Seven Lies About Jenin

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November 12, 2002

I watched Muhammad Bakri’s film Jenin, Jenin in a limited forum, with Jerusalem Cinematheque Director Leah Van Leer and several journalists. After the private screening, I responded and indicated each lie and lack of credibility. One of those present at the screening was outraged: “If you don’t accept the facts in the film, you apparently don’t understand anything; how can you be a doctor?”

For a moment, I forgot that I had been in Jenin last April, serving as a regional brigade doctor, while this viewer had, at best, been fed on rumors. Bakri expertly weaves together lies and half-truths until it becomes very difficult not to be seduced by the distorted picture he creates.

I did not succeed in convincing the Cinematheque management to cancel the screening. I was told that the pictures of destroyed homes were authentic and that there was, therefore, truth in the film, and that the film would be shown around the world in any case. Even so, I was invited to its premiere screening in Jerusalem and I arrived in order to explain my position to the audience. Following are several points that I wished to raise to the audience:

Dr. Abu Riali, director of the hospital in Jenin, claims in the film that the western wing of the hospital was shelled and destroyed and that the IDF knowingly hit the hospital’s water and power supplies. There never was any such wing and in any case, no part of the hospital was either shelled or blown up. IDF soldiers took care not to enter its grounds even though we knew that it was serving as a refuge for several wanted fugitives. We guarded the water, electricity and oxygen supplies to the hospital all throughout the fighting and assisted in setting up an emergency generator after the city’s electrical system was damaged. Bakri himself is seen in the film wandering the hospital’s clean and well-kept corridors, but not in the blown up wing. I met him outside the theater and asked him if he had visited the western wing. At first he said no, then he corrected himself and said, “You remember one moment in the film with shattered glass – it was from there.” It is important to point out that this Abu Riali is one of the “authorized sources” for the claim of a “massacre.” At the beginning of the operation, he was interviewed on Al-Jazeera television and spoke of, “thousands of victims.”
Another impressive part of the film is the interview with a male 75-year-old Jenin resident who mumbles and cries and tells how he was taken out of his bed in the middle of the night, shot in the hand, and after he failed to obey the soldiers’ command to get up, was shot again in the foot. I met this very same old man as he was brought to me after an operation to clear one of the Hamas cells’ houses in the refugee camp. He had indeed been lightly injured in the hand and was suffering from a minor scratch on the foot, but certainly not as the result of a bullet. IDF soldiers transferred him to a secure station that had been set up to treat wounded and there he was treated by me, among others. One of the military doctors identified diagnosed a heart problem. We suggested that he be transferred immediately to Haemek Hospital in Afula for treatment. He asked to be treated at the hospital in Jenin since he did not speak Hebrew. After the hospital refused to admit him, we transferred him to Afula and he stayed there for three days in the internal medicine department for treatment of his heart problems and the anemia that he suffered from as a result of another chronic illness.
Another person who was interviewed spoke about a baby who suffered a chest wound from a bullet that entered through his chest and exited his body, creating a hole in his back. According to the film the baby died after IDF soldiers prevented his evacuation to hospital. A baby’s body with this type of injury has never been found. Moreover, such an injury would have been fatal, and evacuation would not have saved his life. What is this baby’s name? Where did his body disappear to?
The same person interviewed also told how, using his finger, he opened the baby’s airway in his neck after he was injured. Again, a complete lie. Such an action cannot be carried out with a finger. This “witness” adds that tanks ran over living people many times until they were completely crushed – this never happened and is imaginary.
The film mentions a mass gravesite that IDF soldiers dug for Palestinian dead. Every international organization that investigated the matter concur that there were 52 Palestinian dead in Jenin, and that all the bodies were returned to the Palestinians for burial. Bakri does not bother to show the supposed location of this mass gravesite.
Israeli planes that supposedly bombed the city are mentioned in the film. There were no such planes. In order to prevent civilian casualties, only focused helicopter fire was used.
It is interesting to note that Bakri was not present in Jenin at the time of the operation, and only arrived two weeks after it was completed. In pictures shot at the site in the center of Jenin, the damage appears much larger than it was in actual fact, and the martyrs’ pictures and jihad slogans – which had been present at the time of the IDF military operation – had disappeared from the walls of houses. The film systematically and repeatedly uses manipulative pictures of tanks taken in other locations, artificially placing them next to pictures of Palestinian children.

In general, this is a vulgar, but extremely well done, work of manipulation.

At the conclusion of the film, hundreds of viewers gave Bakri and the film’s editor a standing ovation. Bakri asked the audience if there were any questions. I presented myself, I went up to the stage and began to systematically list the lies and inaccuracies in the film.

At first there were whispers in the audience, and later scornful calls, and I was labeled a “murderer,” “war criminal” etc. I had barely succeeded in finishing my second point when a man in the audience aggressively came up on stage and tried to take the microphone out of my hand. I decided not to be dragged into violence. I allowed him to take the microphone and left the stage. I was surprised that only a few people stood up for my right to free speech and free expression. I was shocked that the audience was unwilling to hear the facts from someone who had physically been there.

It was difficult for me as a person, as a father and a doctor to hear calls of “murderer” from my people. I said that I did not kill anyone. But the calls became more heated, immense hatred was directed towards me. It left me with a hard feeling that has not subsided. I am not sorry that I went to the Cinematheque that evening. I am certain that in any case there were people who heard my doubts, and that this changed a small amount of their feelings towards the “facts” they saw. I am sure there were other people who were shocked at the intolerance demonstrated by the audience, but even so, it is hard for me [to accept] that they were the silent minority.

Allow me to say what I was unable to say to those people that evening. I am proud that I was part of this excellent and ethical force that operated in Jenin, regular army soldiers and reservists with motivation and a fighting spirit, who went to destroy the terrorist infrastructure in its capital. Many suicide-bombers came from Jenin, and were responsible for the murder of the elderly, women and children on our streets. I am proud that we were there, that we fought, and I also am proud of the morality of the battle. The camp was not bombed from the air in order to prevent innocent civilian casualties, and artillery was not used even though we knew about specific areas in the [refugee] camp where terrorists were holing up. IDF soldiers fought against terrorists, and terrorists only. Before destroying a building where terrorist fire against our soldiers had originated from, as many warnings as could be allowed, were given, so that the people could leave without injury. The medical team administered medical aid to all casualties, even if they had Hamas tattoos on their hands. At no point was any person refused medical treatment.

This battle, heroic on one hand and ethical on the other, took a heavy toll from the best of our fighters! We who had to be there – the soldiers that fell there, their families and the IDF – do not deserve that Muhammad Bakri should incite the world to murder and hatred at our expense.

See What happened in Jenin? at www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0i9o0#jenin

This piece ran in Maariv, November 8, 2002

Why would the PLO attack a Left Wing Kibbutz?

By

David Bedein

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November 12, 2002

On November 12, 2002, a Fateh terorrist infiltrated the left wing Shomer HaTzair Kibbutz Metzer, which had made a name for itself in the Israeli peace movement and in Arab-Jewish dialogue.

The Fatah terrorist murdered the kibbutz secretary, a woman school teacher along with a mother and her two little boys.

The country was stunned.

Why would the PLO attack a left wing Israeli kibbutz?

The answer was not long in coming.

The attack on Kibbutz Metzer was followed by the news item on official PBC radio the next morning at 7:30 a.m. that celebrated “an attack on an illegal settlement colony in which five illegal colonial settlers were killed”.

The Fatah web site, located at www.fatehorg.org, immediately ascribed credit to the Fatah for the attack on the “illegal settlement”. “This was a heroic attack. We will continue such attacks until all settlements on our conquered territory are liberated” (Kibbutz Metzer was founded in 1952 on lands that belonged to an Arab village that was abandoned during the 1948 war. Kibbutz Metzer therefore appears on the map of what the PLO defines as “illegal settlements” that were founded after 1948)

All day long, the Arabic media of the PA and the Fatah blared sounds of rejoicing. In October 1993, The Fatah and the PA declared a death sentence for illegal settlers in illegal settlements, and the sentence was carried out once again.

The PLO defines the Jewish communities that replaced 531 Arab villages in 1948 as “illegal Jewish settlements”.

The PBC radio refers to the 144 Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Katif only as “settlements”, since none of the 144 Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria or Katif overran any Arab village.

The maps of illegal settlements provided by the PA at target only the Jewish settlements that “overran” Arab villages from 1948, with no mention of the Jewish settlements in.Judea and Samaria. These maps appear on all the PA website at www.pba-palestine.org

Israel Resource News Agency alerted the visiting media in Israel to listen to PBC radio and to access the Fatah web site.

Yet in the 12 hours that followed the Metzer murders, not one news agency reported on the PBC or the Fatah web site

The PLO PR machine, orchestrated by Mr. Edward Abington, former US consul and current PLO lobbyist in Washington, DC, worked overtime, and flooded the foreign and even the Israeli media with condemnations of the murders at Kibbutz Metzer, to make it seem like their was universal Palestinian Arab revulsion from the murders.

The official PBC Radio operates out of Arafat’s Mukatta Headquarters under the direct editorial control of Arafat.

And how does Fatah get its funding?

Documents seized by the Israel Defence Forces from Arafat’s Mukkatta which have been verified by British intelligence and publicized by HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH show that the funding for Fatah terror comes from 5% fee that is attached to all PA salaries paid by the European Union. Yet EU Commissioner for External Relations Chris Patten declared this week that the EU would make not make any changes in the funding of the PA.

