SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : Israel to U.S. : Now Deal with Syria and Iran -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Brasco One who wrote (9067)8/18/2005 1:08:38 PM
From: paret  Respond to of 22250
 
Yasser Arafat's legacy

townhall.com November 12, 2004

Cal Thomas

The legacy of Yasser Arafat, for those not brainwashed by his propaganda and that of his supporters, is one of murder, deceit and corruption.

As part of its obituary, The New York Times said, "Arafat led a long and failed effort for statehood" for the Palestinians. He did no such thing. Arafat led a long reign of terror, the purpose of which was to kill Jews and eliminate the state of Israel.

Arafat never cared about a Palestinian state contiguous to Israel. The only Palestinian state he cared about was one that encompassed all of Israel. He said that repeatedly to his own people while he said something else to the West. Every Palestinian map was printed without Israel. Arafat proved his intentions by the terrorism he encouraged, including homicide bombers, whose families he paid out of funds that should have gone to help his "people." One list of Israeli fatalities caused by terrorism inspired and directed by Arafat just since the 1993 Oslo accords runs 47 single-spaced pages.

In a statement on Arafat's death, the Vatican sounded as if it were speaking of Mother Teresa. The Vatican's chief spokesman referred to Arafat as "the illustrious deceased" and asked God to grant eternal rest to his soul. Where is church-state separation when you really need it? The only "resting" place Arafat will enjoy is a place in hell alongside his ideological and anti-Semitic idol, Adolph Hitler.

Much of the world has been deceived about "Palestinianism" because it knows little of the history of the region. There has never been an Arab "Palestinian people." The real Palestinians are the Jews. Those who have adopted the name are from Arab countries, chiefly Jordan.

It was the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who created this deceit in the 1920s as a rationale for murdering Jews. He made a pact with Hitler in the 1930s and encouraged the Nazi dictator to slaughter European Jews to keep them from escaping to Palestine. He ordered Arab families to leave Israel in 1948 so that Arab armies could invade and try to overturn the U.N. mandate that created Israel.

After subsequent wars and numerous terrorist incidents, Israel remains stronger than ever and the plight of the so-called "Palestinians" is worse than ever, thanks in part to Arafat's suspected embezzlement of unknown millions.

President Bush issued a carefully nuanced statement following the announcement of Arafat's death: "There will be an opening for peace when leadership of the Palestinian people steps forward and says, 'Help us build a democratic and free society.'"

That isn't likely to happen anytime soon because the poison did not die with Arafat. It is endemic to a region and a people that despise all things Jewish, Christian and Western. Various "leaders" throughout the Arab world have found the Jews, Christians and West useful diversions from the real problems of Arab people. They would be just as poor, illiterate and oppressed today, as they were before 1948, if Israel did not exist.

Other nations with a different worldview might have used such resources to build great societies. These Arab nations and people have squandered money and opportunities on ancient prejudices under the false notion that they are pleasing an angry and vengeful God who hates what they hate and wants them to wipe out his "enemies."

Yasser Arafat was not unique in the region. Others will follow him as they announce divine mandates to take up where he left off. There might be civil war among the various rivals for power - from Hamas to Islamic Jihad to other factions. If Hamas conquers Gaza after the Israelis withdraw, Egypt may rue the day it allowed tunnels to be dug on its territory for Hamas to smuggle weapons and terrorists into Israel. Those tunnels go both ways, and Hamas might use them to destabilize the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Of all the Nobel Peace Prize winners, Yasser Arafat was the least worthy. The award was an example of the self-deception practiced by many in the West who continue to believe evil people can be made good if they are simply given what they want, no matter what it might cost othersArafat is gone, but he won't be forgotten, especially by the relatives of his murdered victims.

