BRIT Humor!
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When it comes to the U.N. only Israel is guilty of what others do and before he leaves office, Obama might turn further against Israel in a parting love note to Netanyahu. Time will tell. (See 1 below.)
What's with Obama?
In all fairness to Obama, he has always been willing to provide for Israel's defense in a monetary/military sense.
As I have said before, he has always been willing to allow America to assist Israel with larger boxing gloves.
The problem is that Obama's Middle East policies, most of them failed, have also created bigger opponents and made the entire region more dangerous and insecure. Ask any Syrian refugee, Jordanians and Saudis,
A lot of credit goes to the work of AIPAC which continues to inform Congress of the true nature and intent of Israel's neighbors which have sworn to annihilate the nation. (See 1a below.)
My own Rep. Buddy Carter, is an AIPAC advocate and his staff as well. (See 1b below.)
Meanwhile, ADL's Greenblatt pulls the rug out from under Israel.. (See 1b below.)
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Hanson on Obama's Legacy. (See 2 below.)
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This from a very dear friend and fellow memo reader.
It says what I have been saying along with others but it is one of the most articulate op eds I have read and deserves your own reading.
It lays out the case in an unmistakable and factual manner and reinforces the concern that Hillary's viewpoint regarding our society was shaped by radicals at a very early and impressionable age.
Hillary's "right-wing conspiracy theory' has worn thin enough to see through for those whose eyes are opened.. (See 3 below.)
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You can become very wealthy if you are willing to help the poor. Ask the Clinton's and Haitians. (See 4 below.)
===
Dick
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1)
At the U.N., Only Israel Is an ‘Occupying Power’
What about Russia in Crimea, Armenia in parts of Azerbaijan, or what Vietnam did in Cambodia?
The General Assembly Hall in the United Nations building in New York. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
The United Nations began its annual session this week, and Israel will be prominent on the agenda. Many fear the Security Council may consider a resolution setting definite territorial parameters, and a deadline, for the creation of a Palestinian state.
President Obama has hinted that in the final months of his term, he may reverse the traditional U.S. policy of vetoing such resolutions. The General Assembly, meanwhile, is likely to act as the chorus in this drama, reciting its yearly litany of resolutions criticizing Israel.
If Mr. Obama is seeking to leave his mark on the Israeli-Arab conflict—and outside the negotiated peace process that began in Oslo—there is no worse place to do it than the U.N. New research we have conducted shows that the U.N.’s focus on Israel not only undermines the organization’s legitimacy regarding the Jewish state. It also has apparently made the U.N. blind to the world’s many situations of occupation and settlements.
Our research shows that the U.N. uses an entirely different rhetoric and set of legal concepts when dealing with Israel compared with situations of occupation or settlements world-wide. For example, Israel is referred to as the “Occupying Power” 530 times in General Assembly resolutions. Yet in seven major instances of past or present prolonged military occupation—Indonesia in East Timor, Turkey in northern Cyprus, Russia in areas of Georgia, Morocco in Western Sahara, Vietnam in Cambodia, Armenia in areas of Azerbaijan, and Russia in Ukraine’s Crimea—the number is zero. The U.N. has not called any of these countries an “Occupying Power.” Not even once.
It gets worse. Since 1967, General Assembly resolutions have referred to Israeli-held territories as “occupied” 2,342 times, while the territories mentioned above are referred to as “occupied” a mere 16 times combined. The term appears in 90% of resolutions dealing with Israel, and only in 14% of the much smaller number of resolutions dealing with the all the other situations, a difference that vastly surpasses the threshold of statistical significance. Similarly, Security Council resolutions refer to the disputed territories in the Israeli-Arab conflict as “occupied” 31 times, but only a total of five times in reference to all seven other conflicts combined.
General Assembly resolutions employ the term “grave” to describe Israel’s actions 513 times, as opposed to 14 total for all the other conflicts, which involve the full gamut of human-rights abuses, including allegations of ethnic cleansing and torture. Verbs such as “condemn” and “deplore” are sprinkled into Israel-related resolutions tens more times than they are in resolutions about other conflicts, setting a unique tone of disdain.
