Palestinian Authority Broke and In Disarray

[Jim Sagle]

Official Calls Collapse 'A Real Possibility'

By John Ward Anderson and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 1, 2004; Page A11

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Three years and five months after Palestinians began their second uprising against Israel, the Palestinian Authority is broke, politically fractured, riddled with corruption, unable to provide security for its own people and seemingly unwilling to crack down on terrorist attacks against Israel, according to Palestinian, Israeli and international officials.

<snip>

Edward G. Abington, a former State Department official who is now a Washington consultant to the Palestinian Authority, said he told Arafat during a meeting at the Palestinian leader's bombed-out compound here recently that the governing body was in danger of collapse.

"Let it collapse," Arafat said, according to Abington. "It will be the fault of Israel and the Americans."

<snip>

French prosecutors recently revealed that they were investigating whether Arafat's wife, Suha Arafat, who resides in Paris, improperly received more than $10 million in authority funds. The International Monetary Fund said in a report issued last fall that more than $900 million in public funds were "diverted" to Israeli private bank accounts controlled by Arafat and his financial adviser or to other uses for which the IMF said it could find no full accounting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17536-2004Feb29.html

[aquart]

1. I knew there was a reason why people who 20 years ago

Were among the best educated in the arab world, had a leadership wealthy enough to invest in many businesses and support embassies in 94 countries, why all of a sudden they are poor, uneducated, and scrambling for survival.

I've been saying Arafat wouldn't allow a peace settlement because he'd have to account for the money.

Where does Arafat think he's going to spend it??

[Jim Sagle]

2. At age 73, what's left to spend it ON?

:shrug:

[sushi]

5. Plenty

People are different.

[_Jumper_]

3. How many embassies do they have now?

Are there any in Western countries?

[sushi]

4. You have absolutely no idea

how much designers' shoes cost, do you. Not for him, but for his wife.

[meti57b]

8. That is an interesting perspective ... that Arafat wouldn't allow ...

a peace settlement because he would have to account for the money. I always assumed he wouldn't allow peace because he is a career terrorist. He would be meaningless if there was peace. I think you may be right on that one.

[Muddleoftheroad]

6. As ye sow

Arafat has been allowed by the Palestinian people to steal a billion dollars. If they go hungry, it is his fault.

[packerssuck]

7. I'm sure Arafat still has plenty of money to pay off terrorists.

[drdon326]

9. $ 3,000,000,000 ...but who's counting

He could buy food for his people for many years with that...

as for elections, he has cancelled at least 2 votes that
i know of.

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000256.html

little lying theiving weasel-boy

[packerssuck]

10. But he needs to keep 'em poor, angry and illiterate so that Arafat can

maintain a terror base full of recruits.

[number6]

11. "Palestinian Authority Broke and In Disarray"

so Jim, how are they supposed to stop terrorists when
they're Broke and In Disarray ?

[drdon326]

12. Like they ever tried in the first place?

good joke.

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

15. they should sell the PA Navy

I've been told it is quite extensive by one poster here.

yes, kinda funny.

[drewb]

13. Is this an attempt to distract me from my tax dollars being sent to Israel

???

"NO ENTANGLING ALLIANCES..." - George Washington

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils 7 Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm

You may call them old white men that are irrelevant to today's world... I don't.

[drewb]

14. btt

bumpity bump bump bump...

:loveya: