- Mar 6, 2004
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Jerusalem Post
IMEMC
Arutz Sheva, literally, Channel Seven (Israel National News)
Haaretz - (Ehud) Barak orders renewal of diesel fuel supply to Gaza Strip
Know why diesel fuel is so critical to Gaza? When Yasser Arafat built power plants for Gaza, they built diesel plants so Fatah could subsidize the diesel and in essence double dip on their profits from electricity.
euFunding.org.uk - An Independent Look at the Role of European Funding in the Middle East
guardian.co.uk
WSJ
That is why Hamas was elected. Fatah have proven themselves time and time again to be a corrupt group of old fogies with nothing better to do than siphon away the aid money of an impoverished and oppressed people.
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The complete first page is filled with little tidbits on Israel & Palestinians.
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Senior Anandtech Moderator
Common Courtesy
"Fatah paid the price because of its corrupt administration and a bunch of corrupt leaders," said Samir Mashharawi, a senior Fatah activist from the Gaza Strip. Stressing that his party would respect the choice of the people, Mashharawi said that Fatah should not be ashamed to be in opposition.
"Our interest now is to serve as a real opposition and to accept responsibility for the mistakes we made," he said.
Fatah activists here blamed the party's veteran leadership for the humiliating defeat. "The people punished us because of the mismanagement and corruption of the mafia that came from Tunis," said Nasser Abdel Hakim, referring to the Fatah leaders who returned with Yasser Arafat from Tunis in 1994. "What we need now is a real revolution in Fatah and a new leadership that will help us repair the damage."
IMEMC
Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a leader in the Hamas movement, held a press conference on Tuesday night in Al Burej refugee camp in the central Gaza strip, during which he produced documents allegedly proving the involvement of Fatah leaders in financial corruption.
Al-Zahar said that $30 billion was deposited in the foreign bank accounts of Palestinian leaders, with additional funds found in local bank accounts. He contrasted this amount with the annual Palestinian Authority budget which is only $1.3 billion.
According to Al-Zahar, the documents were found by Hamas in former Gaza security headquarters, after the movement took total control of the Gaza strip last month following a wave of violent infighting between Hamas and Fatah. The documents, Al-Zahar alleged, proved the involvement of several Fatah leaders, among them Nabil Abu Rudenah, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; current appointed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; and Mohammad Rashid, a Fatah leader and aide to the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
"Documents issued in 1997 by the internal monitoring committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council state that the financial corruption could exceed $326 billion in that year. In addition, Mr. Abu Rudenah received $33,000 USD from Arafat as expenses for his daughters in Great Britian," Al-Zahar said.
According to the documents, Israeli authorities initiated a probe regarding payments which exceed $1 million USD a year by an Israeli businessman, Ovad Kuku, to Mohammad Dahalan, a Fatah leader and fired national security council director. Al-Zahar added that those documents show that Kuku also paid $400,000 USD on a yearly basis to Mohammad Rashid. He further alleged that both Rashid and Dahalan are involved in faking invoices and non-existent deals with the businessman.
Dr. Al-Zahar said that the leaders of the Palestinian Authority were involved in monopoly deals to control oil, food and other products in the region. All income from those deals was then distributed among the leaders on a regular basis.
Those documents also allegedly show that Israeli authorities at one point refused to transfer taxes collected at the Karen A commercial crossing, located between the Gaza strip and Israel, to anyone but Mohammad Dahalan.
Dr. Al-Zahar concluded by stating that in 2006, an internal investigation by the internal committee for inspection in the Palestinian Legislative Council showed that the Palestinian national treasury is missing $315 million USD. The committee also investigated an additional $700 million USD that went missing in previous years.
This article is sourced from Palestine Info News Agency.
Arutz Sheva, literally, Channel Seven (Israel National News)
Fatah PA Corruption Exposed
by Maayana Miskin and Ezra HaLevi
(IsraelNN.com) Senior Fatah officials in the Palestinian Authority health system systematically stole valuable medications and replaced them with worthless placebo pills.
The placebos, which lab tests show had no medical value, were passed along to clinics and hospitals, where they were given to patients suffering from serious and often life-threatening diseases.
The real medications were taken to massive warehouses in Ramallah and Shechem, and were sold for high prices on the black market. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said over the weekend that the allegations would be investigated.