Sancho Javier, spokesman for Migeul Morantinous, middle east envoy of the European Commission delegation to the middle east peace process, was asked to comment on the PBC and Fatah endorsement of the murders at Kibbutz Metzer.

Javier said that he relied on what spokesmen of the PA were telling him, which is that the PA condemned the attack. When asked if the European Commission was following the PBC and Fatah endorsement of the attacks on the official PBC radio and the official website of the Fatah, Javier responded by saying that “The European Commission does not have the capacity to do that. We have no way of knowing what they are telling their people in Arabic”

The time has come to provide the European Commision with a transistor radio, an internet connection and an Arabic translator.

Epilogue

Within hours of the attack on Kibbutz Metzer, the Fateh launched an interactive poll in which it asked questions with the following results:

“Do you favor martyrdom attacks….

Within Israel’s 1948 lines… 5.5% answered affirmatively
Within Israel’s 1967 lines… 13% answered affirmatively
Within both the 1948 and 1967 lines… 70.83% responded affirmatively
Not in favor of any martyrdom attacks… 10.19% responded affirmatively

The fateh poll can be accessed at: www.fatehorg.org/ara/modules.php?name=Surveys&op=results&pollID=3.

Fatah has given a new meaning to the concept of Palestinian self-determination.

Translation of Current “Yesh Gvul” Leaflet for Distribution to Encourage IDF soldiers to Desert

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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November 8, 2002

The Yesh Gvul Campaign:

This is a translation of the current Yesh Gvul leaflet for distribution to IDF soldiers:

Soldier

We all want to defend our country.

We’re all sick and tired of terrorism.

We all want peace.

But do our actions permit of an end to the cycle of bloodshed ?

Since 1967, Israel has ruled over 3.5 million Palestinians, running their lives by means of a forcible occupation, with continual violations of human rights.

The occupation regime has merely exacerbated Israel’s security problems; at this time, it endangers the life of each one of its citizens, yours included !

Soldier, it’s in your hands !

Ask yourself whether your actions in the course of your military service enhance national security ? Or do those actions merely fuel the enmity and the acts of violence between us and our Palestinian neighbours ?

You can stop the violence

Soldier: the occupation breeds terrorism

When you take part in extrajudicial killings (“liquidation” in the army’s terms);

When you take part in demolishing residential homes;

When you open fire at unarmed civilian population or residential homes;

When you uproot orchards

When you interdict food supplies or medical treatment –

You are taking part in actions defined in international conventions (such as the Fourth Geneva Convention) and in Israeli law, as war crimes.

As far back as 40 years ago, an Israeli court ruled that a soldier is forbidden to obey a flagrantly illegal order.

Soldier – do you consider such war crimes justifiable ?

Don’t acts of “liquidation” provoke suicide bombings ?

Is it justifiable to demolish the homes and vandalise the property of entire families ?

Can one justify the killing of children, women, old people – or, overall, of unarmed civilians ?

What are the “security” grounds to justify starving entire villages and depriving the sick of medical care ?

Soldier: don’t these daily acts of repression, which are part of the routine of the occupation – curfew and blockade, land confiscation, preventing people from working or studying, the run-around and humiliation at the roadblocks and the violent searches in Palestinian homes – fuel hatred of us ?

End the occupation – End the cycle of bloodshed!

Soldier: the occupation causes loss of life

Even the heads of the defence establishment concede that there is no military solution to terrorism.

“All the preventative work we’ve done this past year is like trying to empty out the sea with a teaspoon,” a senior security official admitted. (“Haaretz”, 19.12.2001)

Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shabak security police, says: “An ideology can’t be killed by killing leaders.”

Soldier, is there a people anywhere in the world that will not resist an occupation regime ?

If you were in the Palestinians’ shoes, would you be willing to bow your head to a foreign ruler ?

Two years ago, we were convinced that the occupation of southern Lebanon was vital for our security. Twenty years ago, we were certain that our occupation of the Sinai peninsula guaranteed our security.

But thanks to termination of our occupation of those areas, we have avoided shedding the blood of our soldiers.

Since the onset of the current intifada, over a thousand Israelis and Palestinians have been killed, most of them unarmed civilians taking no part in the fighting. As long as we hold on to the occupied Palestinian territories, we will continue to shed our own blood and that of the Palestinians.

End the occupation – End the bloodshed!

Soldier: the occupation undermines our country

We are all concerned for the wellbeing of the state of Israel. We all want the state to invest more in education, social services, health, and development of our infrastructure.

But to maintain the occupation, the state spends billions on upkeep of the army in the territories, on settlements, on laying bypass roads and all the rest.

The state is cutting back on civilian services to enlarge the military budget.

The occupation, and the violence that it prompts, drag the economy down into recession. Investors are in flight, tourists stay away, entire sections of the economy are in collapse.

Wouldn’t it be preferable to use the money to reinforce our social structures ?

Wouldn’t it be preferable to channel the funds to our crumbling health and education systems ?

Is it just to neglect the aged, the handicapped and the unemployed in favour of further settlements ?

End the occupation, public allotments to the disadvantaged, not the settlements!

Soldier, the occupation undermines the army

The occupation is harmful to the army and its soldiers. Training is called off because soldiers spend so much time on routine duty in the territories -guarding settlements, protecting highways, and forays into Palestinian towns and villages.

Soldiers are required to serve under inhuman conditions – like the four soldiers of the armour corps who spent 234 uninterrupted hours in their tank. In order to sustain the occupation, they weren’t even allowed out to relieve themselves.

Military sources admit the occupation routine subjects soldiers to exhaustion – and exhaustion leads to a decline in fitness and causes accidents.

Wouldn’t it be better to dedicate the time to the country’s real defence needs ?

Ending the occupation will restore the army’s combat readiness.

Wouldn’t it be better to reduce the burden borne by reservists and grant conscripts better conditions ?

End the occupation – Reduce military service to two years!!

Cut down the burden of reserve duty!!

Soldier: There are acts that decent people don’t commit, even if they’re given orders ! Decent people don’t demolish homes; they don’t kill children, women and babies; they don’t starve the neighbouring people, and don’t deny medical care to people just like you and me.

Such conduct weakens our country’s moral fibre.

These acts are actually harmful, even if we’re told they’re for “security purposes”. Every “liquidation” (killing) prompts a bombing. The child you wounded today is tomorrow’s terrorist.

Anyone concerned for national security won’t do things that fuel terrorism.

Soldier – It’s in your hands

We don’t have a surefire recipe. Make up your own mind, guided by your conscience, your feelings, your convictions. We can’t take the decision for you. We can only tell you that many, very many soldiers, have said “NO !” to war crimes !

From the Lebanon war, right up to the present intifada, thousands of soldiers – conscripts and reservists – have plucked up the courage to say “NO !”

Anyone who decides to refuse, reaches that decision on his own. But when he does make up his mind, he will find us extending a helping hand, offering advice, support and help.

Contacting Yesh Gvul
Yesh Gvul,
PO Box 6953,
Jerusalem 91068, Israel

Telephone: (+972-2) 625-0271
Fax: (+972-2) 643-4171
E-mail: peretz@yesh-gvul.org

Contributions can be sent to our address, or transferred to our bank account:

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U.S. citizens: To contribute (tax deductible), funders should make a check out to “The Shefa Fund” and include the notation “Israeli Reservists Fund – Yesh Gvul” in the memo line. Checks should be sent to The Shefa Fund, 8459 Ridge Avenue, Second Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19128

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PNA, Hamas to meet in Cairo Next Week

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

November 8, 2002

[The last meeting between the PNA and Hamas which took place in Cairo in December, 1995 resulted in the PNA-Hamas Cairo accord, which allowed the Hamas to carry out its actions, in area that the PNA would approve – db]

www.jerusalem-times.net/article/news/details/detail.asp?id=2364

Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is to hold talks with the Islamic group Hamas in Cairo next week to thrash out outstanding differences, newly appointed interior minister Hani al-Hassan told reporters at a security workshop in Jericho the only Palestinian city not occupied by the Israeli army. Hassan said that the meeting would take place next week, although he gave no details about what would be discussed or which officials would be present. Hamas did not deny or confirm the scheduled meeting.

“There are a lot of things we have to solve between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority,” he said Sunday. Relations between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority deteriorated sharply last month after a renegade Hamas cell killed a Palestinian police chief, sparking armed clashes in a Gaza Strip refugee camp.

He said the meeting had been arranged through the mediation of the European Union, which earlier this year tried to broker an agreement among all Palestinian factions to end attacks on Israeli civilians but failed after Israel killed Hamas military leader, Salah Shehada, along with 14 civilians last July. Palestinian sources said that suicide attacks especially against civilians inside the green line would be the center of the discussions.

Fateh movement, headed by President Yasser Arafat, believes that suicide attacks inside the green line is the reason behind the international view of the current Intifada as an act of violence and not resistance of the occupation. Hamas insists that suicide operation is the only option left for the Palestinian people to force Israel out of the Palestinian areas.

