian
Authority -- and Minister Fayyad says that this pot of money, too, was
available only to Arafat. The Swiss account was closed out in 2001. No one
really knows where that money is today.

Does Rachid think that it should have gone, in some way, back to help the
Palestinian people?

"Of course," he says. But, "I don't, I don't decide what we do with the
money."

Those who want to know why Arafat didn't bring the money back, he says,
should ask him. But Arafat didn't want to talk.

There's yet another stash of money Arafat might be asked about: the funds he
collected when he was chairman of the PLO in exile. The PLO's former
treasurer told us he saw Saddam Hussein hand Arafat a $50 million check for
supporting him during the first Gulf War. And there were other large gifts
from the KGB and the Saudis.

Ross says, "Arafat used to say to me, 'Where's my money? You need to go to
the Saudis and get my money.' It was never the Palestinians' money."

Fayyad is trying to make sure it's the people's money, but many say his
one-man reform effort is having only limited success. Arafat recently sent
armed men to prevent Fayyad from replacing the head of the civil service,
who runs Arafat's patronage apparatus. That has lead some to think Fayyad
himself could be in danger.

"He cannot know, and we cannot know at what point he crosses the red line,"
says Indyk.

Other people who have dared to call for transparency of all these finances
have been beaten up, shot, and silenced. Why is Fayyad surviving? Indyk
says, "We should not take it for granted."

He has upset so many powerful people, and his offices have already been
ransacked more than once. But Fayyad says he does not feel threatened.

"It's a dangerous neighborhood," he admits. "But you know this is about, you
know, doing the right thing for the people."

[Batman]

La Belle de Paree

By Trudy Gefen


Of course this is "old" news for many of us, but there are some who make out that they know nothing about this flagrant daylight robbery by a corrupt, self-serving, immoral and hypocritical woman. Suha Tawill has been exposed
as far more corrupt and and far more despicable than Evita Peron ever was. And I doubt whether anyone will ever want to make a musical about her....!

Does anybody believe that the self-righteous Israel-bashing, fascist-loving Leftwing fundamentalists in Israel and abroad like Gush-Shalom, Peace Now, Btselem, Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres, Yossi Sarid, Noam Chumpsky, Prof. Steven Rose, as well as the EU, the UN, etc. are unaware of these shameful facts?

And if anybody wants to bring up allegations of "bribery and corruption" which, alas, are also sometimes to be found amongst Israeli politicians, I can only say that the Israelis are amateurs in bribery and corruption as compared to the Arabs, especially those who call themselves "poor, downtrodden, persecuted Palestinians!"

Now, let's not hold our breath waiting for the international media to publish this report. However, I hereby challenge the Israel-bashing news networks and newspapers such as the BBC, ITN, CNN, CBS, AP, ABC, Reuters, Independent, Guardian, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Le Monde, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, etc. to show some "even-handedness" for once, and actually do
so by publishing this scandal....!

NEW YORK - Palestinian First Lady Suha Arafat - whose husband regularly duns governments in the Middle East and Europe to help his poverty-stricken people - is living in Paris on $100,000 a month from Palestinian Authority coffers. And Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has amassed a personal
fortune estimated at between $1 billion and $3 billion.

CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl offers those and other choice nuggets this Sunday on "60 Minutes." Stahl told me exclusively Wednesday that Suha Arafat's mother, Raymonda Tawil, is also living lavishly - apparently off international largesse and the Palestinian taxpayers.

"I have visited Suha's mother and she lives very well," Stahl said. "On our last trip to Paris, we looked for Suha but we didn't find her. I heard that the French took away her bodyguards and that Palestinian bodyguards now protect her."

Rumors of the 40-year-old Suha Arafat's extravagance - and her 74-year-old husband's use of public funds to pay her expenses - have been circulating for years in the Arab world and beyond.

"The last I heard, she was living in the Bristol Hotel, which is regarded as one of the premier hotels - if not THE premier hotel - in Paris," a highly placed Arab source tells me. "It is not far from the Elysee Palace and the American Embassy and the fashionable shopping district, Rue St. Honore. I understand that she has a whole floor to herself and her entourage, and that
she has been living there for over a year. Must be quite expensive, especially given the financial situation of the Palestinians. . . . And that does not include shopping and dining!" The switchboard operator at the Bristol, where a suite and 19 rooms go for $16,000 a night, told this column yesterday: "There is no one listed under the last name Arafat at the hotel."