The PA has been hit by other scandals in recent weeks. PA negotiator Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) was recently accused of embezzling millions of dollars in PA funds, as was former Arafat advisor Khaled Salam. A third senior official was recently caught attempting to smuggle cellular telephones.
PA Considers Investigating Top Arafat Aide
PA officials said Saturday that they are considering an investigation of Khaled Salam, also known as Mohammed Rashid, a former senior advisor to deceased PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. PA General Prosecutor Ahmed al-Mughni said Salam is planning a $600 million investment in a Jordanian project, and that the money may have come from funds meant for the PA.
Rashid was involved in several financial partnerships with Israelis on ventures such as the Jericho casino.
Haaretz - (Ehud) Barak orders renewal of diesel fuel supply to Gaza Strip
Know why diesel fuel is so critical to Gaza? When Yasser Arafat built power plants for Gaza, they built diesel plants so Fatah could subsidize the diesel and in essence double dip on their profits from electricity.
euFunding.org.uk - An Independent Look at the Role of European Funding in the Middle East
Details of Fatah Corruption
February 10, 2006
The Funding for Peace Coalition has already noted that Palestinian attorney general, Ahmed Al-Meghani, announced how senior officials of the Palestinian Authority (PA) have stolen at least $700 million of public funds.
The PA's official web site, Palestine Media Center, has now provided details as to the extent of the problem.
Once again, it is evident that corruption is deeply entrenched within the establishment of the PA. Untraceable expenditures, illegal land sales, investments in factories which were never built, and far more. Most of the instances are linked to Fatah officials, who have enjoyed the support of Chairman Arafat and now President Abbas. One has to wonder if it is coincidence that since October 2005, the PA has ceased to publish its financial records on the Internet.
And again, we remind our members that around 25% of the PA budget relies on external donations, of which the EU and its member states are amongst the biggest contributors.
Nothing changes; The World Bank is correct. The Palestinians are losing out as their leadership profited and continues to benefit from the deep pockets of the international community.
What follows is the version of Al-Meghani's announcements, as they appear on the PA web site.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=1089
Interpol Hunting Ten Palestinians Accused of Corruption
Influential People in Senior PNA Positions Involved in 50 Corruption Cases
06/02/2006
Palestine Media Center - PMC
Palestinian attorney general Ahmed Al-Meghani told reporters on Sunday that a corruption investigation involving a multi-million dollar scandal has concluded that senior officials of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) may have stolen $700 million of public funds, adding he has made 25 arrests so far and issued international warrants for 10 other people, whom the PNA is seeking their extradition by the INTERPOL.
Some of the fugitives were arrested and now in his custody in Palestinian prisons, said Al-Meghani. "We are proceeding with other procedures in this regard in accordance with the Riyadh Arab agreement for judicial cooperation in 1983," he added.
"There are 50 cases of financial and administrative corruption. The amount of money that was squandered and stolen is more than $700 million," he told a press conference in Gaza City, adding: "Some of these millions were transferred into personal accounts here and abroad."
However he hinted the amount of stolen money could be much higher: "I cannot count the numbers because I'm not an accountant. It might be billions of dollars. When I end my investigation, I'm going to put out in detail all the numbers."
Investigation into 27 files was completed and "procedures will be taken before the courts in the coming days," he said.
The defendants are "influential people in senior positions, but law will apply to all without exception," he confirmed, adding that they are innocents until proved otherwise.
He said the inquiry included the state-owned oil, tobacco and broadcasting corporations as well as publicly owned land.
He cited land bought by the PNA in the northern West Bank in which the purchased land only existed on paper.
Among the corruption files under investigation Al-Meghani said that some defendants are accused of selling land to foreign countries, meaning Israel, the Occupying Power of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967.
An ex-police chief is also being investigated with regard to licensing of vehicles and house protection.
Investigation involves why the archives of passports were destroyed.
The Ministry of Social Affairs is being probed for administrative and financial violations, the customs for exempting the "retunees" from duties, and the Ministry of Health for purhases funded by the World Bank.
There is a file also involving the London-based Arabic daily newspaper "Al-Quds Al-Arabi," which is owned by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
The corruption probe also involved a charity for supporting Palestinian students and a children theatre.
The Investigation involves also a center of human and development research as well as "public institutions" in the Gaza Strip.