According to official sources, Fateh delegation will be made up of Zakareya el-Agha, Mohammad Rashid, Samer Mashharawi and Ahmad Ghuneim, while Hamas’ delegation will include Khaled Mash’al, Osama Hamdan, Imad el- Alami, and Moussa Abu Marzouq. The sources confirmed that media will not be present in the meeting and that the final location of the meeting will not be disclosed for the public for security reasons. This article ran in the November 7, 2002 issue of the Jerusalem Times

EU comment on killing Jews beyond the ‘green line” …and PBC praise of the Metzer murders

By

David Bedein

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November 8, 2002

Israel Resource News Agency requested comment from Mr. David Kriss, the press officer of the Delegation of the European Commission to the State of Israel,concerning the widely circulated unconfirmed report that the EU supported the notion that Arabs could murder Jews on the other side of the 1948-1967 armistice “green line” without any objection from the EU.

Kriss stated emphatically said that no such EU policy existed, and also referred to Mr. Javier Sancho,Spokesman of the European Union Special Envoy to the MIddle East Peace Process, Ambassador Moratinos, who is now accompanying the talks in Cairo that took place over the past few days in Cairo between the PA and the HAMAS.

Mr. Sancho stated, on the record, that the EU and the European Commission “condemn Arab terror wherever it would take place, on either side of the ‘green line’… “

Mr. Sancho was surprised to learn that official PBC radio this morning praised and justified last night’s terror attack which took place at Kibbutz Metzer, in which a mother and her two small children along with another man and woman were murdered in cold blood by Arab terrorists.

The PBC radio broadcast this morning at 7:30 a.m. described the attack on Kibbutz Metzer as “an attack on an Israeli settlement colony in which five Israeli settlers were killed”. The PLO defines “illegal” Israeli settlements as those Jewish communities that replaced Arab villages that were abandoned in 1948.

A surprised Mr. Sancho said that the European Commission had been assured that the PA had condemned the attack. However, when asked whether the EU or the European Commission had followed the official PA Voice of Palestine radio or TV broadcasts, Mr. Sancho acknowledged that his office does “not have the capacity to follow the Palestinian Authority media…”

A Religion of Peace?

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

November 4, 2002

CAIRO–Many people in the West believe that Islam is a “religion of peace,” one that condemns the murder of innocents and respects the intrinsic value of human life. Top Islamic clerics and scholars I interviewed recently in Cairo set me straight on this.

Now, having spent much of the past 20 years covering the Middle East conflict, I have heard my share of pronouncements that would be prosecuted as hate speech in the West. It did still come as a bit of a shock to find out that senior government-appointed clerics, especially here in this second-largest receiver of U.S. foreign aid, Egypt, would not just tolerate hate speech, but have become its most dedicated practitioners.

The Egyptian state appoints the Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the land and a man who has the power to issue fatwas and interpretations of shari’a law. Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tayyeb was named by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to the post earlier this year after his predecessor issued a ruling in favor of Palestinian suicide bombers. But if Mr. Mubarak was embarrassed by that Mufti’s public embrace of murder, he may have to reconsider his new choice.

Mr. Al-Tayyeb received me in his office near Al Azhar University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the Arab world. Throughout a 90-minute interview, conducted mostly in Arabic through a government-provided translator, he repeated in excruciating detail his reasoning for encouraging Palestinians to murder innocent civilians through suicide attacks. He also displayed a remarkable flexibility when it came to defining terrorism.

To him, American Christian leader Jerry Falwell is a “terrorist” because he has said things that offended Muslims. Palestinians, on the other hand, are justified in massacring Israeli civilians in cold blood “because they are defending their land and have no other weapons at their disposal.” Pointedly he added: “If you do not do this, you have no loyalty to your country.”

As I interviewed him I remembered that President Mubarak is ostensibly a U.S. “partner” in the war on terrorism. And yet he appointed this cleric who believes that Palestinian suicide bombers who enter restaurants, pool halls, discotheques, and shopping malls to murder innocents–children and adults, Israelis and foreign tourists and whoever else happens to be around–are doing God’s work. Furthermore, the cleric openly condemns any Palestinian who refuses to take such a step as a traitor.

For its “partnership” in the war, Egypt receives an average $2 billion each year from Uncle Sam. U.S. officials in the region insist that Mr. Mubarak has provided “invaluable assistance” in helping to interrogate al-Qaeda terrorists currently held in Egyptian jails. If that is true, it only makes it all the more strange that not only the Mufti but also government-owned Egyptian newspapers are spreading a very different message.

The Mufti is not alone. I also went to speak with a group of Islamic scholars at Al Azhar University, and asked them the same question. Mohammed Abu Laila is a professor of comparative religion and head of the English-language department at Al Azhar. He earned his PhD at Britain’s Exeter University, and did his thesis on Christianity.

Perhaps for that reason he sometimes picked his words better. “We don’t hate Jews because they are Jews,” he said. “We hate what they do against Palestinians. If a Muslim did this, we would hate them, too.” Mr. Abu Laila also condemned the September 11 attacks.

But then he also believes America has launched a “war on Islam” and that President George W. Bush has “never presented evidence” of Bin Laden’s involvement. This is a widely held view throughout the Muslim world. “I need him [Bin Laden] to appear in court and say, ‘I did it,'” Mr. Abu Laila said. As for the Palestinian suicide bombers, he takes the view that their methods are legitimate. “If your country or property is under attack,” Mr. Abu Laila says, “then it is just to defend it through any means. This is not terrorism. Holy Jihad is defensive. You misunderstand this in the West.” Like Hamas leaders do when they defend these terrorists acts, Mr. Abu Laila never uses the term “suicide” but refers only to “martyrs” who are engaged in a just war. “The martyr is donating himself for his cause, to defend his family and his land,” he said.

Perhaps reading my mind, Mr. Abu Laila assured me that “Life is sacred in Islam. But we are facing the Israeli state, which is militarily based. Israeli citizens are like warriors. They have their weapons with them at all times. So who are civilians, the Palestinians or the Israelis?” My interviews with these scholars made it clear that Westerners concerned by the violence in the Middle East need to understand that the two parties to this conflict do not use the same logic, nor do they believe in the same moral code. Those of us who have been brought up in the Judeo-Christian tradition have been taught that respect for life is one of God’s most basic commandments.

But according to these Islamic scholars–and they are not alone–the search for “justice” legitimizes the wanton targeting of innocent civilians. Targeting is the key word here. Civilians die in all wars, something known as “collateral deaths.” But according to these scholars, Islam accepts purposely seeking out innocent civilians in order to sow terror in their society.

A few days before coming to Egypt, I had dinner with an Israeli settler I’ve known for several years. He has spent years getting to know his Arab neighbors and counts them among his closest friends. The evening I met him, he was preparing to distribute clothes to local Bedouin families, the kind of thing he does on a regular basis. Dov Weinstock (known as “Dubak” to his friends) has a simple phrase to describe this difference in logic. “To understand the way the Arabs think, you’ve got to change the diskette,” he says.

Indeed, obeying a different moral operating system, the Arab leaders who continue to promote and finance Palestinian suicide bombers will not stop until they have achieved total victory, or total defeat. Mr. Abu Laila put it well: “If the Israelis do not give in to Arab demands, the conflict in this area will continue until the end of time. We all believe in Armageddon.”

This apperared on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal on November 4, 2002

Israeli Peace Now MK Launches Attack Against Official Palestinian Authority Media

By

David Bedein

-

November 4, 2002

This week, Meretz Knesset member and Peace Now leader Ron Cohen unleashed an unprecedented attack against the Palestinian Authority’s PBC (Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio and TV Station, describing PBC broadcasts and telecasts as “subversive and racist”.

MK Cohen dispatched a letter to the director of the PBC, Radwan Abu Ayash, to cease the PBC broadcasts and telecasts which are picked up throughout Israel and which incite Arab youth, even within Israel, to conduct suicide attacks and to engage in war against the very existence of the state of Israel.

MK Cohen went a step further than any Member of Knesset had ever done before and asked the Israel Minister of Communications, Mr Reuven Rivlin to reconsider the airwave license that the Israeli government had granted to the Palestinian Authority back in 1994 which allowed the PBC free access to the airwave transmissions over Israel.

Reached at his office in the Knesset, MK Cohen says that he was responding to a recent study of Dr. Guy Bichor, a Middle East Arabic studies scholar who has just completed a study of the children’s programs on the PBC, the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, in which Bichor notes the consistent trend of the PBC since its inception in 1994 to indoctrinate a generation of children to commit suicide attacks and to make war on the Jews and on the Zionist entity. As a matter of policy, the PBC does not mention the entity known as the state of Israel.

Asked why MK Cohen was making this statement now, after eight years of PBC incitement, Cohen said that the time had come to admit that neglecting the issue of official Palestinian Arab incitement was the greatest mistake made by the architect of the Oslo process, the late Prime Minister Mr. Yitzhak Rabin. Speaking on November 4th, 2002, on the day that marked seven years to the date of Rabin’s assassination,. “Rabin thought that we should deal with this kind of thing after we would solve everything else, and we now know that Rabin was wrong”, said Cohen in a choked voice, as he recalled Rabin’s memory.” Rabin made a mistake, and that there is no reason to repeat that mistake”, Cohen concluded.

Radwan Abu Ayash, the director of the PBC, was unavailable for comment, and refused to appear on the popular media talk show with MK Ron Cohen that is hosted each week on the Voice of Israel’s IBA (Israel Broadcasting Authority) radio show by veteran Israeli journalist Mati Golan.

