21 Comments

1. Pat Curley:

Heh, I was wondering this morning how long it would be before I started getting urgent emails from Arafat’s son asking for my help in investing his ill-gotten gains. Looks like it won’t be long at all!

Nov 4, 2004 - 5:17 pm 2. jedrury:

Asking who allowed the money to go to Arafat is the equivalent of Captain Louis Renaud telling Bogie in “Casablanca” that he was “shocked” to learn gambling was going on in Rick’s.

Nov 4, 2004 - 6:23 pm 3. smokeandashes:

Would it not be heighth of irony if the same swiss banks that has kept money from their rightful Jewish clients since the holocaust would now keep money away from the main(but alas not the only)enemy of the jews today.

Nov 4, 2004 - 6:46 pm 4. MeTooThen:

Roger,

I think you are asking the wrong question.

It is not who let Arafat accumulate billions of dollars in private Swiss bank accounts, but why?

My hope is that spasm that will accompany the death of Arafat in the West Bank and Gaza will be mirrored by the revulsion of the EU at its own perfidy and willful naivete (or cynicism, take your pick) in its support of Arafat.

If not now (BC ‘04, the murder of Von Gogh, the death of Arafat), when will the EU declare it must change its behavior?

What then will it take for the EU to be disappointed, disgusted, or angered at the PA/Islamist murderers to the point that it says “enough”?

Can anyone imagine what horror that might be?

Nov 4, 2004 - 7:03 pm 5. BigFire:

Re: MeTooThen

If you follow the pattern in Oil-For-Bribe, we can safely deduce that some of the people tasked by EU to give Arafat money are getting kickback to their own Swiss bank account. Afterall, Arafat is not going to squealch on them.

Nov 4, 2004 - 7:13 pm 6. TmjUtah:

I am afraid - and afraid is simply too pleasant a word for what I really think - that there isn’t going to be any politico from the current crop of bureaucrats managing the eunannyland that has any ability, much less inclination to do anything remotely approaching “lead” Europe to anywhere at all.

We dodged the bullet after Gore, and just last night. We refused the teat and bread and circuses. Europe has been in the trough so deep for so long it would make even Robert Byrd (D - Pork Holler, W. VA) blanche.

You have nationwide riots over the mere rumor of entitlement reform over there. Hell, continent wide riots.

Those folks will literally ignore anything unpleasant. “Arafat embezzled how much? Ach/Avec/Er…that’s not MY problem - is it time for this month’s holiday yet? I haven’t been to the beach in what seems like AGES….”

They are all multiculti/secular/socialists. As such, they aren’t about to be lead anywhere that fifty-one percent don’t want to go on any given day. There will be no Churchill or Reagan or Thatcher on the continent. A Trotsky or a Marx or a Robespierre…even another Hitler is much more likely to be the engine of societal change we see next on the other side of the pond.

I’ll be glad to see Arafat gone. There’s about a one in a million chance of his replacement being an improvement…but there’s still a chance.

Nov 4, 2004 - 7:40 pm 7. ras:

There are apparently long lines of chubby men in checkered headdress lining up in Zurich to withdraw the money right now.

Nov 4, 2004 - 8:05 pm 8. Barrett:

TMJ,

To follow-up on where you left off, the loss of Arafat presents a dangerous opportunity. Arafat is an aging dictator and terrorist, who is interested only in maintaining his power and priviledge at the expense of the Palestinian people. The never ending plight of the Palestinians only solidified his grip on power. Arafat was also a crook. (How else did he wind up with $2 billion plus in a Swiss bank account?) What happens when he goes?

First, let’s look at some of the key players - Israel, Hamas, the PLO and PLA. The factions within the PLO/PLA are rushing to arrange the deck chairs in their self-interest. The ensuing power struggle could result in the more violent and extreme factions intimidating any voices of moderation.

Hamas for all its rhetoric, does not want peace. Peace would make them irrelevant, just as it would have done so for Arafat. Look at what happened this week. A suicide bomber kills three and wounds dozens and that is immediately after Sharon’s political victory in pulling out of Gaza. Hamas and the other extremists will do what they can to promote perpetual violence.

This brings us to Israel. Sharon put it on the line with the Likud Party. (Israel has no Electoral College and therefore is subject to factious parties and weak coalition governments.) The suicide bombing was his thanks. A fish stinks from its head and that is why Israel has targeted the leadership of Hamas for termination.

The opportunity for the US is to bring the parties together and mediate in an even-handed manner. The US must stand with Israel, but it must do so in a way that gives the Palestinian moderates a chance to prevail. The danger is failure, giving the domestic and foreign “critics” of Bush a chance to blame him for whatever may happen in the region and having even greater violence.

