Arafat invested in N.Y. bowling lane
By Deborah Kolben And Tracy Connor
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NEW YORK - Maybe they should have named it Bowling for Palestine.
Bowlmor Lanes, a fixture in Greenwich Village for decades, was secretly bankrolled in part by the late Yasser Arafat, newly released documents reveal.
Using a holding company, Arafat quietly sank $1.3 million of Palestinian Authority funds into the hipster hangout in 2002, two years before his death. The news, first reported in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, hit some Bowlmor patrons like a 15-pound ball taking down the headpin.
"If I had known, I wouldn't have come, but I promised the kids," said financier Steve Saslow, 55, with his 4-year-old and 8-year-old in tow.
It apparently also came as a surprise to Bowlmor's owners, a company called Strike Holdings, which has lanes on Long Island and in Maryland and Florida.
The firm said it was "shocked" to learn that Arafat was behind the investment -- and planned to return the money and sever any ties to the Palestinians.
The $1.3 million, funneled through a company called Onyx Funds, was just a small piece of a $799 million fortune that Arafat invested in companies across the Middle East and the United States.
Let's see; Yassar squirrels away 800 large, and just last week Bush sent the PA another 20 mil?
What is wrong with this picture?