Israel has been reminded by resolutions against it of the country’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions about 500 times since 1967—as opposed to two times for the other situations.
In particular, the resolutions refer to Article 49(6), which states that the “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” This is the provision that the entire legal case against Israel settlements is based upon. Yet no U.N. body has ever invoked Article 49(6) in relation to any of the occupations mentioned above.
This even though, as Mr. Kontorovich shows in a new research article, “Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territories,” all these situations have seen settlement activity, typically on a scale that eclipses Israel’s. However, the U.N. has only used the legally loaded word “settlements” to describe Israeli civilian communities (256 times by the GA and 17 by the Security Council). Neither body has ever used that word in relation to any other country with settlers in occupied territory.
Our findings don’t merely quantify the U.N.’s double standard. The evidence shows that the organization’s claim to represent the interest of international justice is hollow, because the U.N. has no interest in battling injustice unless Israel is the country accused.
At a time of serious global crises—from a disintegrating Middle East to a land war and belligerent occupation in Europe—the leaders of the free world cannot afford to tempt the U.N. into indulging its obsessions. Especially when the apparent consequence of such scapegoating is that the organization ignores other situations and people in desperate need of attention.
Mr. Kontorovich, a professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, heads the international law department at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a think tank where Ms. Grunseidis a researcher.
1a)
1b)
Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe it’s the reality that he’s only got 126 days left before his presidency is consigned to history. Whatever it is, President Obama has been hard at work repairing his legacy. Today he tried to patch a big hole: the United States has promised Israel up to $3.8 billion a year in military aid over the next 10 years.
1a)
The Israel Aid Package
1b)
| Obama Admits His Sin |
| By Steve Berman |
Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe it’s the reality that he’s only got 126 days left before his presidency is consigned to history. Whatever it is, President Obama has been hard at work repairing his legacy. Today he tried to patch a big hole: the United States has promised Israel up to $3.8 billion a year in military aid over the next 10 years.
“Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and I are confident that the new MOU will make a significant contribution to Israel’s security in what remains a dangerous neighborhood,” Obama said. “The continued supply of the world’s most advanced weapons technology will ensure that Israel has the ability to defend itself from all manner of threats.”“It is because of this same commitment to Israel and its long-term security that we will also continue to press for a two-state solution to the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the deeply troubling trends on the ground that undermine this goal,” Obama continued.
The agreement includes an annual $500 million carve-out for developing missile defense systems. Israel has promised not to approach Congress for additional budgets for missile defense, except in an emergency, and only with the agreement of the administration. The previous MOU allowed Israel to lobby for additional funding every year beyond its $3.1 billion aid package.
Israel can still request Congressional aid for tunnel defenses and cyber warfare. There are also some limitations the Israelis agreed to regarding their current allocation of aid for equipment from Israel defense industries and for fuel purchases.
The agreement marks a repair in what has been a serious breach in relations between the Jewish state and the Obama administration, highlighted by personal animus between Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Obama. Netanyahu is a personal friend of Mitt Romney, Obama’s 2012 opponent, and was seen as approaching a line of interference in that election.
Obama has been accused of offering direct assistance to Netanyahu’s political opponents, but both men have remained in office. Possibly this deal is simply the realization of realities in the Middle East.
President Obama created this mess, all by himself. His bungling of the Syrian situation, which Israel correctly predicted several years ago*, his bowing to Iran despite continued warnings of duplicity, and his feckless belief in the so-called “Arab Spring” to soften Islamic anti-Semitism have taken a toll. Israel has felt almost alone in many ways, but still enjoys a special relationship with the U.S. regardless of who is president.
This new deal, along with the latest deal with Russia on the mess in Syria, are likely last-minute attempts by a failed president to repair himself for historians, who at least for the near term will always view him through rose-colored glasses for being the first African American president (on his dad’s side).
