The other day when Suha Arafat freaked out on Al-Jazeera, I was
wondering what she was playing at. Turns out, she was looking out for
number one: namely, herself. According to DEBKA:
Tuesday, November 11, Suha Arafat’s French lawyers and former Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), struck a deal. It fixed the Palestinian Authority’s financial obligations to Yasser Arafat’s widow and let him finally die unambiguously and in peace at the end of a morbid tug of war between his wife and Palestinian Authority leaders. But this did not happen immediately. The confusion surrounding Arafat’s condition for eleven days – officially alive, unofficially dead – was to be sustained a little longer – mainly to save Mrs Arafat’s face. The settlement allowed a funeral to be arranged on “Orphan Friday†of Ramadan, November 12 (as DEBKAfile reported earlier) – unless a new crisis pops up. Our sources have seen some of the principle terms of the Palestinian accord with Suha Arafat. {...} Last July, Arafat sent his wife $11 million to cover her living expenses and those of their daughter for six months - $1.8 million per month. The new accord guarantees her the same allowance from the Palestinian Authority as a regular annual remittance, i.e. $22 million per annum, for the rest of her life. Abu Mazen and prime minister Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) signed on the dotted line, although they have no notion how the penniless Palestinian Authority faced with a people in dire poverty can possibly stump up this kind of money.In other words, Yassir wasn't going to be allowed "to die" until Sufa got hers. And the Palestinian Authority will be footing her bill until she cacks. Yet, I think there's a little more to it. We get Forbes here at the house and I remembered seeing Yassir on one of those lists that they so enjoy publishing. According to Forbes:
Yassir Arafat, President Palestinian Authority Net Worth: $200 million Skillfully deflected attempts by the U.S. and Israel to diminish his power in the Palestinian territories. His access to funding has been curtailed by Salam Fayyad, the PA's reform-minded finance minister. Arafat's office still enjoys a $74 million yearly budget--6% of the PA's annual budget--but funds are closely monitored. This after the International Monetary Fund estimated that $900 million had been siphoned out of the PA from 1995 through 2000, much still unaccounted for. Wife Suha reportedly under investigation by French authorities regarding $11 million transferred to her bank account from an unnamed Swiss institution.So, my question would be, if Yassir's supposedly worth at least$200M, why isn't his wife being paid off out of that money, instead of having the PA foot the bill? I realize that amount would only keep her in her extraordinary lifestyle for ten years or so, but still...$200M isn't exactly chump change. Especially not with interest tacked on. Now, it's important to keep in mind that $200M is only what Forbes thinks Yassir's worth: they don't know for sure. All of their numbers are, generally speaking, best guesses, (yes, and that even includes how much they claim Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are worth, too) and often Forbes gets them wrong. They didn't mention the missing $900M that was siphoned off from the PA for shits and giggles, either. I would hazard a guess that they think Yassir's got the loot stashed away, but they can't prove it. Neither is it insignificant that they mention Sufa was/is being investigated by the French for receiving a large chunk of change from an account in Switzerland. Hmmmm. What does this add up to? Well, I'm not sure, but it does bring up some interesting questions, doesn't it? It also makes her "Yassir's ALIVE!" fit seem like, well, a diversionary tactic. I don't know and it's important to mention that this is all speculation on my part, but I would like to know how much did Sufa know about the missing $900M and if she parlayed that into $22M a year for the rest of her life. It might be unlikely that Sufa, a woman living in Paris, far from Ramallah, would have any information or doings with the management of that money, particularly given how Islamic women are treated most of the time, but it does make some sense, in a limited sort of way. Someone was needed to look after all those accounts, and that someone needed to be placed on the continent, for easy access. Swiss banking rules have tightened up over the years, and while it's still possible to transfer ungodly amounts of money via a phone call or a fax, you still need someone there to look after regulatory issues, like keeping the bank manager happy. Also, if she's receiving wire transfers from Switzerland, into her personal account, well, that might be an opening into learning about how much she knows. How many other transfers did she receive that the French government doesn't know about? The only way that having the PA foot the bill for her extravagant lifestyle, when they could have easily told her to piss up a rope given what the world knows about Yassir's net worth, makes any sort of sense is that she held out the return of all that loot as incentive for them to play her game. I don't know. My mind could be running away with me, but I still think there's more to it than just keeping Yassir "alive." That's not a big enough trump card to play, in my humble estimation, to get the PA to cough up all that loot. That all this is going on while Palestinians suffer should be unbelievable. Unfortuately, given Yassir's actions in the past, it's not. Apparently he taught his wife a few tricks on how to play the game. {hat tip: Fausta. See also: Roger Simon}
UPDATE: 11/01/2004 Steve-o suggests that they can get Stifler's mom to play her in the movie.
Although, if she offers you scotch, I would recommend running the other way.
Posted by Kathy at November 1, 2004 10:16 AM | TrackBack