A Paris-based letter-writer, Eli Tabori, told the Jerusalem Post last year that Suha was said to be living with Arafat's 8-year-old daughter Zahwa "in the fashionable Neuilly quarter . . . protected from the ill-doings of her husband." Tabori added: "While Europeans find it hard to make ends meet under the yoke of their respective EU tax systems, she shops for jewelry in the Place Vendome and frequents chic boutiques."

Asked by the French magazine Le Parisien why their daughter was born in Paris, Suha Arafat explained: "Our child was conceived in Gaza, but sanitary conditions there are terrible."

[RichardP]

Originally posted by Batman
La Belle de Paree

By Trudy Gefen


Of course this is "old" news for many of us, but there are some who make out that they know nothing about this flagrant daylight robbery by a corrupt, self-serving, immoral and hypocritical woman. Suha Tawill has been exposed
as far more corrupt and and far more despicable than Evita Peron ever was. And I doubt whether anyone will ever want to make a musical about her....!

Does anybody believe that the self-righteous Israel-bashing, fascist-loving Leftwing fundamentalists in Israel and abroad like Gush-Shalom, Peace Now, Btselem, Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres, Yossi Sarid, Noam Chumpsky, Prof. Steven Rose, as well as the EU, the UN, etc. are unaware of these shameful facts?

And if anybody wants to bring up allegations of "bribery and corruption" which, alas, are also sometimes to be found amongst Israeli politicians, I can only say that the Israelis are amateurs in bribery and corruption as compared to the Arabs, especially those who call themselves "poor, downtrodden, persecuted Palestinians!"

Now, let's not hold our breath waiting for the international media to publish this report. However, I hereby challenge the Israel-bashing news networks and newspapers such as the BBC, ITN, CNN, CBS, AP, ABC, Reuters, Independent, Guardian, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Le Monde, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, etc. to show some "even-handedness" for once, and actually do
so by publishing this scandal....!

NEW YORK - Palestinian First Lady Suha Arafat - whose husband regularly duns governments in the Middle East and Europe to help his poverty-stricken people - is living in Paris on $100,000 a month from Palestinian Authority coffers. And Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has amassed a personal
fortune estimated at between $1 billion and $3 billion.

CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl offers those and other choice nuggets this Sunday on "60 Minutes." Stahl told me exclusively Wednesday that Suha Arafat's mother, Raymonda Tawil, is also living lavishly - apparently off international largesse and the Palestinian taxpayers.

"I have visited Suha's mother and she lives very well," Stahl said. "On our last trip to Paris, we looked for Suha but we didn't find her. I heard that the French took away her bodyguards and that Palestinian bodyguards now protect her."

Rumors of the 40-year-old Suha Arafat's extravagance - and her 74-year-old husband's use of public funds to pay her expenses - have been circulating for years in the Arab world and beyond.

"The last I heard, she was living in the Bristol Hotel, which is regarded as one of the premier hotels - if not THE premier hotel - in Paris," a highly placed Arab source tells me. "It is not far from the Elysee Palace and the American Embassy and the fashionable shopping district, Rue St. Honore. I understand that she has a whole floor to herself and her entourage, and that
she has been living there for over a year. Must be quite expensive, especially given the financial situation of the Palestinians. . . . And that does not include shopping and dining!" The switchboard operator at the Bristol, where a suite and 19 rooms go for $16,000 a night, told this column yesterday: "There is no one listed under the last name Arafat at the hotel."

A Paris-based letter-writer, Eli Tabori, told the Jerusalem Post last year that Suha was said to be living with Arafat's 8-year-old daughter Zahwa "in the fashionable Neuilly quarter . . . protected from the ill-doings of her husband." Tabori added: "While Europeans find it hard to make ends meet under the yoke of their respective EU tax systems, she shops for jewelry in the Place Vendome and frequents chic boutiques."

Asked by the French magazine Le Parisien why their daughter was born in Paris, Suha Arafat explained: "Our child was conceived in Gaza, but sanitary conditions there are terrible."

Merci, Batman, it was a greatly informative read. I have to go and toss a cookie or six!!