©2004 Tribune Media Services



To: Brasco One who wrote (9067)8/18/2005 1:10:41 PM
From: paret  Respond to of 22250
 
Will $1 billion be buried with Arafat?
By Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES November 8, 2004

LONDON -- Palestinian officials who gathered around Yasser Arafat in recent weeks have been anxious to extract from their ailing leader the secret codes and locations of bank accounts they believe contain more than $1 billion diverted from official Palestinian funds.
"A huge scramble has been going on to get the codes he holds in his head for various bank accounts he holds in secret," says a senior Palestinian banker.
"It's an uphill struggle, and we may never get the bulk of it," says the official, who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety.
"It's been his key to holding on to power and influence, and some of it may go to the grave with him. If the numbers die with him, then the Swiss bankers and other bankers worldwide will be rubbing their hands in glee," the Palestinian banker says.
Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath were flying to Paris and hoped to see Mr. Arafat today.
Mr. Arafat's wife lashed out at his top lieutenants, accusing them of traveling to Paris with plans to "bury" her husband "alive," the Associated Press reported today.
In a screaming telephone call from Mr. Arafat's hospital bedside, Suha Arafat told Al Jazeera television that his top aides were conspiring to usurp her husband's four-decade role as Palestinian leader.
Jawad Ghussein, who was secretary-general of the Palestinian National Fund until 1996 but now lives in London, charged last week that Mr. Arafat had for years misappropriated Palestinian funds -- much of it donated by oil-rich Arab governments -- for personal use.
"The billions Arafat has stolen over the years from the Palestinian people facilitated the corruption of the Palestinian leadership, and is the source of his power over them," Mr. Ghussein says.
Mr. Ghussein says that for 12 years he had deposited $7.5 million to $8 million each month into Mr. Arafat's personal bank account.
"The money is in personal accounts under his complete control," he was quoted as saying. "Only one person knew where [the money] went, and that was Arafat."
Saudi contributions until 2003 amounted to $15.4 million every two months, and the United States has increased its annual contribution to the Palestinian Authority to $223 million.
An International Monetary Fund report, "Economic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditions," released in September 2003, concluded that $900 million in Palestinian Authority revenues from 69 commercial enterprises had "disappeared" between 1995 and 2000.
The report also found that $34 million out of the $74 million 2003 budget for Mr. Arafat's own office was missing after having been transferred to pay unidentified organizations and individuals.
The IMF report traced some $1.1 billion diverted by Mr. Arafat to a "special account" at Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv. It is not clear what happened to that money but, according to some Palestinian reports, during the past year Mr. Arafat and his close aides have switched banks and have diversified the portfolio.
Shortly before Mr. Arafat was flown from Ramallah for treatment in France, his wife received $60 million in her Paris bank account. According to French press reports, authorities in France are investigating the transfer.
Banking sources in Geneva say some accounts, either numbered or in the name of the Palestinian leader's wife, have been moved from Switzerland to Caribbean financial havens. These apparently include about $300 million previously held by Mr. Arafat at the Odier Bank in Geneva.
The New York-based American Center for Democracy said in a report in July that Mr. Arafat also personally controlled 60 percent of the security-apparatus budget, which left him with an additional $360 million per year to spend as he chose.
The center said that from July 2002 to September 2003, Mr. Arafat transferred $11.4 million to bank accounts controlled by Mrs. Arafat, who is living luxuriously in Paris and is known for her extravagant shopping habits.
As of August 2002, the center reported, Mr. Arafat's personal holdings included $500 million that rightfully belonged to the Palestine Liberation Organization. In all, his holdings were estimated to total $1.3 billion at that time.
The money "is enough to feed 3 million Palestinians for one year, and also buy 1,000 mobile intensive care units, as well as to fund 10 hospitals for a decade," the center said. At least 60 percent of the Palestinian Authority's budget comes from international aid contributions, of which the European Union is the largest donor.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, individual EU member states have donated at least $1.3 billion to the Palestinian Authority. Total aid from Europe -- including EU donations -- from 1998 to 2001 has totaled at least $4 billion.
In December the United States, Japan, the European Union and Norway, joined by the Arab League countries and the International Monetary Fund, approved another $1.2 billion to the Palestinian Authority for the 2004 budget.
Andrew Borowiec in Cyprus contributed to this report.



To: Brasco One who wrote (9067)8/18/2005 1:13:54 PM
From: paret  Respond to of 22250
 
The Communist Background of the Palestinian Authority

Oct. 2, 2000 Chuckmorse.com

Communist Tactics of the Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority (PA) continues to employ tactics learned by much of its leadership in Communist training and support which goes back to the late 1950's'.
These tactics, as well as an accompanying leftist political orientation, are rewarded with powerful support from the American and world left, including elements of the American and world Jewish left.
The PA employs the dialectical tactic of "Peace" and/or violence, which are offered, often at the same time, at strategically advantageous junctures on the road toward the destruction of the Jewish State.
This terror strategy was first developed in the Soviet Union.

