Arafat "Emergency Fund" - Secret Millions to whisk
him &
family into exile
Arafat takes in the money -- What is this called?
[MER - Did they hold the story until April 2nd in order to avoid April Fool's Day? More
than $100 million dollars in a secret bank account set up by the Israelis and designed to
make it possible for Arafat and friends to flee a coup and set up a "government in
exile"?
Arafat has manipulated and squandered huge sums in the past of course. Many around him
are primarily known for three things: incompetence, corruption, and loyalty to Arafat
(definitely not to the Palestinian cause)...in that order.
Now the news is leaking out that in order to get Arafat's signatures at Oslo, and then
in Cairo, and more recently at the "checkpoint" that controls the Gaza Ghetto,
Arafat has been promised and given many things -- including huge sums of money. As the
gifted and courageous Palestinian writer Edward Said has pointed out, the Israeli and the
Americans have turned Arafat into a classic "collaborator".
Clearly the purpose of setting up the "Arafat Emergency Fund" in Tel Aviv was
to make it possible for Arafat to get the money even after he had been overthrown by the
Palestinians. Further- more, of course, by having the funds in their own country the
Israelis could continue to expect, and indeed demand, that Arafat continue to do their
bidding even should he be forced into exile, this time by his own people. Other secret
funds may also have been set up in Cairo, Riyadh, and Amman, but it is uncertain whether
Arafat would be able to access these funds should he be overthrown.
Consequently it is thought Arafat insisted on this Tel Aviv account as one of the
prices for his collaboration with Israel and the U.S. -- the new "policy" that
began shortly after the Gulf War that destroyed Iraq.
The following excerpts from a story in today's Ha'aretz newspaper -- the daily in
Israel compared to the New York Times in the USA]:
Israel Has Transferred 500 Million Shekels to Secret Arafat Bank Account in Tel Aviv
since 1994
Ronen Bergman & David Ratner (Ha'aretz: 02/02/1997)
Israel has transferred at least 500 million shekels (about $150 million) in the last
three years to a secret Bank Leumi account in Tel Aviv controlled by Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat.... Access to the account is limited to Arafat and his senior economic
advisor Muhmad Rashid...
According to an internal document of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) obtained by
Ha'aretz, the Bank Leumi account "is not monitored or controlled by the Palestinian
Treasury Office"...
At least some of the funds in the Tel Aviv account have been used to circumvent proper
reporting procedures, to fund the extensive Palestinian security apparatus and to pay many
unnecessary Palestinian civil servants -- in short to pay for items which have not
received the approval of the contributing states.
A senior Israeli official said some of the money served as a sort of "emergency
fund" for Arafat. He said that the Palestinian Authority has stored away a plan
outlining how to save Arafat and his family should there ever be a Palestinian coup that
ousts him. The hypothetical plan outlines ways for Arafat to set up a government in
exile...
Source: http://www.MiddleEast.Org
