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David Frankfurter brought his family to Ra'anana, Israel from their native Sydney, Australia in 1992. He is a business consultant, corporate executive and writer who frequently comments on the Middle East conflict.
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By David Frankfurter
November 10, 2004
It is with fascination that I read the sudden revelations that the comatose Ra'is has stashed away billions in stolen Palestinian assets. And, the journalists manage to present it with such surprise!
I even saw one or two reports that dared mention that the money just might have come, in very small part of course, from international donations. It is as if Aljazeera, Arab News, AP and all the western press, big and small, visited my archives or www.euFunding.org all on the same afternoon.
It is such a shame that no-one ever drew the donor community's attention to the problem before. Maybe the European parliament should have held an inquiry, or the EU anti-fraud squad should have investigated? No doubt, well after Arafat is dead, they will report. There will be someone to blame by then - and the money will be too far away to recover.
Oh, well. What's $10 billion in taxpayer's money over a decade? I am sure no one could suggest more deserving recipients than the Palestinian elite and their terror machine.
And everyone is so pleased that the Abus and Suha have made up. It is so reassuring that they have settled the concerns about her retirement fund. It's such a fair deal. She can walk away with the Palestinian squillions and the Abus are left alone to milk the Palestinian foreign aid cash cow. As long as they act quickly, it is not likely that anyone will ask for their paltry few billion back - or even that one or two be returned before an assessment of the real PA requirements for future aid is made.
And of course, amid all the speculation as to who may take over at the top, lots of names come up. And being they are not in a coma yet, no-one feels the need to check their squeaky clean reputations.
The number one candidate, Abu Mazen. Ahh...the Archbishop of Canterbury's Special representative to the Middle East, Canon Andrew White, spoke so delicately in an opinion piece he circulated yesterday. "Mahmoud Abbas...gained very considerable wealth after the formation of the PLO resulting in him being seen as part of the old corrupt regime."
And his alter-Abu, Prime Minister Qurei. Accused of making $30 million dollars in super profits selling subsidised cement to build Israeli settlements, instead of passing on the Egyptian subsidies to the Palestinian refugees who were supposed to get proper housing.
Gaza strongman, Muhammed Dahlan, supposed to have been made wealthy by collecting protection money, kickbacks, pocketing border crossing fees and other general corruption.
Let's not forget Marwan Barghoutti. Just because he is serving time in an Israeli prison for 5 specific murders, won't stop the US and Europe from recognising his popularity in the Palestinian street and pressuring Israel into releasing him. Of course, it will be overlooked that it is his signature which appears all over documents authorising the transfer of EU funded Palestinian salary budgets to terrorists.
The corruption in the Palestinian Authority is boundless. It doesn't stop at the top. Almost anyone you care to name is tainted. Be careful that thinking about it doesn't make you comatose, though. The press may be tempted to expose you too.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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