The cases also include payments of $4m of PNA funds and $2m of Italian aid money to a fictitious pipe factory. "The factory existed only on paper and the investigation is under way to find out where the money went," the attorney general said.
The attorney general added there is a file on Al-Zir Contracting company.
As for the widely-publicized scandal of the cement that was used in the construction of the Apartheid Wall Israel is building on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, Ahmed Al-Meghani said it is still confidential and under investigation.
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) had referred the cement file to the attorney general.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had previously transferred 32 cases of abuse to the attorney general for review.
"We have the support from the president to open all the files and strict instructions that everyone must be under the law," Al-Meghani said.
Al-Meghani assumed his duties on September 18 last year.
He said he was scheduled to hold a press conference on December 20 to make a public announcement about the investigation, but President Abbas instructed him to postpone it so as not to be interpreted as an electoral propaganda for this or that party during the campaign for the legislative elections on January 25, the attorney general told reporters.
The announcement on Sunday came less than a fortnight after Hamas's sweeping victory in the parliamentary elections that is mostly attributed to widespread unhappiness at graft among some Palestinian leaders.
Corruption and economic mismanagement have also contributed to a PNA financial crisis.
Welcoming the investigation, a spokesman for Hamas said those responsible should be brought to justice.
"One of Hamas' top priorities for the coming stage in the Parliament and in the government is to open this file and to chase and bring to justice all the corrupt officials who stole public money and made huge wealth," Mushir Al-Masri, the Hamas spokesman, said.
The World Bank said in a report Wednesday that the PNA's fiscal position had become increasingly unsustainable because of "uncontained" government spending on sharp increases in salaries and hiring.
Nigel Roberts, the World Bank's former representative in the Palestinian territories, said in a recent interview with Israel's Haaretz daily that the PNA received more than $5 billion of aid over a five-year period but was on the verge of being bankrupt.
The Al Quds index on the screen-based exchange in the West Bank city of Nablus has fallen 7.2 per cent since the victory of Hamas in parliamentary elections.
But the Governor of the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA), George Abed, said that the PNA banking system was sound, with $4.7bn in deposits, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
guardian.co.uk
Samira Muhammad's vote is as much about revenge as anything.
Seated on the doorstep of her bullet-riddled home on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, she gestures at a house on the opposite side of the street flattened by Israeli armour when the tanks still used to crash in to Khan Yunis refugee camp. However, the target of her ire is not the Israelis but the Palestinian government.
"Nobody came to clear that house. Our children are playing in the rubble. They fall and hurt themselves. It's typical of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority. They don't do anything. Maybe Hamas will. I'm sick of Fatah. There is so much corruption," said the mother of seven, who is 35.
Criticism of the Fatah movement, which has governed the Palestinian territories since the last election 10 years ago, has been common on the streets of Gaza for years. But with Palestinians voting tomorrow in the first national election in which there is a genuine contest for power, the attacks no longer go unchallenged. The party colours bunched like flowers on lampposts, the posters of bearded faces plastering almost every public space and the parade of deafening loudspeakers through the streets testify to the hard struggle for votes once taken for granted.
Opinion polls suggest that Fatah, the movement founded by Yasser Arafat, is fighting to stave off Hamas, the armed Islamist group. Fatah still looks likely to come out on top but without an outright majority, and that will probably mean sharing power. The polls say that rampant corruption, nepotism and mismanagement are the main factors in the draining away of support from Fatah.
Hamas has made much of it in television commercials built around the usual scenes of explosions and shooting but now directed against the Palestinian Authority's shortcomings. One advert opens with the word "corruption". It swiftly explodes into a ball of fire followed by a similar fate for nepotism, bribery and chaos. Only then come the pictures of Palestinian gunmen fighting Israeli forces in Jerusalem and Nablus, followed by scenes of wounded Palestinian children.
"We want to vote for someone who is poor like us, who feels for us," said Mrs Muhammad. "For 10 years Fatah haven't done anything for us. We have to try Hamas. We can't say if they will be better but we have to try."
There are many on the streets of Khan Yunis who feel that Hamas can only be worse. For a start, a Hamas-run government is less likely to reach a peace agreement with the Israelis.