Instead, Ayash delegated the PBC Voice of Palestine’s program editor Muhammad Assayad to read a prepared statement, in which he accused MK Cohen of being a “stooge for the Israeli Right Wing and the Settler Radio Station Arutz Sheva”. Cohen laughed and responded that he had just come from a PEACE NOW rally and that he was leading the fight the next day in the Knesset to cut funding for Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Assayad repeated his prepared statement in which he accused MK Cohen of being “a stooge for the Israeli Right Wing and the Settler Radio Station Arutz Sheva”, and remarked that Cohen should be appearing on the Arutz Sheva radio program of Adir Zik, who is “so popular with the settlers”, in Assayad’s words.

IBA talk show host Mati Golan intervened and said to Assayad that MK Cohen was not attacking a “Palestinian Arutz Sheva” or any Palestinian pirate radio show. Golan noted that this was an attack on the official Voice of the Palestinian Authority. Golan asked how the PA would respond if official IBA radio and TV were to run programs that would promote the murder of Palestinian Arab children. Assyad hung up the phone.

Where Does the Money Go? A Study of the Palestinian Authority

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

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November 3, 2002

The Palestinian Authority: Where Does the Money Go?

The following is an examination of how the PA, led by Yasser Arafat, has systemically and systematically used corruption and crime, and diverted funds donated for the development of the Palestinian state, to fund terrorism and to enrich its leadership.

The PLO

In the efforts to stop terrorist financing, the US and international law enforcement agencies might do well to examine how it evolved. The model is hardly new. In fact it dates back more than three decades, and is the prototype for many of today’s terrorist organizations: the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The PLO was classified as a terrorist organization from its inception in 1964 until the Oslo Accords in 1993. Yet, throughout this entire time, it continued to receive financial and political support from the Soviet Union and its satellites in Europe, Latin America and Africa, and from members of the Arab League, as well as other Third World countries. This legitimization, and the accompanying financial backing, allowed the PLO not only to continue its terrorism and criminal activities with impunity, but also allowed the organization to fund a world-wide propaganda campaign, win great popularity and increase its influence.

The PLO used drug trafficking, arms smuggling, money laundering and counterfeiting to amass a fortune estimated by the British National Criminal Intelligence Services (in 1993 & 1994) at about $10 billion. Its connections with international criminal organizations, drug cartels, other terrorists groups and every rogue state, from Libya, Iran and Iraq, to North Korea and the Sudan, set the pattern for others to follow. The PLO’s transformation into the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1993, as a result of the Oslo Accords, did not impede the organization’s illegal activities. On the contrary, it enhanced them. As the whole world gave the PA legitimacy, it abused this status to expand its illegal activities.

With the current intifada, the PA has undergone another change, incorporating religion into its political rhetoric and adding jihad to its agenda. As a result, the PA gained even more support financially and politically within the Arab/Muslim world, much as al Qaeda did later. According to a soon to be published report, in 2001, the first year of the current intifada, the amount of money officially donated to the PA jumped 80%, from US $555 million to US $1.002 billion.

Often political priorities, along with corruption and hypocrisy all over the world, have made illicit funds easy to launder and to hide. Such had been the case with funds for terrorism. Off- shore banking centers from Monaco, Nauru and Cyprus to Hong Kong and the Bahamas, as well as major international financial organizations, were used not only to launder the money, but also to invest it. At the forefront of the money laundering activities was the PLO.

Historically, the PLO has had nine principal sources of income:

Official contributions from Arab states.

The Palestinian Liberation Tax Fund, a 5% tax of every Palestinian’s income.

Income from legitimate and illegitimate investments.

Donations from wealthy Palestinians and international organizations such as the UN and the EU.

Extortion of “protection” charges from companies and states to not use terrorist activities against them.

Charitable organizations, such as are now used by al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hizballah.

Illegal arms deals

Fraud, money laundering, counterfeiting, and other criminal activities. Drug trafficking.

The use of drug trafficking as a tool to fund terrorism was developed by the former Soviet Union as part of its unconventional warfare doctrine. The PLO simply adopted this use of drug trafficking as an excellent source of funding. Other terrorist organizations, such as the IRA, the Basque ETA, the Colombian FARC, and radical Muslim organizations like Hamas, Hizballah and al-Qaeda, have understandably followed suit.

The official decision to use the drug trade for funding was made under the chairmanship of Yasser Arafat in 1983, six months after the PLO was expelled from Lebanon, at a secret emergency session of the Finance Committee in Algiers. As stated by Sallah Dabbagh, then PLO treasury chief, “… the entire future of the PLO operation for liberation may hinge on our exporting more drugs throughout the world”.

For decades, the West has turned a blind eye to the PLO’s fundraising endeavors, allowing the PLO to continue operating both legitimate and illegitimate businesses. These ventures, in turn, laundered money for the organization, which used the revenues to further the PLO’s terrorist agenda. This established a precedent that surely did not escape bin Laden when he set out to create the financial infrastructure of al Qaeda. Indeed, U.S. and British law enforcement agencies have detailed by now how the al Qaeda organization has also been reaping huge profits from the illicit drug trade and other criminal activities. Just last month, U.S. authorities presented evidence that illegal drugs operations within the U.S. were funding a host of Middle East terror organizations linked to Palestinian groups and al Qaeda.

Clearly, the PLO and its successor, the PA, have played an indispensable role in creating the financial model for today’s terrorist organizations. Close examination of the methods and institutions that account for the PLO’s success can help us to better track how al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations operate financially. More importantly, it can ensure that history will not repeat itself – unless we let it.

The PA

The Palestinian Authority’s leadership and its chairman Yasser Arafat sponsor terrorism. It uses funds from its salary budget, EUR 10 million each month, to do it.

The PA has deliberately sent money (from its EU-aided salary account, among other sources) to individuals and groups involved in terrorism;

The EU’s denials of this do not stand up to scrutiny;

According to the EU’s own statements, it should cease aiding the PA. The corruption of the PA was known for a long time. In October 1999, Azmi Shuaibi, chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council Budget Committee, had harsh words for the PA at the 9th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Durban, South Africa: “The recent corruption found in the PA is similar to the corruption that exists in the rest of the Arab countries’ governments.”

This was finally acknowledged by President Bush when he called to change the Palestinian leadership and to bring reform, accountability, and transparency to the Palestinian Authority.

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, accurately summed up the situation in the San Jose Mercury News: “Frankly, the Palestinian Authority, which is corrupt and cavorts with terror… is not the basis for a Palestinian state moving forward.”

The funding of the PA is based on two sources:

International donors
Crime and corruption

Funding to the PA from International Donors

The Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MOPIC) 2001 1st and 2nd Quarterly Monitoring Report of Donor’s Assistance, which is current as of June 30, 2001, cites receipts to date from donors of $3,392,634,000. That is 66% of the $6.1B promised.

The Arab States donated $45 million per month from April 2001- April 2002 and $55 million per month since then. Further documents show that the EU has donated EUR 10 million a month since June 2001, which together add $806 million, for a total of $4,198,634,000. This figure is the absolute minimum that can be documented according to the most recently available public sources. This amount does not take into account the amount of international aid from sources besides the EU and Arab States subsequent to -June 30, 2001. There is no readily available data on the scope of this aid. However, it is estimated to be in the $400 – 500 million range, consistent with the yearly average and range given in the Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation report.

Based on all available documents, a very low estimate of $4.5B was donated to the PA since the Oslo Accords.

This figure does not include aid to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Work Agency), examined below.

1998 416,271

1999 522,756

2000 408,142

2001 N/A

Year-by-Year Data, According to the Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (Since 1998) [Thousands of US Dollars]

However, there are independent sources, such as Info-Prod, an economic research center, that provide a different account, maintaining that the PA has received a much larger sum.

Info-Prod’s figures are as follows (in thousands of dollars):

1998 $422,000

1999 $491,000

2000 $555,000

2001 $1,002,000

Year-by-Year Data, According to Info-Prod [Thousands of US Dollars] The 2001 figure is an 80% increase over 2000. These sums do not include UNRWA figures.

A partial breakdown for 2001 is:

US: $114 million
EU: $250 million
Arab States: $400 million

Info-Prod’s figures detail $4,466,868,000 through the end of 2001. Based on these figures, and taking into account the known scope of EU and Arab Aid to the PA (EUR 10 million per month from the EU, and 45 million per month until April 2002 then 55 million per month from the Arab states), a minimum of $4,938,868,000 was given to the PA by the end of August 2002.

Following the Oslo Accords, donations from the EU included demands for accountability. Similar demands were attached to the EU’s direct budgetary assistance following the intifada. However, despite ostensible EU claims to the contrary, no real efforts to monitor how the money was spent has ever taken place. “”Everybody has known for quite some time that money ended up in the wrong hands” noted an EU diplomat. The EU claims that the IMF ostensibly monitors the PA budget.

This claim, however, is contradicted by the IMF statement that “the Fund has not been monitoring spending under individual budget lines nor can it ascertain whether a particular spending commitment has been actually disbursed for the reported purpose. This is an auditing function that goes beyond the fund’s present mandate.”

Nor was there ever any reason to expect that the PA would meet any demands for account ability, in light of the fact that Yasser Arafat declared as early as July 1994:

“I refused and I will never accept!” Arafat said of the conditions imposed for economic aid. “I completely refuse any controls by anybody on Palestinian Autonomy, except the Palestinians themselves. We didn’t finish military occupation to get economic occupation”

Clearly, the international donor community did not take Arafat at his word. This follows the same school of thought that holds that he does not really mean it when he calls for suicide bombing and Jihad.

