Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous

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Front Page Magazine:

In 2003, a year before his death, Forbes Magazine placed Yasser Arafat on their list of the world’s wealthiest kings and despots with a net worth of 300 million dollars. This number was on the low end of the estimates that had been made of the fortune of the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Israeli intelligence had estimated Arafat’s net worth at 1.3 billion dollars and an audit conducted by American accountants, authorized by the Palestinian Authority, turned up 1 billion dollars in investments. While an exact number may never be arrived at, Time Magazine’s report that Arafat’s wife had received a 200,000-dollar-a-month allowance, gave one small glimpse into the lifestyles of the rich and infamous of the Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinian Authority books were a black hole with billions of dollars from Western and Muslim countries, bribes and foreign aid, going to a network of secret bank accounts and investment portfolios that not only financed terrorism, but also the lifestyles of the men at the top. The audits of the PA in the twilight days of Arafat and afterward were meant to reestablish the credibility of the Authority with foreign donors, while seizing control of the assets stockpiled by Arafat for the benefit of the new bosses.

Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor, has been accused of hoarding a fortune of 100 million dollars and of owning palaces and property across the Middle East. Those accusations come from Mohammed Rashid, Arafat’s former financial advisor, who knows the ins and outs of Palestinian Authority finances like no one else, and whose own net worth is estimated at being around half a billion dollars.

Abbas has accused Rashid of stealing 33.5 million dollars from the Palestinian Investment Fund, a fund which collected Arafat’s known slush funds together to replace the PA’s old ad hoc finances. Rashid responded by revealing the ruling Fatah Party’s secret slush fund in Jordan worth 39 million dollars and mentioned that an additional 5 million dollars had been spent on a Fatah convention in 2009, even though there hasn’t been a single election since 2006. And that 13 million dollars of that money had come from the United States.

Rashid and Abbas are probably both telling the truth … about each other. While the Palestinian Authority is constantly warning its foreign donors that it is deep in debt and on the verge of complete default, its upper echelons live in mansions, drive expensive cars and enjoy the better things in life. The Palestinian Authority is always bankrupt because its leaders always need more money and there are always suckers in Washington D.C. and Brussels willing to give it to them.

The Palestine Investment Fund is as much Abbas’ playground, as PA finances before it were for Arafat. Mohammed Dahlan, the former Security Minister, had claimed that 1.3 billion dollars had vanished from the Fund since it was turned over to Abbas’ control. Dahlan charged that the PIF should have held 2 billion dollars, instead of only 700 million.