"What are our real problems? Unemployment and the economy. They cannot be solved without negotiations with the Israelis," said Fathi Rantisi, a 25-year-old computer engineer and Fatah voter. "Hamas don't want to deal with the Israelis but we have to whether we like it or not. They are the people we have to make peace with."
But there is a recognition among Fatah voters that many of the party's existing leaders are discredited as corrupt or incompetent. "This is the most important issue in Fatah now, to change the leaders," said Salam Abdel, a Fatah supporter. "But corruption is everywhere because we are living in very difficult times. If there was peace with the Israelis there wouldn't be the corruption. Anyway, do you think Hamas won't be tainted by corruption? We'll see how they do in parliament."
Salim al-Agha, a 53-year-old engineer, was most concerned about growing insecurity on the streets amid factional and clan violence. He was not keen to say how he intended to vote but did want to see Fatah and Hamas sharing power after the election.
In Gaza, Fatah's campaign is led by the local strongman - some prefer to call him a thug - Muhammad Dahlan. He is riled by Hamas's attempts to claim that it has led the armed struggle and driven the Israeli army from Gaza. Mr Dahlan invoked Arafat's name and mocked Hamas at a final election rally yesterday in Khan Yunis, where he is fighting for a seat in parliament. "Hamas accused Arafat of betraying the people and destroying Palestine [by reaching the Oslo accords with Israel]. But here they are taking part in elections because of what Arafat agreed. They should apologise to Fatah and admit that our plan triumphed," he said.
Earlier Mr Dahlan led a rally outside Arafat's old house in Gaza City yesterday. Fatah is reminding voters that long before they had heard of Hamas, Arafat was shooting at Israelis. A giant banner on the side of the house might at first glance be mistaken for an advert for an action film. Just like Hamas posters, it featured rockets, explosions, masked men with guns.
"We are the ones carrying the olive branch and the gun," said one Fatah speaker, Fuad Madi. "We are the ones who fought first. We are the ones who used the first stones and the first bullets. We wrote our struggle with blood."
Then the audience were asked to raise their hands and swear in the name of God, the dead and the prisoners to vote for Fatah.
Mr Dahlan has told rallies across the Gaza Strip that things will change, that Fatah is reforming, that the corrupt old guard is on its way out.
Mrs Muhammad is not persuaded. "Dahlan came here and promised us he would do this and that. We don't believe him. We heard it before," she said.
About this article
Fatah struggles with tainted image
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk at 09.06 GMT on Tuesday 24 January 2006. It appeared in the Guardian on Tuesday 24 January 2006 on p20 of the International news section. It was last updated at 09.06 GMT on Tuesday 24 January 2006.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
WSJ
Fatah Isn't the Answer
By MICHAEL OREN
America and its Middle Eastern allies have every reason to panic. The green flags of Hamas are furling over Gaza and the al-Fatah forces trained and financed by the United States have ignominiously fled. Fears are rife that Iranian-backed and Syrian-hosted terror will next achieve dominance over the West Bank and proceed to undermine the pro-Western governments of Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and the Gulf.
To avert this catastrophe, the U.S. has joined with the Israelis and the Europeans in resuming the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of its Fatah president, Mahmoud Abbas, and accelerating talks for the establishment of a West Bank Palestinian state. The goal is to provide Palestinians with an affluent, secular and peaceful alternative to Hamas, and persuade Gazans to return to the Fatah fold. But the policy ignores every lesson of the abortive peace process to date as well as Fatah's monumental corruption, jihadism and militancy. Indeed, any sovereign edifice built on the rotten foundations of the Palestinian Authority is doomed to implode, enhancing, rather than diminishing, Hamas's influence.
[Photo]
Gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Is funding them the path to peace?
Since its creation by the so-called Oslo Accords of 1993, the PA has garnered more international aid than any entity in modern history -- more, per capita, than the European states under the Marshall Plan. The lion's share of this fortune has been siphoned into the private accounts of Fatah leaders or used to pay off the commanders of some 16 semi-autonomous militias. The PA also maintains an estimated 60,000 uniformed gunmen on its payroll, giving the West Bank the world's highest percentage of policemen-to-population.