The US has given $548,766,000 in direct aid to the PA, according to Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation figures

But the total sum, including the amount given through relief and development organizations, is $1.1B.

In addition, following the 1998 Wye River Memorandum, the CIA has been training the Palestinian Authority Security Services.

The budget for this is unknown, though in September 2002, an additional $20 million has been allocated for an ostensible reform of the Palestinian security services.

Clearly, previous attempts to create a law-abiding security force for the Palestinian people have utterly failed. One hopes that this time better selection methods are being implemented to exclude the terrorists from the ranks of the PA security forces.

The EU has donated EUR 1B in loans and grants to the PA. Its donations to UNRWA since 1994 total at least EUR 407 million.

In addition, EU member countries have donated at least $1,260,022,000, according to Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation figures. All together, aid from Europe to the PA totals at least $2.52B. In addition to these amounts, the EU sends 2 – 5% of its donated sum for individual projects.

The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA): UNRWA is slated to have total disbursements of $521.7 million for 2002, of which $110 million was to come from the US. The US has provided 30% of the UNRWA budget in recent years.

The major increase by the Arab states followed a decision by the Arab League in October 2000. The money was sent through the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), and was transferred to the Palestinian Ministry of Finance

Funding to the PA from Crime and Corruption

The total amount of money accumulated by the PLO from its inception has been estimated by several sources. A 1990 CIA report estimated that the PLO had between $8 – 14B in assets.

Two British National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) reports, (1993 and 1994) estimated that “despite denials to the contrary, it is estimated that they [the PLO] have worldwide assets approaching $8-10 billion USD and an annual income of about $1.5-2 billion.” The report noted that the PLO was in fact the wealthiest of the world’s terrorist organizations.

The U.S. General Accounting Office performed an investigation into this matter in 1995, but its findings were kept secret, due to “national security reasons.” However, a source familiar with the investigation said that the report found that Arafat and the PLO indeed held “well over $10 billion is assets, even at a time when he was publicly claiming bankruptcy.”

The assets the PLO held were an open secret. Yet, the PA was never asked to use the assets on behalf of the Palestinian people, and there was no demand to account for the whereabouts of these assets.

Major Sources of the PA’s Illegal Revenues

Since the PA has been engaging in criminal activities since its inception, the full extent of the organization and its leadership’s illegal income is impossible to determine. However, the following sources of revenue have been documented:

Palestinian Martyrs’ Sons Enterprises (Samed)
Monopolies and the Palestine Commercial Services Company (PCSC)
Personal Corruption Crime.

Palestinian Martyrs’ Sons Enterprises (Samed)

The PLO formed Samed in 1970, to control and operate its economic activities. Since then, Samed has been led by Ahmed Qurie, AKA Abu Ala, currently the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

He served directly under Yasser Arafat, who signed the checks for all of the transactions and was no doubt aware of virtually every detail.

Samed had a flexible accounting system that included bank accounts not identified as belonging to the PLO but registered in the names of private individuals, including Abu Ala. The value of the PLO investments in farms, industry, weapons and clothing factories, real estate, newspapers, duty free shops, and airlines was estimated by the British National Criminal Intelligence Services (NCIS) in 1993 and 1994 at about $10 billion.

According to the US House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare (October 1991), Samed had a penchant for airport-related investments. These investments gave the PLO a base for the procurement of forged travel documents and airline tickets.

It owned duty-free stores at airports in Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria.

Through Samed it also had interests in airlines from the Maldives to Nicaragua. Until 1993, Samed also received approximately $50 million a year from the “Palestine Liberation Fund Tax,” of 5%, of the income of all Palestinian worldwide.

Overall, in the 1970’s and 80’s, the PLO through Samed earned an estimated $5 million per day.

In December 1999, hackers that broke into the PA’s computer system discovered at least “five billion pounds in numbered bank accounts in Zurich, Geneva and New York,” as well as smaller sums in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. None of the accounts were registered in the PLO’s name. The PA records revealed that it owned shares “on the Frankfurt, Paris, and Tokyo stock exchanges,” including stocks in Mercedes-Benz. It also owned property in prime locations in such as Paris, London, Geneva and New York.

Monopolies and the Palestine Commercial Services Company (PCSC)

The scope of revenues from the monopolies in the PA was estimated in 2000 at $300 million annually.

None of this amount is accounted for. The damage to the Palestinian economy goes beyond the loss in revenues, because it prevents competition and results in higher prices for fewer products. Coupled with the fact the monopolies are “on basic goods such as wheat, cement, petrol, wood, gravel, cigarettes and cars are in the hands of Arafat’s aides and they exploit their positions to extract high profits,” the dead-weight loss must be staggering.

The Palestine Commercial Services Company is the economic arm of the Palestinian Authority. Yet it is not supervised by its legislature or Finance Ministry.

It is run by Mohammed Rashid, Arafat’s economic advisor, and it controls most economic activities in the PA territories. The Palestine Commercial Services Company has “large minority stakes… in a Ramallah Coca-Cola bottler… and myriad other businesses, plus full ownership of a cement plant that had long enjoyed a government protected monopoly. The Palestine Commercial Services Company had the single biggest holding in the Jericho casino until it was shut down, with a $60 million stake. It has a 30% stake in the Palestinian Cellular Communications Company and an 8% stake in the Palestinian Telecommunications Company. It also has investments in the Palestine Development and Investment Company (PADICO).

The company was also, until recently, the direct recipient of sales taxes – more than $500 million in the past two years alone, collected by Israel but owed to the PA under the 1993 Oslo peace accords.”

The tax receipts were placed in a Tel Aviv account controlled by Arafat and Rashid.

The latest estimate of the value of the Palestine Commercial Services Company’s holdings is at least $345 million in cash and equity.

Researchers have noted that “since the establishment of the PA, scores of monopolies have been created by Arafat and are being operated by individuals and organizations close to Arafat. These monopolies control and subvert almost every potentially profitable aspect of daily Palestinian life.”

The Palestine Commercial Services Company has a 100% stake in the local cement monopoly that was worth $50 million in 2000.

Other Palestine Commercial Services Company monopolies include flour, oil, cigarettes, iron, commercial sand, and the PA prohibits other companies from operating in these fields.

Media investigations and sources within the Palestinian territories revealed that Palestinian officials close to Arafat that control monopolies include: Arafat’s personal economic advisor Muhammad Rashid, who together with Suha Arafat (Yasser Arafat’s wife) and communications advisor Nabil Abu-Roudayna co-own pharmaceutical and apparel monopolies.

Rashid, together with another Arafat advisor, Hassan Asfour, co-own an oil monopoly; Nabil Shaath, the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation has a computer monopoly, and Ahmed Qurie, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council and founder of Samed, is co-owner of cigarettes, conserves, and dairy monopolies.

The U.S. General Accounting Office’s (GAO) 1995 investigation into the PA’s finances received no cooperation from the PA. But by 1997, following local pressure, the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) conducted an investigation into PA corruption. This report, was suppressed by Arafat, but leaked. Jarar Kidwa, head of the PA’s financial monitoring institution, disclosed that the PA had lost $326 million – 40% of its annual budget for 1996 – to corruption and mismanagement. The PLC report also implicated PA officials, some still serving in the cabinet.

The PA system of monopolies has a long-term effect that is not immediately quantifiable, because of lost economic opportunities.

Personal Corruption

Recent reports by Israeli government officials put Arafat’s personal holdings at about $1.3 billion. This includes $500 million of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s money that Arafat also controls. Wearing three hats, Arafat is the president of the Palestinian Authority, chairman of the PLO, and is the head of the Fatah terrorist organization and its al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Tanzim.

As such, he controls the funds of all the terror organizations under the PA umbrella.

There has been a great deal written about Yasser Arafat’s secret bank account in Tel Aviv. Under the 1994 Paris Agreement, Israel is supposed to transfer the tax receipts it collects on imported gasoline for the PA territories directly to the PA. The account number they were asked to deposit the funds in is located in the Chashmonaim branch of Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv, and only Arafat and his trusted advisor Mohammed Rashid have the authority to access it, though some speculate that Treasury Minister Ahmed Zohari Nashashibi has access to it as well. The money collected by this procedure totaled around $400 million by November 2000.

The rest of the taxes that Israel collects on imported goods goes into four accounts in the Bank of Palestine and the Arab Bank of Gaza. According to a leaked IMF internal report, “the account is not under the supervision of the PA Treasury Ministry.”

At least half the money was indeed put there to bypass the supervision demanded by international donors, to finance inflated security services and civil service payrolls, which were not approved by the donors.

A PA source had a different explanation, claiming that the money was there for emergency use.

Throughout the years, the donor countries led by the US, demanded transparency and accountability from the Palestinian Authority. Clearly, they were not insistent enough.

Some of Arafat’s corruption is simply in the form of outright theft of aid funds. For example, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Watan reported on June 7, 2002 that Arafat had deposited $5.1 million into his personal account, siphoned from funds that were donated by Arab states as aid to the Palestinians.

In a perverse case of profiteering from the war that the PA created, Mohammed Rashid invested some of the stolen funds in the Jordan Cement Company on behalf of the Palestine Commercial Services Company, in order to profit from the rise in cement prices due to the demand for building materials following Operation Defensive Shield.