Nov 4, 2004 - 8:12 pm 9. PJ:

Perhaps that’s why the doctors kicked Suha out of the hospital room last week.

She’s worthy exactly nothing to the PA now–perhaps even represents an obstacle, with an Arafat heir in tow.

With the $1 billion and change we gave the PA, Arafat could have bought a house, a farm, and a car for every one of his citizens. Instead, he stole it. He stole their lives. And his vulture- successors are lining up.

No mas. Not one penny more.

Nov 4, 2004 - 8:18 pm 10. Rick Ballard:

Barrett,

Before talking about a “peace” process it may be wise to examine the terror groups as if they were criminal enterprises engaged in a ‘protection’ racket. Arafat controlled not just the money extorted from the EUnuchs and the US but just as importantly the names of the EUnuch pols that he kicked back to in order to make the racket work. Look at the dirty name lists that are coming out of Iraq. Same thing. The PLO is nothing but the Mafia writ large - and so is Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestinian “cause” is the cover that gives the racket quasi legitimacy among a certain group with a certain world view.

The Eunuch pols were paying protection money and nothing else. They were also taking kickbacks on contracts and receiving bribes to continue to increase the amount sent to the PLO. Why do you think Chirac was at Arafat’s bedside? “Listen, Abu, old buddy, do you think I could have the copies of the wire transfer orders involving me and a few hundred of my closest friends?”

Israel’s policy of targeting leadership should be extended to the PLO and accelerated. It is no different than hanging pirates and will provide a satisfactory solution if pursued diligently. When nobody wants a leadership job in the PLO because it’s a death sentence, then elections can be held.

Nov 4, 2004 - 8:36 pm 11. Curt:

I recall reading (Atlantic Monthly, I think, but I can’t find it now) of the terrible problem that occurred when Arafat’s plane crashed in Libya in 1992. Arafat survived, but for quite a while they could not find the little book in which he kept all of the PLO’s financial information, absolutely not backed up anywhere.

There was serious fear that none of the financial assets that Arafat had squirreled away, even in the PLO’s name, not his own, would be accessible without the info in the book. Eventually they were able to find the book in the wreckage, according to the article. I wonder if they’re any better off now.

Nov 4, 2004 - 8:51 pm 12. Peter Boston:

You just can’t make this stuff up. The Frenchies may be pumping air into that carcass for years while supposedly grown men scramble around Ramallah on their hands and knees looking for little slips of paper with numbers.

All the revulsion, loathing and fear that we can ever express over the marriage between Islamic fundamentalism, Arab nationalism, and Western elitism is self-contained in the Levant. It has been for years if anybody wanted to take a look.

Talk about bringing people together or supporting moderates or brokering peace is a nonsense avoidance of reality. Palestine is a seething cauldron of hate and frustration into which the shieks, mullahs and eurocrats will continue to pour billions of dollars, mountains of deceit, and rivers of somebody else’s blood until the last member standing of the Muslim Brotherhood admits that jihad was a stupid mistake.

Nov 5, 2004 - 2:57 am 13. Oyster:

When I learn of the billions Arafat has rerouted to his personal account, the billions Saddam kept for himself, I have to wonder about the people who argue that poverty begets terrorism.

In reality, terrorism begets poverty.

Nov 5, 2004 - 3:33 am 14. Hermie:

The fate of the Palestinians has been and will always be just an excuse for terrorists to kill as many as Israelis as possible, and worldwide, as many Jews as possible.

The oil-rich Muslim countries and their various dictators, strongmen and warlords had ample opportunity to spend their billions and educate, clothe and feed each and every Palestinian.

Instead, they built palaces for themselves while buying guns and bombs for the terrorists. These rulers figured that if disgruntled Muslims kept trying to kill Israelis, they wouldn’t try to kill their real oppressors.

EU bureaucrats and politicos didn’t want their lucrative contract kickbacks stopped because of some silly notion of freedom and individual rights in the ME. So they paid Arafat to keep the pot stirring…making sure that French, German and other companies were there to pick up oil contracts; construction bids; or arms sales.

Arafat got rich, the ME dictators stayed in power, and the European middlemen prospered.

Of course the Palestinians suffered, but hey…not everyone can be a winner can they?

Nov 5, 2004 - 5:08 am 15. vegetius:

In the coming civil war, the various Pali factions and militias will kill more Palestinians

than the IDF has in the last 20 years.

Nov 5, 2004 - 5:33 am 16. Jamie Irons:

It surprises me that anyone could seriously suggest that we (the US) need to broker “peace” between Arabs (I refuse to use the term “Palestinians”) and Israel.

Could there be another example in world history of a more futile project?

Arab society is a failure. Islam (or “Islamism,” if you prefer; I’m not sure there is a real difference now) is a death cult.

