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BURIAL and MONEY
et. al, all fighting for the money and spoils of Arafat
"Both Gaza Ghetto and Occupied Ramallah are awful choices for
Arafat's burial, especially in view of the worse than Apartheid
realities that have taken hold during the years Arafat played,
and lost so badly, the 'peace process' game with the Israelis and the Americans."
MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 5 November: What's really going on with Yasser Arafat in the end? Why was Arafat really brought to Paris where his 'wife' and family have been living in luxury and self-imposed exile for some time instead of to an Arab capital? Why did 'wife' Suha Tawil make the quick brief visit to the Muqtada in Ramallah after being absent for so many years? Why are they all taking such pains to keep announcing that Arafat is not officially dead, even if artificially on life support?
The answers are probably more connected with the huge amounts of money and property that Arafat and his grossly corrupt cronies have accumulated for themselves; as well as to various intriques and plots connected with the Tawil family and Arafat's political survivors -- all of them competing like vultures to grab as much of Arafat's 'secret' wealth as they can for themselves. The great loosers of course are once again the Palestinian masses so miserably served by the elite VIP class of their own.
As for the struggle over political power...that's quite a different matter much more publicly played out in the media. But then of course Arafat's secret monies and vast positions and powers have been inter-connected for such a long time now, precisely creating today's situation. For Arafat and his cronies have for decades now used the money that was supposed to benefit the Palestinian people to buy and keep power for themselves; as well as to gain still more.
Yasser Arafat spent nearly all his time and energy keeping authority over the Palestinian people rather than preparing for the future. So many of those Arafat brought into the PLO over the years, and then into the U.S.-Israeli sponsored 'Palestinian Authority', have long been known to be both personally corrupt and usually grossly incompetent as well.
A perfect example of this situation is the long-time PLO representative in Washington, Hassan Rahman, widely despised for continual inepitude and multi-million dollar embezzlement. Indeed, as with Rahman, the primary qualification Yasser Arafat appeared to use for whom to appoint to what was not their ability but rather their willingness to be personally loyal to him and never spill the beans.
And now even Yasser Arafat's burial seems to be heading toward disaster. It appears even this is going to be more decided and orchestrated by his arch nemesis Ariel Sharon than anyone else. The understandable dream of so many millions of Palestinians, as well as so many others seeking justice throughout the world, for a truly free and independent Palestinian State, is now about to be buried with the Old Man himself if Sharon gets his way. Both Gaza Ghetto and Occupied Ramallah are awful choices, especially in view of the worse than Apartheid realities that have taken hold during the years Arafat played, and lost so badly, the 'peace process' game with the Israelis and the Americans.
It is this decisive historic context which is what is really behind the struggle now in its final phases over where Arafat will be buried and how his billions will be grabbed by those who have so misruled with him for so long -- most especially the top VIP Palestinians Sha'ath, Abu Mazen, and Abu Ala in addition to the Tawil family which has personally manipulated Arafat for so many years now.
Making everything all the more confusing, however, is that much of the 'information' about Arafat's money and fortunes comes from questionable sources as well as being certainly unverifiable. There has been no real accountability and certainly no honest auditing of what Arafat and the top 'VIP' (another Israeli-designation by the way) people around him have been up to for so many years.
Add to these realities that so much of what is published about Arafat and the Palestinians is purposefully distorted through a confusing array of media sources long known or suspected of having connections to the Americans, to the CIA, to the Israeli-Jewish Lobby in Washington, or one way or another to the Mossad.
The following two articles should be read, but they should be read with all this in mind.
They should be read and pondered because these realities surrounding Yasser Arafat, and his PLO and PA, are so important in helping explain what has happened in the past, what is going on at the moment, and why the future now looks so bleak.
And so we feature these commentaries today even with the awareness that the first publication is not what it wants people to think it is and the second is long suspected of having close ties to Israeli intelligence. Hopefully, by opening up the subject and beginning to expose what has happened, and what is still happening, more information and analysis about these historically important subjects will be forthcoming.
Arafat is one of the worlds richest men.
Sources close to the Palestinian leadership said a bitter fight had broken out over who should control the ailing leader’s fortune estimated to be between $4.2 billion and $6.5 billion.
Sources said Arafat has written a will transferring control of his assets to members of his wife’s family. Some of his aides, including former Premier Mahmoud Abbas who has stepped in as interim leader, however, believe the fortune belongs to the “beit al-mal” (public treasury), and should be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. The controversy started last week when Suha, Arafat’s wife, asked Muhammad Rashid, Arafat’s confidant and adviser, to prepare a list of the ailing leader’s fortune. According to Palestinian sources Rashid has said he would furnish the list only to the Palestinian Authority.
Identifying Arafat’s personal fortune and separating it from numerous secret bank accounts that he maintains in the name of the Palestine Liberation Orgaization and Al-Fatah is no easy task.
According to Jean-Claude Robard, a Swiss investment adviser, Arafat opened his first secret bank account in 1965 with a $50,000 check from the emir of Kuwait. Since then he has set up other accounts in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands.
Arafat also owns a number of hotels and holiday resorts in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, and Austria. He is the main shareholder in two cellular telephone companies operating in Tunisia and Algeria.
Some of Arafat’s businesses are in partnership with Arab politicians, former officials and entrepreneurs, including Rifaat Assad, a brother of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad, and Barzan Al-Takriti, a half-brother of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Al-Takriti is now under arrest in Baghdad. Aljazeera.com - 11/1/2004 9:00:00 PM GMT
Prominent Hebronite Publishes Unprecedented Indictment of Arafat
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report - July 27, 2004: Sunday, July 26, as pro-reform Palestinian legislator Nabil Amer was nursing the wounds inflicted by Yasser Arafat’s gunmen, a phone call came through to his room at the Amman university hospital from none other than Arafat. The Palestinian leader inquired about his health and offered to pay his hospital expenses.