Jawad Ghussein, until 1996 the Secretary General of the Palestinian National Fund, told the Haaretz newspaper in August 2002 that Arafat “took aid money and contributions that were earmarked for the Palestinian people to his own account.” Ghussein should know, since it was he who for years deposited $7.5-8 million each month into Arafat’s personal bank account. By 1993, these deposits had totaled $540 million.

A member of the Palestinian Legislative Council from Nablus, Muawiya Al-Masri, was interviewed on July 3, 2002 by the Jordanian publication Al-Sabil about Arafat’s regime. When Al-Masri went public about PA corruption back in 1999 he was nearly killed in retaliation. Undeterred, he again spoke at length about the endemic corruption of the PA and Arafat. “No minister can appoint a driver or a delivery boy in his ministry without the president’s consent,” said Al-Masri. “There is no institutional process. There is only one institution – the presidency, which has no law and order and is based on bribing top officials.”

Following the Oslo Accords, Arafat even took over PECDAR (the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction), that was founded under strict European conditions, as soon as it began operating. “His [Arafat’s] became the authorized signature. Today, no amount, no matter how small, leaves the PECDAR funds without the president’s signature.”

Siphoning off the Pension Fund: In compliance with the Oslo Accords, Israel transferred the pension funds of Palestinians who worked for the Israeli Civil Administration, to the PA. The Gaza employees’ fund alone was worth $160 million.

The PA used part of these funds to pay the salaries of the bloated police force they created in violation of the accords.

Parts of the pension fund were used for an investment in telecommunications. These unauthorized expenditures amounted to $36 million. By September 1997 only $20 million remained in the fund; $104 million disappeared.

Crime

Counterfeiting Merchandise

Under the PA’s control, massive merchandise counterfeiting enterprises flourish, “making millions of dollars a year,” with royalties going to “senior Palestinian Authority figures.”

The merchandise includes CD’s, DVD’s, clothing, cosmetics, and schoolbooks. This is done in cooperation with Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations.

Counterfeiting Money: According to media reports, counterfeiting of Israeli, Jordanian, and Kuwaiti currency, is an ongoing activity in the Palestinian territories.

In April 2002, the IDF found large quantities of counterfeit Israeli currency in 50, 100, and 200- Shekel denominations in Arafat’s compound in Ramallah.

Shakedowns: According to confidential Palestinian sources, arbitrary charges of traffic violations, demands of large bribes, kidnapping for money, and extortion of 70 – 90% from the income of private businesses, are rampant in the PA

These methods are similar to those employed by PLO in Lebanon.

Car theft from Israel is rampant in the PA-controlled areas, frequently with the connivance of senior PA officials. Former PA Police commissioner Ghazi Jabali is accused of licensing thousands of cars stolen from Israel, charging $7000 for a permanent license. However, Jabali was fired only when charges of embezzlement of $20 million from the PA were made. Despite that, Arafat appointed him as advisor on police affairs.

According to reports by the Israeli police and eyewitnesses, cars stolen from Israel have special identification on their PA-issued license plate.

Faisal Husseini: Documents found in Orient House in August 2001 show that $1.8 million was funneled by Faisal Husseini’s into his private bank accounts in Switzerland and Austria. The money was donated by the Gulf Emirates for business development in the Palestinian territories.

Mohammed Dahlan: According to Palestinian and Israeli sources, Mohammed Dahlan, head of the PA security services in the Gaza Strip, supplements his salary by collecting “more than 1 million Shekels per month in protection money (from suppliers of oil and cigarettes, etc.), kickbacks for issuing licenses…and (since 1997), border crossing fees.

Nabil Shaath and Yasser Abd Rabboh: The 1997 Palestine Legislative Council investigation into PA corruption implicated Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Nabil Shaath, and Minister of Information and Culture Yasser Abd Rabboh. The report claimed that both used government money for personal purposes. The report determined that Shaath had embezzled ministry funds, transferring them to accounts not subject to PA inspection.

The report also demanded that Shaath be removed from his position.

Yet, according to media reports, he has a monopoly on imported computer hardware into the PA and both he and Abd Rabboh still hold the same posts. Of special concern should be the implication of Shaath, who as minister for Planning and International Cooperation, coordinates international aid and the negotiations to reform the PA.

Jibril Rajoub, Preventative Security Head in the West Bank, was widely reported in the media to extort protection money from oil distributors, to receive kickbacks from the Jericho casino until it closed, and to steal intellectual property, presumably in concert with the other counterfeiting rings operating in the PA territories. Jibril Rajoub and his men are also implicated in car theft networks.

International Aid Directed to Terror

Recent statistics provided by the Israeli Foreign Ministry show that since the beginning of the intifada two years ago, one homicide bomber was sent to Israel every five days from the Palestinian territories.

Despite EU attempts to refute and downplay allegations that EU aid money was used to fund terrorism, PA documents found by the IDF clearly show that the PA diverted international aid to fund its terrorist activities. Since we already know that the EU did not closely monitor the use of the money, if even a single dollar went to finance terror, the donor countries are guilty of aiding terrorism.

In December 2000, Israel stopped transferring import tax revenue to the PA as required by the 1994 Paris Protocol. Since April 2001, the Arab states have been transferring $45 million a month, raising their contribution to $55 million per month in April 2002. The EU has been transferring EUR 10 million a month since June 2001, all explicitly to cover PA salary expenses.

The PA documents found in Ramallah and elsewhere in the West Bank demonstrate how the PA used international aid money to further its terror agenda. The following facts come to light:

The PA maintains a double reporting system for its salaries.

The PA performs exchange rate fraud and keeps the difference.

The PA deducts a “Fatah membership fee” of 1.5 -2% of salaries paid to its security forces.

The PA recruits and employs Fatah activists, including al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Tanzim members who are involved in terrorism.

The EU’s first response to these facts was to deny them. Yet, the Palestinian Authority’s own documents substantiate these facts.

Fact: The Palestinian Authority keeps a double reporting system for its salaries.

It claims that it needs around $60 million per month for salaries. But in fact, it needs only about $40.5 million. The balance is unaccounted for.

EU Claims vs. Reality

Unwilling to assume responsibility, the EU claims that the IMF monitors the Palestinian Authority budget.

The EU says, ” The IMF conducts a close review of monthly fiscal information covering the whole of the PA budget, including…the wage bill.”

In stark contrast, the IMF itself states that “the Fund has not been monitoring spending under individual budget lines nor can it ascertain whether a particular spending commitment has been actually disbursed for the reported purpose. This is an auditing function that goes beyond the fund’s present mandate.”

Fact: The Palestinian Authority was performing exchange rate fraud, paying salaries at an artificially low exchange rate (3.7 shekels/dollar vs. 4.4 at the end of 2001)

The following chart shows how $7.2 Million of the $40.5 Million used for salaries was available for other uses, due to exchange rate fraud:

Evidence: Captured documents show the use of a 3.7 exchange rate.

EU CLAIM: “The economic aggregates, which the IMF monitors, include: the total salary bill, the total number of employees, and the average salary. Any “leakage” would be seen in discrepancies in these aggregates. There is no evidence of this. On the contrary, the salary bill is consistent with expectations.”

Evidence: There is direct evidence contradicting this: PA documents from late 2001 clearly show that dollars for salaries were converted at a rate of 3.7.

The PA’s new Finance Minister, Salaam Fayed is reported to have ended this process recently.

Conclusion: The EU’s claims are directly contradicted by documentary evidence. In addition, the IMF stated that it does not monitor the details.

Fact: The Palestinian Authority deducts a “Fatah Membership Fee” from all PA security personnel.

Evidence: PA documents show that the PA deducts 1.5 – 2% from all PA security personnel salaries. The sum, which is equivalent to $260,000 – 345,000 per month, is sent to Fatah.

It is interesting to note that while not refuting this evidence, the EU tries to argue that Fatah, a terrorist organization, is comparable to European trade unions: “This system is not dissimilar to the mandatory deductions from salaries for trade union members’ fees in some EU countries.”

As is evident in the PA documents, Fatah, the Tanzim, and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are the same organization. Documents with letterheads carrying a joint al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Fatah logo attest to that.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is classified as a terrorist organization by both the US and EU. Further, the PA’s own documents contain, for example, a letter on Fatah letterhead requesting money for members that carried out terror attacks.

There are many other documents listing grants to known Fatah terrorists.

Yet other PA documents demonstrate cooperation between Fatah, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Conclusion: Fatah is a terrorist organization, and membership fees originating from salaries paid by the EU help fund it.

Fact: The Palestinian Authority pays salaries to Fatah activists and has recruited Fatah members into its ranks

Evidence: PA documents show that it pays the salaries of Fatah terrorists in the amount of $640,000 to $1 million per month.

There are letters of request to Arafat to approve putting Fatah activists and other persons known to be involved in terrorism onto the PA security apparatus payroll to pay for their terrorist activities.

The documents are addressed to Arafat, and frequently have his comments in own his handwriting on them.

By claiming that there is no indication that any actual recruitment took place, and that effective approval would require some other notation from Arafat, the EU is simply obfuscating the evidence. Even if Arafat did not literally sign off on the hiring of certain terrorists, he gave his tacit approval by forwarding the requests for their hiring.

The EU makes the claim that “there is no evidence that any person involved in terror attacks has actually been recruited into the PA security services.”

This claim is demonstrably false. The PA’s own documents show that many PA-salaried people were engaged in terrorist activities.

