Trascrizione di un intervista che ha rilasciato la Dr.ssa Rachel Ehrenfeld. I rappresentanti dell'Autorita' Palestinese hanno rifiutato di fare commenti.
A report has been circulated that says that Yasser Arafat has secretly amassed $1.3 billion dollars, much of that money taken from aid given to him by the United States and other countries. Since 1990, the USA has sent the Palestinians more than $600 million of taxpayers’ money. What we find disturbing is that many in Palestine still live in abject poverty.
We contacted the usual suspects to defend Arafat. None of his allies would agree to talk to us. I was able to secure an interview with Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, a director of the Center for the Study of Corruption and the Rule of Law.
Question: Doctor this report comes out of Israel, so there is no way we can confirm it independently. However in 1996 the Palestinian Legislative Council did an investigation and found that 40 percent of the PLO's $800 million annual budget was lost. Lost. That's about $350 million.
Also, why would the Palestinian Authority refuse to defend Arafat on this issue? It would have been a good chance to show how bad the Israeli are. How big their lies are.
And two months ago, in June, the Kuwaiti daily "Al-Watan" published documents it received from Cairo, from a bank in Cairo, that Yasser Arafat had deposited $5 million into the bank, and that money came from aid money allocated for the Palestinians. This doesn't surprise you, right?
RACHEL EHRENFELD, PH.D.: Not at all. I've been writing about it for many years.
Q: So he's a flat-out crook, Arafat.
EHRENFELD: He always was. He's -- he received billions and billions of dollars that was supposed to go to the Palestinian people, and he kept it, he gave it to his friends. If all the money that was given to the Palestinian people had been given to them by Arafat, every Palestinian today should be living a decent life. They would not be starving.
Q: Yes. Instead of living hand to mouth.
EHRENFELD: Yes.
Q: Now, Arafat's wife lives in Paris on the Champs-Elysees in a multimillion-dollar home, Arafat's never had a job, he's never held a job in his life, so you don't know where he gets that money.
EHRENFELD: He is the head of a terrorist organization, that's a very big job.
Q: All right. But we want to keep politics out of this for this side. All right? The politics aside.
Now, why does the United States government keep sending him hundreds of millions of dollars? Do they send him money?
EHRENFELD: Yes, they do.
Q: Why do they send it?
EHRENFELD: That's a very good question. The Bush -- the Clinton administration before the Oslo accords had known that Arafat is controlling billions and billions of dollars in assets of the PLO. Yet they -- he claimed poverty, and they continued to give him money. And they have been pouring money into his pockets, into the pockets of his crooks, of his allies, for many, many years.
Q: So under the Clinton administration, eight years, do you have an estimate of how much money they sent to Arafat?
EHRENFELD: About $3 billion.
Q: Three billion dollars!
EHRENFELD: Yes.
Q: But that's belies my information. I have reports for $600 million, huh? Where did the other money come from?
EHRENFELD: Three billion dollars for NGOs, not necessarily directly to him, but to NGOs -- kind of projects.
Q: NGO. What is an NGO?
EHRENFELD: Nongovernmental organizations.
Q: All right. The American taxpayer, during the Clinton administration, according to you, sent $3 billion into the Palestinian area.
EHRENFELD: Two and a half, 3 billion dollars, yes.
Q: Has any of that money done any good?
EHRENFELD: Well, it did a lot of good in order to bring up children to study in schools that are educate for hate, and many terrorists that are killing people, the homicide bombing...
Q: But you don't believe that it was humanitarian aid, it didn't help those people at all.
EHRENFELD: Go there and look, look around.
Q: No, I've been there, I know what the situation is.
Now, why would President Clinton, and now, has President Bush continued the Clinton policy of just funneling in there like crazy?
EHRENFELD: The policy has been this. The money was continued to be sent. Only recently, because of demonstrations and because more information coming to light about the corruption, and because the Palestinians themselves are complaining about it the money stopped.
Actually the intifada also started because there were demonstrations in the streets of the West Bank and Gaza.
And Yasser Arafat needed to do something in order to deflect attention from him. So therefore the intifada had begun.
Q: Well, Bush has been much tougher on Arafat than Clinton. Clinton wanted to buy a peace agreement, that's what he basically wanted to do. Correct?
EHRENFELD: Yes.
Q: Yes, he just wanted to spend a lot of money over there so Yasser would sign a deal. And in the end, Yasser screwed him. Right?
EHRENFELD: Not only him, the Palestinian people.
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