Co-Existence between Israel and a Palestinian entity would be beneficial to both sides.
Most average Israelis and Palestinians want peace and economic prosperity.
The outmoded PA leadership however, is driven by ideology, greed, and lust for power and is egged on to hatred, division and violence by international fellow traveling leftists.
This axis of power is what stands in the way of a fair settlement.

What is the background of the PA leadership?
Egyptian born Rahman al-Qdwa AKA Yasir Arafat began his career in 1951 at Egypt's Fuad University where, at age 22, he worked as a student organizer for the Moslem Brotherhood.
One of the goals of the Brotherhood, headed at the time by leftist Hassan Banna, was to infiltrate the Islamic fundamentalist movement.
In 1956 Arafat, along with student cohorts Salah Khalef and Khalil al-Wazir, attended the Soviet run Prague World Festival of Youth where they formed the nucleus of the terrorist Al Fatah.
This radical cell would later make up the core of the PLO.

Arafat achieved prominence after the 1967 Arab-Israel war with the help of the Soviet Union and it's pro-left media stooges.
According to international terrorism expert Yossef Bodansky, as described in his book "Target America", the Soviet strategy toward Israel and the West in general was formalized in 1972 at the Baddawi Conference held at the Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon and chaired by Marxist George Habbash.
The result of the conference was the establishment of an "alliance of progressive movements and terrorist organizations" which would include, besides the PLO, terrorist cells from Europe and the Third World.

This conference institutionalized left-wing international terrorism directed from the Kremlin.
The theory was that terror, murder of innocent people and the mayhem that would result, would undermine Israel and the West and lead to socialist victory.

According to the documentary "The Russian Connection", which involved interviews with several members of the PLO, no terrorist attack against Israel would occur without Soviet consultation.
The PLO itself boasted of Arafat's weekly meetings in Beirut with Soviet Ambassador Alexander Soldatov.
The Soviets, according to the documentary, lent support to the PLO in the form of arms, training, planning and propaganda.
These planned attacks, rather than military actions, would involve the killing of innocent civilians.
Among the many heinous and cowardly attacks were the April 11, 1974 attack, in Israel, of Quirat Shemona in which 18 civilians, including 8 children were murdered and the May 15, 1974 attack on a school in Maalot in which 28 civilians, mostly children were murdered.
This action continues to this day and includes exploding busses in downtown Israeli cities.
The strategy is that Israel can be defeated and destroyed by the action of terrorists killing as many Jewish men, women and children as possible.

While the Soviet Evil Empire has imploded on its own decayed and immoral philosophy and Moscow is no longer the epicenter of the quest for world Socialist domination, the leftist mindset and strategy still finds full expression in the present Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinian leadership with their leftist friends in the US and the rest of the world continue their quest to destroy the Jewish State and replace it with some fuzzy secular utopia.
History yields several examples where this idea was enthroned, one example would be the Cambodia of Pol Pot.

They seek to rip Jerusalem out of the heart of Israel for obvious political reasons.
In addition, Jerusalem is of significant religious importance to the Jewish faith which the left loathes in the same way as they despise any God based faith.
They hysterically claims that Israel is a theocracy.
This is an attack, make no mistake, on all monotheistic faiths and on God in Heaven.
Jerusalem today is open to all faiths at an unprecedented level.

The PA and their friends insist that pre 1948 Palestinians have a right to return to Israel while at the same time, the West Bank and Gaza must be ethnically cleansed of Jews.
Perhaps pre 1948 Palestinians could return to Israel if they agreed to a loyalty oath.
This would be a minimum any sovereign state would expect of such an influx.
While this may seem like a novel idea, perhaps Palestinians wanting to return may seriously consider conversion to Judaism.

The Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza would be well advised, for their own good and long-term success, to rid themselves of their Communist oriented leadership.
Only then will they be able to put aside their goal of conquest by any means necessary.
Only then will they be able to create a State alongside Israel.
Only then will they obtain a State that would exist to serve the interests of the Palestinian people who reside there, not the interests of international forces and ideas whose interest is to promote perpetual violence.