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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Whatever happened to Arafat's billions? |
| 2007-03-07 |
| November 11 marks two years since the death of PLO chief Yasir Arafat—but don't count on most Palestinians to mourn his memory. Don't count on us to do it, either. On a good day in Gaza City, only 40 percent of the last night's sewage gets dumped into public beaches along the Mediterranean coast, where gaunt Palestinian kids build sand castles out of thick brown sludge. One and a half million Gazans, mostly children, live overwhelmingly in poverty amid a gutted infrastructure and a dysfunctional Guess she found the passwords taped to a monitor or something. Israeli and American intelligence officials say Suha Arafat's Paris hotel bill would be little more than chump change for the glitzy heiress, whose late husband might just have been the most flagrant embezzler of public funds since Louis XVI. During Arafat's rule, the United States, World Bank, European Union, and Arab governments poured $7 billion into the Palestinian Authority to try and help forge a viable Arab-Israeli peace. As much as half that sum is reported to have gone AWOL, with only a small fraction recovered to date. And Suha has proved to be only one of several big-time beneficiaries. Two years after Arafat's funeral, an international scavenger hunt continues for the revolutionary leader's far-flung riches. A motley assortment of investigators ranging from Israel's security establishment to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which now rules in Ramallah, maintain an ongoing interest in every lost stash. "The only man who knows the whole story is dead," says a senior Israeli military intelligence official who agreed to answer questions on condition of anonymity. "But the deeper you go into it, the more it stinks." Arafat's lifetime of grubbing for cash on behalf of the Palestinians dates back to his young adulthood in Cairo, where he was born shortly before the American stock market crash of 1929. Few had heard of the Palestinian cause back then, and there were no blue-and-white pushke boxes accepting pocket change for it. But longtime PLO stalwart Nabil Shaath remembers watching, as a 13-year-old, the young revolutionary hit up his father for a cash donation. Shaath told Atlantic Monthly correspondent David Samuels he immediately recognized the future president of Palestine. Much more at the link. |
| Posted by:gromky |
| #10 though $340 million is a lot of hummus There are somethings we can all agree on. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-03-07 21:12 |
| #9 "Whatever happened to Arafat's billions?" Looks like about half of them went to make Suha's ass so fat. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-03-07 20:18 |
| #8 It's an Emperor Norton's Treasure Hunt. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-03-07 18:41 |
| #7 Arafat was queer. He wants 72 virgin boys. |
| Posted by: mac 2007-03-07 16:52 |
| #6 Arafat was a Mossad agent. I never knew. I did see somewhere that he had a U-Haul heading with his loot to the virgins. Hey, the 73 virgins are a myth you boneheaded islamonutcase jerks. Get it right. |
| Posted by: John 2007-03-07 09:51 |
| #5 The Arafats' monied inner circle, which welcomed Lebanese Maronite Christian Pierre Rizk, also found room for some Israelis and Jews. Together with Arafat senior advisor Muhammad Rashid—by birth an Iraqi Kurd—the Palestinian leader tapped two ex-Israeli security officials to open doors for PLO money in elite Swiss banks, beginning around 1997. What has become known in the Hebrew press as the "Ginnosar Affair"—named after one of Arafat's Israeli business partners, ex-spook Yossi Ginnosar—sent shock waves through the Jewish state and Zionist diaspora. It wasn't just the enormity of the sums these erstwhile enemies were embezzling together while the peace process tanked—though $340 million is a lot of hummus—the alleged involvement of some senior members of the American Jewish peace camp in Arafat's corruption also cast a shadow on their efforts to help broker peace. Ha! There! See? It all makes perfect sense now. Arafat was a Mossad agent! (That'll get the moonbats going!) |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-03-07 09:38 |
| #4 You mean there's...even more? ABBAS, I WILL RIP OUT YOUR EYES WITH MY WELL MANICUIRED NAILS, YOU CHEAP PRICK! BASTARDS!! I'M A GRIEVING WIDOW TRYING TO SUPPORT A CHILD!!! |
| Posted by: Suha Arafat 2007-03-07 09:08 |
| #3 I imagine it has gone the way of most pirate treasure. That is, piracy is an expensive business, what with having to bribe everyone for everything, having to buy loyalty, and always having to be armed to the teeth. The banks that kept his money probably charged "reverse interest", and France probably was very careful to automatically withdraw every Franc of taxes. And, of course, healthy accountancy fees and bribes to French and other European leaders. When Arafat died, there was probably a looting scene much like the one in Zorba the Greek, except done by gnomish French bankers and bureaucrats. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-07 08:35 |
| #2 There are no more true freedom fighters except Americans and a few others. The rest are just golddigging terrorist. |
| Posted by: Jesing Ebbease3087 2007-03-07 07:22 |
| #1 I liked this part - As Arafat lay dying at Percy Hospital in Paris, Rizk reportedly negotiated with the PLO on behalf of Arafat's widow Suha for a $20 million cash payment and an ongoing monthly allowance. He helped Suha shrewdly leverage her power of attorney and next-of-kin access to the ailing leader's hospital bedside. The rumor has also been widely reported that Rizk and Suha became lovers. "It wouldn't surprise me," says fellow Maronite Ziad Abdel Nour, who heads the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon. "Pierre Rizk has zero principles whatsoever. He will cheat, lie, fuck, kill—whatever needs to be done." "Where does this guy live?" I ask. "Are you kidding? A guy like that doesn't live anywhere." |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-03-07 06:37 |