Posted on 11/12/2004 9:20:23 PM PST by SmithL
Although the tense relationship between Suha Arafat, wife of the late Palestinian leader, and PA leaders is a well-known fact, new details that have reached NRG Maariv reveal just how volatile the situation really is.
A delegation of Palestinian leaders, including Abu Mazen, Abu Ala, Nabil Shaath and Rawhi Fath, arrived in Paris on Wednesday to visit their dying leader.
Hours before their visit, Suha told al-Jazeera, almost hysterically, that their trip was "a conspiracy to bury her husband alive". Senior Palestinian officials spared no time and lashed out at the Palestinian First Lady.
As soon as the delegation arrived in the French capital, an extremely tense meeting was held between Suha and Arafat’s chief financial advisor and confidante, Mohammad Rashid, and the Palestinian leaders.
“The Palestinian people will never forgive you for what you are doing”, they told Suha. The Rais’s wife began crying and told them, after regaining her composure, that she could not return to live in Gaza with their daughter: “She has no future there”.
Suha told the PA leaders that she was in need of financial security that would allow her to continue living on the same level she had been used to. “We will allow you to live on the same level”, one of the senior leaders told her, “But you must sign an agreement and reveal all of your husband’s bank accounts and investments, and enable the transfer of the funds that belong to the PA. Do not rob this money from the Palestinian people”.
At some point, the leaders even warned her that if she would refuse to sign the papers, “The Palestinian people all over the world will never give you peace and quiet”. She then conferred with her lawyers and family members, after which she returned to the room and signed the papers. As first revealed by NRG Maariv, she received a considerable portion of Arafat’s fortune.
According to Israeli intelligence sources, Arafat was worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars. He had many houses around the world and was heavily invested in US real estate projects.
“Eventually the money was divided up”, one official noted. “Agreements were signed. The Palestinian leaders understood that in order to put their hands on the fortune and get rid of Suha, they would be better off paying her handsomely”.
That must be their version of Arkancide.
I'm not sure why it wouldn't have been better for the Palestinians to have paid her nothing at all. Unless, of course, she could have blackmailed some of their leaders...
This might be worth some of the pajamahadeen's valuable time.
Why didn't they make her an offer she couldn't refuse. They seem to be good at that with unarmed westerners that the kidnap. This fat sow gets $22 mil a year that could have and should have gone into the coffers of the palistinians for food, medicine etc.
Actually, it gives me no pleasure that she gets all that money, but I do appreciate that it's not going to terrorists, instead.
22 million annually for the rest of her life? i think suha now needs bodily security!
also, when arafat was alive, nobody dared confront him about money that rightfully belonged to the PA. now that he is dead, everyone wants a piece of the action. the only rational is that he had a huge following of hate mongers who would have protected him if any underling raised this issue. palestinian peace, ... no way.
According to Israeli intelligence sources, Arafat was worth almost a quarter of a billion dollars. He had many houses around the world and was heavily invested in US real estate projects.
> ... why it wouldn't have been better for the
> Palestinians to have paid her nothing at all.
“But you must sign an agreement and reveal all of
your husband’s bank accounts and investments,
and enable the transfer of the funds ..."
Apart from having control of the money (and the body,
and the official cause of death), she also knows all
about Yasser's personal preversions, and might have
threatened to "out" him posthumously.
Oh contrare, I am sure Hitlery will receive some much appreciated campaign contributions from the terrorist's gold-digging opportunist (no, not John Kerry) spouse.
Speaking of gloating, have you seen this?
"she received a considerable portion of Arafat’s fortune"
That must have been the $60 million which showed up in her account the day after her meeting. With the $22 million a year to live on - I hope it's not too stressful for her.
This might be worth some of the pajamahadeen's valuable time.
I caught that too and it made my hair stand on end but I have no idea how the info could be found.
This is all I could find on his holdings:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ufwj9J1RLeUJ:sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ff%3D/c/a/2004/11/07/MNGU49NGHN1.DTL+arafat+own+hotels+cayman&hl=en
Jean-Claude Robard, a Swiss investment adviser, told Al-Jazeera that Arafat opened his first secret bank account in 1965 with a $50,000 check from the emir of Kuwait. Since then, Robard said, Arafat has set up other accounts in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands. Robard said Arafat also owns a number of hotels and holiday resorts in Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland and Austria and is the main shareholder in two cellular telephone companies operating in Tunisia and Algeria.
She had control over the plugs to Arafat's machines. If they didn't make a deal, she would claim Arafat is alive, and they would not get to move quickly into power. She even had a couple of clerics come and claim they spoke to Arafat and to unplug him would be a sin. For the Palestinian leaders, the best deal was to pay her off quickly to pull the plug and let him die. Waiting too long meant uncertainty and unrest which threatened everything they had already stolen.
