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| Funding Palestinian Terrorism | 2007-01-08 |
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terrorfinance.org By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld http://www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/2007/01/funding_palesti.html A new study documents how the billions of dollars contributed to the Palestinian Authority since the Oslo Accords in September 1993, were used by successive Palestinian regimes to fund a terrorist entity in the Middle East, which threatens the region and destabilizes the world. Ben-Dror Yemini's reports: "The Palestinians have bought themselves a place of honor on the list of unfortunates in the world. A well-oiled public relations campaign has turned them into a nation of victims. Misery pays. One of the countries hated by the Palestinians the most, the United States, has since 1993 helped them more than any other nation in the world, according to World Bank figures. From 1994 to 2004, the U.S. provided the Palestinians with $1.3 billion, the EU $1.1 billion, and Japan $530 million. In addition to direct aid, the U.S. is also the largest contributor to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. In 1992, the Palestinian per capita GDP was $2,683 per person. If there had not been terror, the Palestinian economy could have grown during the 1990s into one of the leaders in the Middle East. The money was used for three major purposes: perpetuation of the refugees as victims, purchase of weapons and explosives, and corruption. Opportunities to achieve independence and prosperity were rejected for the ultimate goal: the removal of Israel from the map. In relation to their numbers, the Palestinians have received more aid than provided by the Marshall Plan after World War II. Since the Oslo agreements, the Palestinians in the territories have received $5.5 billion, or $1,300 per person. By comparison, in the Marshall plan, each European enjoyed only $273 (in today's numbers). Above all, the guilt lies with those who gave these huge sums without having the Palestinians undergo a period of recovery from their futile dreams of the destruction of Israel. The result is, primarily, the continued destruction of Palestinian society." There is little doubt that some of the latest U.S. "aid" of $86 million to support the Palestinan president, will end up in Hamas hands, as would the 20,000 guns and the $100 million in tax credit, released by the Israelis. On November 19, 2003, I testified in Strasbourg Before the European Parliament ad hoc Working Group on Direct Financial Aid to the Palestinian Authority. My statement called attention to Arafat's leadership and his corruption of the Palestinian leadership and people. "War is a dream, peace is a nightmare." This statement was made by the chairman of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Yasser Arafat, on June 6, 2001 in an interview with Radio Palestine. It vividly explains both the Intifada that followed, and the continuing bloodshed in the Middle East. It also illustrates Mr. Arafat's vision for the future of the Palestinian people and the region. To facilitate this vision, the Palestinian Authority, under Arafat's leadership, has consistently misused and abused international aid -- aid entrusted them by the international donor community and intended for the Palestinian people. This, in turn, has allowed Arafat to expand his political control, and his grip on the Palestinian Authority's pursestrings. To understand -- and ultimately, to stop -- this dynamic, it is necessary to understand how and why the Palestinian Authority has become the disfunctioning, corrupt, hate- mongering entity that it is today. Only this will enable us to lay out a pragmatic and viable plan for reform -- a platform which, of course, will have to be closely supervised and controlled in order to ensure that funds are used properly on the projects they were allocated for...Significantly, the conduct on the part of the Palestinian leadership follows an old pattern stretching back to the precursor of the Palestinian Authority - the PLO. Since the inception of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the mid-1960s, both the organization and its leader, Yasser Arafat, served as a model and precedent for other terrorist organizations. It was mainly due to the West's hypocrisy that, despite the PLO's ongoing terrorist activities, the UN embraced the PLO in 1974 by granting it observer status. This legitimization, together with a territorial base in Lebanon, enabled the PLO, a terrorist organization, to open offices worldwide. (The PLO, and now its successor, the Palestinian Authority, maintained 89 embassies around the world. By way comparison, Jordan, a sovereign country, has only 45.) This legitimization enabled the PLO to obtain financial backing and to increase its assets and income by a multiple of 16 to 17 between 1974-1981. Over the years of the Cold War, the PLO also received financial and political support from the Soviet Union and its satellites around the world. Latin American and African countries, members of the Arab League and other Third World nations supported the PLO as well, and contributions continued to flow while the PLO continued its terrorist activities, not only to promote its stated agenda "to establish a Palestinian state," but also in the service of other countries, such as Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Syria and others. The PLO has also been at the forefront of money laundering activities. The mid-1960s saw the development of money laundering as a tool to hide illegal sources of money. These activities were facilitated for many years by corruption and hypocrisy worldwide, which have made illicit funds easy to launder and hide. Offshore banking centers, from Monaco, Nauru, and Cyprus to Hong Kong and the Bahamas, as well as international financial organizations, have been used not only to launder money, but also to invest it. In 1983, six months after the PLO was expelled from Lebanon, it made an official decision, under the chairmanship of Yasser Arafat, to exploit the drug trade for funding. The