Consider the following:

Marwan Barghouti

Leader of the terrorist organization Fatah/Tanzim in the West Bank. Despite his arrest and indictment for the murder of 26 Israelis, he continues to receive a salary of $2500 per month from the PA.

In addition to his personal involvement in these murders, Barghouti allocated special funds for terrorists, and to carry out attacks against Israel, with Arafat’s full approval.

Nasser Awis

Was an officer in General intelligence and General Security apparatuses and received regular salaries from the PA. Head of al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Samaria, was captured by IDF on 13 April 2002. Awis was the link between Barghouti and the Fatah military arm in West Bank and Gaza. Awis was responsible for attacks since January 2002 that killed 20 Israelis and wounded 120, including the attack on the Bat Mitzvah in Hadera. The PA knew this. Not only was his name was on Israel’s most wanted list, but he was listed by the PA report as heading the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Tulkarm. Awis was also engaged in smuggling, acquisition and production of heavy weapons systems.

Zadki Zeru

From Hebron, Tanzim activist involved in shooting attacks against the Jewish settlement in Hebron. He shot a baby girl on 26 March 2001 in Hebron. Marwan Zallum also a senior Fatah activist involved in “many lethal shooting attacks,” who was given an official position in the PA.

Fuad Shubaki

PA Chief Financial Officer, who was involved in the Karine-A arms purchasing and smuggling operation.

He allocated $80,000 for a heavy arms factory on behalf of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Several PA documents, on PA stationery, show PA officials requesting funding for known Fatah terrorists, while praising their “fighting abilities.”

Palestinian Ministry of Finance official documents dating back to 1998/1999 explicitly state “payment to Fatah movement,”

Other documents from 2001, including documents with Arafat’s own approval, list payments to Fatah/Tanzim activists. Marwan Barghouti, head of Fatah/Tanzim in the West Bank, wrote the checks.

Conclusion: Despite all the evidence, the EU ignored even the PA’s own documents explicitly requesting and granting funds for members of Fatah/Tanzim and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorists. Instead, the EU claimed that it needed the actual checks as proof.

Arafat’s Personal Involvement in Funding Terrorism

Palestinian Authority documents show that Arafat personally directed a transfer of $600 to known terrorists, such as Ziad Muhammad Da’as, who commanded the murder attack during the Bat-Mitzvah party in Hadera.

There are many other documents showing similar allocations by Arafat.

Another PA document shows that Arafat personally allocated $350 dollars each to 24 Fatah members, including Atef Abayat, who headed the main terrorist cell in the Bethlehem area, and who was involved in the murder of Israelis.

Not only did Arafat fund Abayat’s terrorism and send him to his death, but following his death, Arafat authorized a payment of $800 to his family.

In the same documents, Arafat approved a total of $126,000 to fund terrorism.

By July 26, 2002, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was heavily engaged in homicide bombing. Yet, in response to Die Zeit’s questioning if PA funds were going to this terrorist organization, the EU responded:

“The EU and the international community continually demand that the PA prevent terror attacks, dismantle terror groups and arrest terrorists. If any evidence comes to light that the PA is knowingly employing members of terrorist organizations, the PA will need to act immediately to take these people off the payroll and bring them to justice. The EU will not accept that funds fall into the hands of terrorist organizations.”

Despite all the evidence, the EU seems to argue that it will only accept that Euros fund terrorism if there were mechanisms to identify how each individual Euro is spent. But money is fungible, and since the EU gave direct funding towards the PA salaries, the EU is responsible for the money that the PA allocated to fund terrorism.

Additional Unacceptable Activities Funded by the PA

Fostering Hate in Schools

The international donor community funds the Palestinian education system through UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Work Agency). UNWRA-paid teachers in UNRWA-built schools are teaching from textbooks with vicious anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-coexistence messages. Such incitement is against the Joint Declaration by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission Against Racism and Xenophobia, 11 June 1986, which states:

“(4). Considers that incitement to racism, as well as the dissemination and promotion of any type of revisionist thesis concerning the Holocaust or denial that the Holocaust took place, should be considered a criminal offence at Union level and calls on all the Member States accordingly to adapt their legislation against the perpetrators of acts of racism.” Significantly, the Palestinian Authority is obligated by treaty to end such messages, as stated in the preamble to the Oslo II Interim Accord:

The government of Israel and the PLO reaffirm “their mutual commitment to act, in accordance with this Agreement, immediately, efficiently and effectively against acts or threats of terrorism, violence or incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.”

Examples from Palestinian Textbooks

A 7th grade textbook asks a question referring to the poem “The Shahid,” asks: which of the following is the meaning of the expression “honorable death”?

Death from illness
Sudden death
Martyrdom (shahada) while defending the homeland.

From a 7th grade textbook “National Education”: “Question: how many of the Palestinian villages have been destroyed and replaced by imperialist settlements?”

Maps of Palestine do not include Israel at all. This is not unique to the school system; official maps of the PA do not include Israel either. This, in effect, denies the existence of Israel.

In the Alamari refugee camp in Ramallah, in an UNRWA-run school, “there were posters displayed prominently glorifying suicide attacks, armed struggle, and the leaders of the terrorist wing of Hamas”

Fostering hate and encouraging homicide bombing is not limited to the Palestinian educational system. Chairman Arafat himself, on many public, well-documented occasions, has encouraged children to become shahidim (homicide bombers), and even as this report is being written, Arafat repeated his promise to continue the armed struggle against Israel.

Another example of the Palestinian Authority leadership’s mindset is best illustrated by Mahmud Abbas, Arafat’s Deputy’s statement to the Kuwaiti newspaper Alzamin (Arabic) on June 20, 2002 that Palestinian Children are given 5 shekels (about $1 US) for each pipe bomb they throw.

Hate Propaganda

On August 28, 2002, Julie Stahl of CNSNews.com reported that US aid money is funding a group that engages in pro-Palestinian propaganda in the US and Europe. Since 1997, the United States, through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has given $1.2 million to the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA). The group, according to Stahl, “teaches Palestinians how to lobby, raise money for political causes and win favorable media coverage and support.”

Among the skills taught by PASSIA are fundraising, advocacy and lobbying. One assignment was to make a fundraising proposal for information booklets on the al Aqsa Intifada – in other words, armed struggle against Israel. There are other publications in which PASSIA advocates the right of return for Palestinian refugees to all of Israel – which is tantamount to the destruction of Israel.

In a speech given July 6, 2001, UNWRA representative Saheil Alhinadi praised suicide attacks.

Following Alhinadi’s appeal, there are specific reports of UNRWA camps being used for terrorism. Former US ambassador to Morocco Marc Ginsburg explains: “the refugee camps indeed are not policed by anyone but the Palestinian Authority, with the UNRWA personnel administering the lion’s share of the programs. But other organizations, including extremist Islamic organization, operate freely in the camps.” “Israel, during recent searches of UNWRA camps, has uncovered illegal arms caches, bomb factories and a plant manufacturing the new Qassam-2 rocket, designed to reach Israeli population [sic].”

In conclusion, the Palestinian Authority, led since its inception by Yasser Arafat, has been engaged in massive-scale corruption and terrorism. Yet, all this time, the international community has turned a blind eye and continued its support.

Commissioned by B’nai B’rith Europe.

The author, Rachel Ehrenfeld, PhD, is director of the American Center for Democracy (ACD) (previously the Center for the Study of Corruption and the Rule of Law). She is an acknowledged expert on corruption, money laundering, transnational organized crime, international terrorism, drug trafficking, and substance abuse. Dr Ehrenfeld is the author of Evil Money (HarperCollins, 1992; SPI paperback edition, 1994) and Narco-Terrorism (Basic Books, 1990; reissued in paperback in 1992). Her forthcoming book, Funding Evil, will be published in 2003.

This report could not have been written without the help of Mr Ilan Weinglass.

“Sharon Gets His Chance to Fail”

By

Center for Near East Policy Research

-

November 3, 2002

[In this oped published in the New York Times on November 3, 2002, and republished in the Jerusalem Post on November 4, 2002, “Sharon Gets His Chance to Fail” former Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin accuses Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of “dissembling all elements of the peace process that had been painstakingly built by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Mr Peres…”

Beilin neglects to mention that the very peace process which Beilin himself facilitated and which Rabin and Peres implemented was met with a clear answer from the PLO – which was that the PLO would come to no final accord without two fundamental prerequisites:

1. A total Israeli withdrawal from all areas of Jerusalem taken by Israel in 1967, which includes the Old City of Jerusalem and twelve Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that were pioneered since 1967.

2. Recognition of the “inalienable right of return” for 3.6 million Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendents to have the right to excercise the right to return to any of the 531 Arab villages that were lost in the 1948 war and which have been replaced by Israeli cities, Israeli neighborhoods, Israeli collective farms and Israeli parks and woodlands.

No Israeli government can agree to these two fundamental prerequisites of the PLO. Beilin knows that.

Therefore, there can be no peace settlement with the PLO.

The fact that Beilin does not tell that to the readers of the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post remains the failure of Beilin, not of Sharon. DB]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/03/opinion/03BEIL.html

For the first time since Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel on February 7, 2001, his policies will be put to the test by the Israeli public and world opinion. Having come to power on promises of bringing peace and security to Israel, he has subsequently tried to hint that despite his brilliant ideas, he is constantly being stymied by his coalition partners in the Labor Party. Mr. Sharon continues to imply that he is forced to sacrifice his effective plans for the lofty ideal of “national unity.”