I think the policy of targeted killings of death cult leaders is working quite nicely.

Finish the wall, and keep killing the killers faster than they can regroup.

It has been noted that in Osama’s last hit video there was a remarkable absence of calls for more “martyrdom operations.”

The waiting lines at Shaheed Central are getting shorter and shorter.

Jamie Irons

Nov 5, 2004 - 7:36 am 17. Knucklehead:

Since there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that a “Palestinian Peace Process” has any hope of success in the enviroment YA created, I’d prefer that we sit back a while and allow some dividing to take place prior to any attempt to conquer.

The power vaccuum created by the loss of YA will lead to violent competition among those who would take his place. This should be encouraged and promoted. Let them kill one another for a while and the first few times they seem to be exhausting themselves help them regain their vigor with timely, umm…, eliminations. When they have grown sick of killing one another - as opposed to merely weary from the battles - then maybe a peace process will have some hope. I don’t believe even the bloodlust of the Palestinians is insatiable but I’d prefer that they test my theory among themselves.

Nov 5, 2004 - 8:05 am 18. Mikey:

Yes, it reminds me of oil-for-food. It sounds very typical for most closed systems. The “aristocracy” do what they want, the “peasants” be damned.

What it really reminds me is, despite all the complaints, the American system is surprisingly non-corrupt unlike, say, France, where government-by-bribery seems to be the norm.

Nov 5, 2004 - 8:18 am 19. Charlie (Colorado):

My hope is that spasm that will accompany the death of Arafat in the West Bank and Gaza will be mirrored by the revulsion of the EU at its own perfidy and willful naivete (or cynicism, take your pick) in its support of Arafat.

My hope is that medical science will figure out rejuvination in time for me to pass as a 20 year old with some of the freshman girls at CU.

“Freshperson”?

Nov 5, 2004 - 1:16 pm 20. TmjUtah:

Barrett -

I am very late getting back to this post, but with all due respect I concur with the majority opinion above, especially that of Jamie Irons.

The people that wield power on the Palestinian side of any process think nothing is untoward with factoring in suicide bombings or intercine murders with their daily conversations.

There is no reasonable expectation of good faith negotiation with the men who hold the power at the top of the PA thugocracy. None.

What should the United States do? After fifty years of expending billions of dollars, warehouses of good faith, planetary orbs of prestige, and the odd American that Palestinian or other Islamic murderers managed to kill?

We should reiterate that we stand ready to midwife a PA state based on the rule of law that embraces publicly the right of Israel to exist. And if the Palestinians remain screwed under the weight of Hamas, al Aqsa, etc, etc, or make speeches heralding the new dawn of coexistence while at the same time publishing textbooks and TV shows calling for the extinction of the Jews, then F*CK them.

Their only resources are protection money from the EU and the pipeline from the Arab Oil states. I’d say that both those groups are beginning to realize that their interests are no longer served in feeding the Frankenstein they have created.

Like the good doctor F., all they can do now is watch the monster lay waste to the villages and wonder when they will be the victims of what they so undeniably created.

So, republish the U.S. requirements that accompanied our ‘roadmap’ proposals, and try to get the Sharon government to stand with us publicly. We aren’t going to ‘manage’ this process any more. If the Palistinians won’t reform, then by all means we should support Israel’s efforts to cut the heads off the different organizations as part of the GWOT.

Nov 5, 2004 - 5:14 pm 21. Barrett:

TMJ and Jamie,

I am sorry to just get back to you. I ran out of energy last night on the East Coast and it is late again.

I agree with much of what you say. Arab society is a failure in part because of leaders such as Arafat. If the new leaders of the Palestinians are cut of the same cloth as Arafat, then Israel will do as Jamie suggests, which is the targeted killing of the “death cult leaders”.

I also agree that there is no greater historical problem that the Arab-Israeli conflict. It goes back to Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael. To Jamie’s point it has been futile to date. I am not suggesting that the US try to “broker” peace between a lawless mob of Islamic fanatics and Israel.

TMJ, I also agree that “we stand ready to midwife a PA state based on the rule of law that embraces publicly the right of Israel to exist.” To do otherwise would be foolish.

My point, perhaps poorly articulated, is how do the moderate voices - the voices that subscribe to the rule of law and the right of Irael to exist - be heard? They will only be heard (i) if they have the courage to try and lead and (ii) if they are given the opportunity to change the mind of the average Palestinian/Arab.

If all there is is killing, how will the cycle of violence ever stop?

I have been wrestling with the clash of civilization view and the view that we are at war with Islamic extremists/fascists and not Islam at large which has the capacity to co-exist peacefully with the Judeo-Christian West. I can’t say I’ve decided on this yet.

I come here because of discussions like these.

Thanks

Nov 5, 2004 - 8:25 pm

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