The Palestinian people, meanwhile, languish in ever-deepening poverty and unemployment, while lawlessness plagues Palestinian streets. The unbridled corruption of the PA and its Fatah headmen served as a principal cause of Hamas's electoral victory in 2006, as well its takeover of Gaza. Viewers of Hamas television have recently been treated to tours of the lavish villas maintained by Fatah officials in the Strip, and video clips showing PA policemen, more abundantly armed and more numerous than Hamas's troops, fleeing at the first sign of battle.
Though Fatah originally aspired to replace Israel with a secular, democratic state in Palestine, the organization refashioned itself in 1990s as an Islamic movement, embracing the lexicon of jihad. Hundreds of mosques were built with public funds, and imams were hired to spread the message of martyrdom and the hatred of Christians and Jews. These themes became the staple of the official PA media, inciting the suicide bombings that began in 2000 and poisoning an entire generation of Palestinian youth. Ironically, the Islamization of Fatah legitimized Hamas and contributed to the cadres of religious extremists who are now defying its authority.
In addition to its fiscal malfeasance and Islamic radicalism, Fatah has never fulfilled its pledges to crack down on terror. Though Mahmoud Abbas routinely criticizes Palestinian terrorist attacks as "contrary to the Palestinian national interest" -- not an affront to morality and international law -- he has never disavowed the al-Aqsa Brigades, a Fatah affiliate responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks against Israeli civilians.
In the past, such assaults have served as a means of maintaining Fatah's legitimacy as a resistance movement and countering charges that the organization sold out to America and Israel. In fact, a distinct correlation exists between the amount of support that Fatah receives from the West and its need to prove its "Palestinianess" through terror.
In view of its performance over the past 14 years, the Palestinian Authority under Fatah can be counted on to squander most or all of the vast sums now being given to it by the U.S. and the international community. More gunmen will be hired and better weapons procured, but in the absence of a unified command and a leadership worth fighting for, PA soldiers will perform no more credibly than they did in Gaza. Mr. Abbas will continue to denounce terror while ignoring the terrorist units within his own organization, while PA imams will persist in preaching their jihadist sermons.
In response, Israel will be precluded from lifting the checkpoints that not only block suicide bombers but hinder communication between Palestinian cities. Impeded by Palestinian attacks and Israeli countermeasures, the peace talks will inexorably grind to a halt. In the end, the Palestinian people will remain impoverished, divided and stateless, and more than ever amenable to the purist polity of Hamas.
If funding and empowering Fatah is not a viable option for the U.S., what other courses might the administration take? Clearly no progress toward Palestinian statehood can be made before Fatah has reformed itself financially, ideologically and structurally. Even under the most propitious circumstances this process is certain to take many years -- longer if economic aid and political support are provided to the PA unconditionally. Similarly, proposals for containing Hamas's influence by stationing an international force along the Gaza border are unlikely to succeed if for no other reason than Hamas's avowed determination to resist such a deployment. Yet the need to combat Hamas and provide Palestinians with an attractive diplomatic horizon remains acute. There is, fortunately, an interim answer.
The U.S., together with its Quartet partners, can work to establish areas of extensive Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank. Within these districts, local Palestinian leaders will be fully empowered to manage all aspects of daily life including health, education and resource management. A national assembly, comprised of representatives from each district, will meet regularly to deliberate issues of West Bank-wide concern. Security, however, will be jointly administered by Israel and Jordan. The Jordanian involvement is crucial to convincing Palestinians that the status quo of occupation has ended and they may in the future assume full responsibility for their internal defense. Such an arrangement will benefit Jordan as well, by facilitating its efforts to fight radicalism and stem the flight of Palestinians over its borders.
Visiting Washington this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described the Hamas conquest of Gaza as an opportunity for the Palestinians. This indeed may be the case, but not by resurrecting long-failed policies and imposing a state structure on a corrupt and incompetent Fatah. Doing so is tantamount to investing in the Titanic. Significant opportunities do, however, exist for policy makers -- American, Israeli, and Palestinian -- who are willing to consider new paradigms and incremental steps toward the realization of a durable peace.
Mr. Oren is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center and the author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present" (Norton, 2007).
That is why Hamas was elected. Fatah have proven themselves time and time again to be a corrupt group of old fogies with nothing better to do than siphon away the aid money of an impoverished and oppressed people.
-------------------------------------
The complete first page is filled with little tidbits on Israel & Palestinians.
More threads are not needed.
Senior Anandtech Moderator
Common Courtesy
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