decision was made at a secret emergency session of the Finance Committee in Algiers. The PLO treasurer at the time, Sallah Dabbagh, stated, "The entire future of the PLO operation for liberation may hinge on our exporting more drugs throughout the world." In 1983, a Reader's Digest article reported that "The PLO purchased an estimated 40% of its light infantry weapons with either heroin, hashish, or morphine base produced by PLO and Syrian controlled laboratories in Syria or in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley." The U.S. Justice Department's Special Report, which was published in 1984, confirmed this information. And James Adams observed in his 1987 book The Financing of Terror: An early lesson in the political impact of the drug economy on terrorist movements occurred in the Middle East with the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO has been one of the most successful terrorist movements of modern times, both in its ability to survive and in its accumulation of wealth. Inevitably, drugs have played a part in the investment portfolio. The wealth accumulated by the PLO helped it to become an international conglomerate worth billions of dollars. It also allowed it to fund an international propaganda campaign, which contributed to its growing popularity and increased its influence. Under the guise of "fighting for peace", the PLO was allowed to continue its terrorist and illegal activities with impunity. In 1987 the US declared the PLO an international terrorist organization, but the PLO's propaganda campaign was so successful that it took only a year for a presidential waiver to be issued permitting contact with the organization. And the concessions toward the PLO and its successor, the PA, have not stopped since. Let us be clear: this money was supposed to be distributed to the Palestinian people. Instead, Yasser Arafat used the contributions to enhance his power and expand the PLO's terror activities, while the international community kept quiet. The total amount of wealth accumulated by the PLO from its inception until the Oslo Accords has been estimated by a variety of sources. In 1990, the CIA estimated that the PLO had a fortune of between eight and fourteen billion dollars. In 1993 and 1994, the British National Criminal Intelligence Services estimated that they had about ten billion dollars. The British report also noted that the PLO was, in fact, the wealthiest of the world's terrorist organizations. And even though the Palestinian Authority was established under the Oslo Accords, there has never been a firm demand for the PLO leadership to account for the missing fortunes of the Palestinian people. Instead, the very same corrupt leadership headed by Mr. Arafat now receives billions of dollars from the international donor community for the stated purpose of aiding the Palestinian people and enhancing "peace in the region." The six billion dollars that the PA has received since 1993 has come from the EU, the UN, the US, Saudi Arabia and other Arab League countries. It has done little to advance the development of a viable Palestinian State, or of peace in the region. Rather, this has helped to fuel the Palestinian leadership's terrorist agenda, and kept the Palestinian people oppressed and disenfranchised. In the mid 90' - shortly after the PA came to power - the Palestinian writer Fawaz Turki described the regime as "the dissolution of civilized society, of all civil norms, and all hope." Despite all of this, most international organizations and the world community at large continue to ignore the on-going human and civil rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinians by their own leadership. Some of this abuse is carried out through the introduction of a culture that encourages martyrdom in children as young as kindergarten age. This indoctrination was and continues to be led by HAMAS, a terrorist organization that is largely responsible for the education system - with the blessing of Chairman Arafat and the religious leadership. Schools, universities, textbooks and teachers that are funded by the EU, the UN and other international organizations; Palestinian radio, television, and written media, as well as mosques, public officials and even sports clubs, are used to reinforce this indoctrination of hate and martyrdom - all in the name of "Peace." The Quartet's' agenda to bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East is commendable. In 2003, I cautioned that It will not happen overnight, and it will not be easy. And it can happen ONLY when the Palestinian Authority stops sponsoring terror; when the campaign of incitement and hate against the Israeli population ceases and is replaced with real messages for peace, tolerance and co-existence; when Israel is fully recognized on all the maps issued by the Palestinian Authority; when the PA is fully transparent and accountable, and the billions of dollars embezzled from the Palestinian people are returned and the perpetrators are punished, and; when a real independent government representative of the Palestinian people and their real interests can be elected, and when not only aid but real economic incentives are offered to the Palestinian people." This would have had a chance only if and "when the international donor community stops supporting the corrupt Palestinian regime and demands full accountability for its behavior and for every Euro that the European taxpayer donates to the Palestinian people. Only then can we expect the enhancement of democratic values, true economic development, welfare, and peace for ALL the people in the Middle East." Alas, this did not happen. Instead, Hamas came to the forefront, and now they too, are receiving support from Iran, the Saudis, the Gulf States, and European NGO's. But as Deror ben Yemini demonstrated, all donations to all Palestinian factions are utilized against Israel, and the "Big Satan" that support it. What calamity needs to occur before the U.S. and its Western allies come to their senses and stop the Palestinian “Culture of Death” from dragging the rest of the world down to hell? |
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