No the Money Shua gets would never go to the poor Palistinians.
It would have gone to the corrupt leaders and to terrorists.
The more She gets the better...The less they have for bombs.
I hope She lies and keeps Much More.
I doubt that I am smart enough to find Arafat's money, but this 1999 report shows that he is out there, laughing at all those who are hunting it......
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Hackers uncover secret billions of
Arafat's PLO
London Sunday Telegraph, December 5, 1999
By Tom Gross in Jerusalem
Was Congress aware of the following London Sunday
Telegraph data, while appropriating $400 million foreign
aid to the PLO, in addition to the $500 million already
transferred to the PLO?! Should Congress tolerate the
transfer of the $400 million to the PLO before the GAO
establishes transparency of PLO accounts, including
Arafat's own bank accounts?!
Just like the most corrupt rulers in the Third World, so
does Arafat plunder his own people, while expanding his
own personal financial holdings. Shouldn't Congress
MANDATE that foreign aid to the PLO be withheld until the
GAO audit is concluded, including Arafat's personal bank
account?!!!
THE Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has salted away
billions of pounds for the Palestinian Liberation
Organisation in secret foreign bank accounts and
investments, including property in London.
The disclosure about the hidden wealth of his PLO comes
amid deepening economic hardship in his Gaza and West
Bank fiefdoms. It will also hamper his efforts to woo a
huge influx of European aid for his fledgling Palestinian
regime.
The timing of the disclosures could not have been more
embarrassing as Mr Arafat, seated before a stage built to
resemble a giant Christmas crib, yesterday opened
Millennium celebrations in Bethlehem. He hopes that the
year of festivities in Jesus's birthplace will showcase his
push for an independent Palestinian state.
New details of the vast PLO fortune he controls have come
to light following a series of computer break-ins at the
headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in
Tunis.
The hackers discovered that the PLO maintains about £5
billion in numbered bank accounts in Zurich, Geneva and
New York. It also holds accounts with smaller sums in
north Africa, Europe and Asia. They are not registered in
the PLO's name, but in the names of private individuals.
The records also showed that the PLO owns shares on the
Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo stock exchanges, including
stock in the German car giant Mercedes Benz, and
property in prestigious areas of European capitals,
including Mayfair in London.
The organisation, which once specialised in aircraft
hijackings, also has shares in several airlines, including the
national carriers of the Maldives and Guinea Bissau. The
computer security breach is believed on the West Bank to
have been carried out by PLO officials disgruntled with Mr
Arafat's leadership. "They wished to dispel the
smokescreen created around the PLO's finances," a
Palestinian official told The Telegraph.
Mr Arafat has always refused to comment on reports
about the foreign bank accounts. But the disclosures
caused anger in poverty-stricken Gaza. One embittered
Palestinian said:
"Why is he sitting on a mountain of gold, while there is a
desperate lack of jobs and medical supplies here?"
Mr Arafat is both president of the Palestinian Authority,
the semi-autonomous organisation that governs parts of
Gaza and the West Bank, and the chairman of the PLO,
which maintains its headquarters in Tunis, its base during
its terrorist heyday.
The creation of the Palestinian Authority, the embryonic
government for a future Palestinian state, was supposed to
lead to the winding-up of the PLO - and make the
Palestinian leadership accountable and law-abiding. But the
authority has in fact been repeatedly accused by domestic
opponents of rampant corruption and mismanagement.
The web of secret bank accounts and assets held around
the world is believed to be so complex that only Mr Arafat
himself and two of his most trusted aides know the overall
picture. Much of the money is the result of "taxes" levied
on Palestinians working in Kuwait and other Gulf states in
the Seventies and Eighties, and of donations from wealthy
states such as Saudi Arabia.
The assets are controlled by Mr Arafat himself and it is not
known what would happen to them if the 70-year-old, who
is said to be suffering from Parkinson's disease, should die.
An Israeli intelligence analyst said:
"These revelations are almost certainly not the whole
story. No one can know the full extent of the PLO's assets.
They are so well hidden."
The disclosures are also likely to prompt international
donors, including the European Union countries, to ask
why Mr Arafat is still demanding aid for his Palestinian
authority. Nor will they have been impressed by his
decision to invite Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslavia's
president, to Bethlehem.
Well, he probably took most of it with him! If they weren't able to finagle the information out of him in the last year or so of his life, I say good.
It's less money for their bombs, and the poor would not have seen it anyway. The leaders live in luxury while they live in tents, and that would not have changed if his accounts had been drained.
So let Suha have some, she'll fritter it away on fashion instead of terror. And the rest will be found by Swiss bankers.
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