The national unity government in Israel was wrong from the start, though many Israelis have tried to deny this. After most of the highest ranking Knesset members from the Labor Party had resigned from the Knesset or refused to serve in a government under Mr. Sharon, most of the Labor Party ministers who entered the government were a group of backbenchers headed by Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, a group determined not to give up its rare and unexpectedly elevated share of power.

For Mr. Sharon, this was a real lifesaver, since the political right does not have a majority in the Knesset and, without a coalition, he cannot govern. Shimon Peres’s surprising willingness to act as foreign minister in such a government gave Mr. Sharon a coalition majority and, more to the point, legitimacy for a string of actions that undermined, stage by stage, all elements of the peace process that had been painstakingly built by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Mr. Peres himself in the 1990’s. The result is that Palestinian-Israeli relations have reached their lowest point since the Six-Day War in 1967.

There was no genuine meeting of interests behind the unity government. It did not manage to provide any problem-solving approach that could bring together the left and right. Instead, Mr. Sharon managed to drag the Labor Party into the gradual escalation of the conflict with the Palestinians (who did not sit idly by, and gave him plenty of fuel for the fire), while Labor’s great “triumph” was its efforts, at the occasional government meeting, to prevent Mr. Sharon from taking even more extreme measures. The truth, incidentally, is that in most cases it was the United States government that acted to prevent particularly extreme measures.

The disbanding of the government was inevitable and healthy. The pretext for the dissolution – disagreement over approval of the national budget – was of secondary importance, not unlike the small disputes that can be the cause of divorce in an unsuitable marriage. But it is a pity that for 20 months, the Israeli public has been paying the price for the absence of an opposition force in the Israeli parliamentary regime. In that time, they have come to live with fading hopes of peace, the result of which has been the weakest economy in a decade.

The new political situation, however, creates new and encouraging possibilities. If Mr. Sharon manages to form a narrow, right-wing government, he will no longer be able to claim that he is being held back by Labor’s peace camp. He will then have to prove at last whether, after dictating the supposedly logical formula of “no negotiations under fire” and using that position to veto negotiations with any gun owner in the Middle East, he is actually capable of bringing peace and security to Israel.

Should it be that he does indeed have a security plan that is full of original solutions and can be implemented, then public opinion will surely reward him in the next general elections in 2003. But if Mr. Sharon’s true agenda is revealed, and it turns out – as I believe it will – that he has no solution whatsoever, other than living from day to day and putting off the moment of truth for as long as he possibly can, then it is almost certain that he will pay the price in the next elections.

And as far as the Labor Party is concerned, it cannot go to the next elections under the leadership of the group that has supported Mr. Sharon for the last 20 months. In this month’s vote for the next leader of the Labor Party, it is vital that a candidate advocating peace be elected, someone who can present a genuine alternative to the present policy of paying lip service to any solution put forward (the Mitchell Report, the Tenet Plan, President Bush’s vision as laid out in his speech on June 24 and the Bush administration’s new “road map,” recently presented to the two sides) with no intention of implementing it.

The alternative plan presented by the Labor Party must make one promise, loud and clear: During its next term in government, the border between Israel and the Palestinian state will be determined, thus guaranteeing Israel’s future as a democratic Jewish nation. All efforts will be devoted, during the first year of the government, to reaching an agreed solution with the Palestinian Authority (without any preconditions as to who its leader will be, and without giving the terrorist organizations the opportunity to stop negotiations through violence).

And if such efforts should fail, then Israel will carry out a unilateral withdrawal to borders that Israel itself shall determine, including a full withdrawal from Gaza and the vast majority of the West Bank, with evacuation of all the settlements in those areas from which it withdraws.

If this is the basis for the elections in Israel to be held next year, then new hope will arise for change in the Middle East – after two years of Palestinian violence, Israeli retaliation, hundreds of Israeli victims, thousands of Palestinian victims and the fatalistic view, however unjustified, that the right to live in peace is not to be granted to the inhabitants of the Middle East.

Yossi Beilin is Former Israeli Cabinet Secretary, Deputy Foreign Minister and Justice Minister

UNICEF: Why is this Halloween Different from Any Other Halloween?

By

David Bedein

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October 25, 2002

This year, UNICEF treats you with a new trick against Israel.

We all remember UNICEF. That is the agency that provides little boxes for collection on Halloween in order that children around the world should not starve. UNICEF, to its credit, had kept its distance from the middle east conflict, unlike other agencies of the UN.

This year, UNICEF treats us with a new trick this Halloween.

Towards this year’s Halloween collections, Pierre Poupard, the UNICEF Special Representative to the Palestinian Authority, issued a scathing memo in which he accused Israel of preventing 226,000 Palestinian Arab children from going to school.The original release can be found on the UNICEF web site at: http://www.unicef.org/media/newsnotes/02nn34opt.htm.

Reached at the UNICEF office in Jerusalem, Mr. Poupard claimed not to know that PA schools are being used as a place of terror training or incitement of youth to war against Israel.

When I spoke with Mr. Poupard, he seemed to have no idea that current curfews are the direct result of continued Palestinian Authority sponsored terrorism, much of which takes place in the PA schools. Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know of the study published on August 26th conducted by Israel’s leading newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, which showed that military training had become an integral part of Palestinian Authority educational system, and that children learn the art of weaponry training in the PA schools and school yards.

Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to have ever read the widely circulated piece from the front page of the New York Times on August 3, 2000 in which the New York Times correspondent John Burns reported how the PA education ministry had recruited 25,000 children from ages 9 and 10 to train them in their school yards in the art of military confrontation with Israeli soldiers and civilians, In Burns detailed report, he noted how children learned the art of throwing molotov cocktails at passing Israeli vehicles. Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know that the PA¹s deputy minister of education, Naim Abu Humus, called on school administrators to dedicate the first class to praying for the souls of the suicide bombers killed during the uprising, saying, “Today we glorify Al-Aksa and Palestine, and remember the Palestinian martyrs”

Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know that Signs on the walls of the PA kindergartens proclaim their students as the ‘shaheeds’ [martyrs] of tomorrow.

Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to have ever seen the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority school system which is available for public scrutiny at www.edume.org

Pierre Poupard of UNICEF does have a trick to treat Israel with, and that is what he calls “Israel¹s obligation, according to the 4th Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to ensure education is accessible to every Palestinian child”.

What Mr. Poupard of UNICEF claimed not to know, however, is the extent to which the Rights of the Child are routinely violated by Yasser Arafat¹s Palestinian Authority. All Mr. Poupard of UNICEF would have to do is to turn on PA educational TV, whose theme since its inception in 1994 has invoked the violation of the UN “rights of the child” by mandating children to become suicide bombers, by placing children in the front-lines of armed demonstrations against Israeli soldiers, and by delivering busloads of Palestinian school children to participate in riots everywhere, thus endangering the lives of the same children that are supposed to be defended and protected by the Palestinian Authority. Through its curriculum of war denies Palestinian children the fundamental right to peaceful, modern education.

The trick that UNICEF treats Israel with is that it ignores the significant steps taken by Israel to establish a modern educational system for Palestinians Arabs after the Israel Civil Administration took over in Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1967, even in the absence of peace.

UNICEF could conduct its own trick or treat and ask any graduate of the Palestinian Authority educational system:

“What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine”?

The Jerusalem Post, September 9, 2002
UNICEF Goodwill Envoy: Bush is modern-day Hitler
by Michael Freund

Dourade Lahham, a Syrian actor who serves as an honorary ambassador of the United Nations Children¹s Fund (UNICEF), lashed out at US President George W. Bush on Friday, describing him as a ³modern-day Hitler², the Beirut Daily Star reported yesterday.

Lahhm, who toured Beaufort Castle and visited the Lebanese-Israel border at the invitation of Hezbollah, said that he was proud of his association with the terrorist group. Speaking with reporters, he expressed the hope that Bush, the modern-day Hitler, puts me on his black list. Lahham was re-appointed in February to serve as a UNICEF goodwill envoy through May, 2003.

USA National Office
United States Fund for UNICEF

Mail Address
Charles Lyons President
333 East 38th Street – GC-6
New York, New York 10016

Telephone: 1 (212) 686.5522

Fax: 1 (212) 779.1679

Email: claporte@unicefusa.org

UNICEF International Office
Mail Address
Executive Director Carol Bellamy
UNICEF House
3 United Nations Plaza
New York, New York 10017
U.S.A.

Telephone: 1 (212) 326.7000 – Switchboard UNICEF House

Fax
1 (212) 887.7465 – Primary
1 (212) 887.7454 – Secondary

Email: cdier@unicef.org

Israel Behind the News

Seven Lies About Jenin

Why would the PLO attack a Left Wing Kibbutz?

Translation of Current “Yesh Gvul” Leaflet for Distribution to Encourage IDF soldiers to Desert

PNA, Hamas to meet in Cairo Next Week

EU comment on killing Jews beyond the ‘green line” …and PBC praise of the Metzer murders

A Religion of Peace?

Israeli Peace Now MK Launches Attack Against Official Palestinian Authority Media

Where Does the Money Go? A Study of the Palestinian Authority

“Sharon Gets His Chance to Fail”

UNICEF: Why is this Halloween Different from Any Other Halloween?

Column from the Director