Amer did not bother to reply
Sitting beside his bed was a fellow Hebronite, Rafiq Natshe, once Palestinian legislative council speaker, for many years PLO ambassador in Saudi Arabia and a highly respected figure in the Palestinian community. Known also as Abu Shakar, he is the head of the leading Natshe family of Hebron. Since Amer belongs to the largest Mt Hebron clan, which is centered on the large village of Dura, Natshe’s frequent hospital visits are ominously charged: the two great clans of the southern West Bank have decided to make common cause against Arafat.
This message was clearly enunciated that same Sunday, when the Coordinating Committee of Hebron’s Palestinian Organizations put Arafat on notice that he would not escape the repercussions from harming a Hebronite. In local terms, the Palestinians of Hebron have declared a blood feud against Arafat.
A verbal assault came some hours later when Natshe released the deadliest condemnation of the iconic leader ever dared by any Palestinian. The 40-page indictment published in Paris called Arafat a liar, a cheat and a traitor. For the first time, a senior Palestinian accused the chairman of the Palestinian Authority of practicing terrorism. Arafat, he says, personally directs the al Aqsa Martyrs (Suicides) Brigades of Fatah, telling them what attacks to carry out. “With one hand,” Natshe charges, “he funds the al Aqsa Brigades and, with the other, he sells them out.”
The accuser does not say to whom, but suggests that the sale goes to the highest bidder.
Abu Shakar exposes what he calls the Egyptian Cement affair in some detail.
Egypt sold the Palestinian Authority large quantities of cement at low, subsidized prices for the purpose of building new dwellings for Palestinian families whose homes had been blown up or damaged in Israeli military operations. Instead, prime minister Ahmed Qureia and trade minister Maher Masri sold the cement to the Israeli firms building Israel’s security barrier (while at the same time, the Palestinian Authority demanded that the UN General Assembly and World Court declare the barrier illegal – which they did!)
The profit cleared by the pair is estimated by Natshe as ranging from 60 to 100 million shekels ($13-22m).
Additional revelations in the Paris document:
-- Ninety-seven percent of all donations made to the Palestinians came from Saudi royal princes. For some years, the infusion totaled $32 million a year. But then Riyadh whittled its donations down to the present $1.1m in light of the discovery of how the putative aid was systematically embezzled by Arafat and his cronies.
-- Arafat has recently transferred $11m to his wife Suha in Paris.
-- He consistently obstructs all attempts to scrutinize Palestinian Authority finances and audit its accounts which are kept tightly under his exclusive control.
-- Every member of the PLO embassy staff in Riyadh dipped into Saudi aid funds that were dedicated to the families of fallen Palestinians. Some simply pocketed the money; others, slightly less brazen, diverted it to bank accounts and drew only the interest, not the capital.
Abu Shaker maintains in his document that the Palestinian people and its governing institutions have no need of foreign assistance because they own many billions of dollars which have been salted away by their rulers. The stolen funds are in sole charge of the shadowy financier Mohammed Rashid who has taken in recent years to whizzing around the world in a private jet.
This piece of information, offered by Natshe, belies the common belief of a break between Arafat and his long-time financial adviser. This misapprehension allowed Rashid to build up the reputation of an independent international tycoon, member of a wide cosmopolitan network of connections in the Arab world and Europe.
DEBKAfile’s sources reveal that the plane Rashid uses was in fact given him by Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi, his partner in certain business transactions. Furthermore, Rashid’s foremost protégé is Mohammed Dahlan. These two discoveries bring to the surface the existence of a hidden financial axis linking Qaddafi, Rashid and Arafat, that is active despite the Libyan ruler’s pledge to stay clear of his old terrorist connections. Business is business, after all.
This undercover association also casts a fresh and suggestive light on Dahlan as would-be challenger of Arafat, former pro-reform interior minister and recent leader of an anti-corruption protest against Arafat’s nephew, Mussa, in the Gaza Strip. How much was playacting for the sake of channeling disaffection - which got out of hand - and how much a genuine stab in the back against the old man? The protesters were curiously gentle and killed no one, as were Mussa Arafat’s followers.
Clearly, the US, Britain, Egypt and Israel would be misguided to put all their eggs in Dahlan’s Gaza Strip-West Bank basket and expect him to rise to the challenge of making Arafat move over after Israel disengages from the Gaza Strip. Dahlan has proved once again that he is unwilling or unable to raise a finger against Arafat.
Natshe’s conclusion is that it is all a big performance. Anyone who does business with Rashid or Dahlan is dealing equally with Arafat and helping to put money in the funds bankrolling Palestinian terrorism.
DEBKAfile’s sources add: that the monopoly regime shared by Palestinian and Israeli entrepreneurs in consequence of the 1993 Oslo peace accords is still alive and well.
Abu Shaker with all his influence did not find it easy to get his j’accuse published. Arafat’s minions have frightened off journalists and TV stations around the Arab world from fully exposing the protests in the Gaza Strip and the dissenting voices in Ramallah, easily papered over Tuesday, July 27, in a show of unity by Arafat and Qureia. Natshe finally struck lucky when he approached the brother of close Arafat aide Hanni al-Hassan. Bilal al-Hassan lives in Paris and considers himself more a French leftist than a Palestinian activist. He managed to place the Natshe document in the most popular Fatah chatrooms.
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