Israel will need the aid to deal with the ever-growing threat of a nuclear Iran that now boasts $150 billion (plus $1.1 billion in untraceable foreign hard currency) to spend on its weapons. History will judge Obama very poorly for that. Maybe future generations will absolve Obama for the equivalent of a deathbed confession. They’ll look at this and say: “He knows he sinned a great sin.”
*Several years ago, before the Syrian civil war, I attended a series of talks by an Israeli intelligence officer. While he didn’t give out any classified information–this was a public talk–he did say that Israel knew exactly what is happening on the ground in Syria. He said that Assad would never leave office alive, that Assad’s Alawite Muslim minority sect is hated by the Sunnis, which make up 74 percent of Syria, and would be slaughtered if Assad stepped down (including Assad’s entire extended family).
He told us that the Alawites would fight to the death to defend their territory in northwest Syria (where the Russians currently operate from). He said that Israel’s primary concern is the transfer of chemical weapons or WMD’s to Hezbollah or other terror groups. ISIS didn’t exist at the time. Israel had a status quo ante balance with Assad, who knew he could not overcome Israeli defenses.
Syria’s radicalized Sunnis now fuel ISIS, while its “Twelver” Shia sect enjoys good relations with Iran. Obama’s ham-handed naiveté has totally destabilized every relationship in the Levant, giving Iran and Russia more influence and cash than they could possibly have ever hoped for.
Obama almost single-handedly isolated Assad, empowered Hezbollah, which is now just an extension of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and put Saudi Arabia and Jordan at constant risk of a coup. Israel foresaw all of this, and repeatedly, forcefully–even at times compromising intelligence security–warned the U.S. about this happening. Obama’s raw hubris and dedication to his own disastrous policies made this mess.
1b)
The ADL Takes Sides Against Israel
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2)
On his recent Asian tour, President Obama characterized his fellow Americans (the most productive workers in the world) as "lazy."
In fact, he went on to deride Americans for a list of supposed transgressions ranging from the Vietnam War to environmental desecration to the 19th century treatment of Native Americans.
"If you're in the United States," the president said, "sometimes you can feel lazy and think we're so big we don't have to really know anything about other people."
The attack on supposedly insular Americans was somewhat bizarre, given that Obama himself knows no foreign languages. He often seems confused about even basic world geography. (His birthplace of Hawaii is not "Asia," Austrians do not speak "Austrian," and the Falkland Islands are not the Maldives).
Obama's sense of history is equally weak. Contrary to his past remarks, the Islamic world did not spark either the Western Renaissance or the Enlightenment. Cordoba was not, as he once suggested, an Islamic center of "tolerance" during the Spanish Inquisition; in fact, its Muslim population had been expelled during the early Reconquista over two centuries earlier.
In another eerie ditto of his infamous 2008 attack on the supposedly intolerant Pennsylvania "clingers," Obama returned to his theme that ignorant Americans "typically" become xenophobic and racist: "Typically, when people feel stressed, they turn on others who don't look like them." ("Typically" is not a good Obama word to use in the context of racial relations, since he once dubbed his own grandmother a "typical white person.")
Too often Obama has gratuitously aroused racial animosities with inflammatory rhetoric such as "punish our enemies," or injected himself into the middle of hot-button controversies like the Trayvon Martin case, the Henry Louis Gates melodrama and the "hands up, don't shoot" Ferguson mayhem.
Most recently, Obama seemed to praise backup 49ers quarterback and multimillionaire Colin Kaepernick for his refusal to stand during the National Anthem, empathizing with Kaepernick's claims of endemic American racism.
What is going on in Obama's home stretch?
Apparently Obama is veering even further to the left, in hopes of establishing a rhetorical progressive legacy in lieu of any lasting legislative or foreign policy achievement. Turning the presidency into an edgy soapbox is seemingly all that is left of Obama's promise to "fundamentally transform" the country.
But divisive sermonizing and the issuing of executive orders are not the same as successfully reforming our health care system. The Affordable Care Act, born of exaggeration and untruth, is now in peril as insurers pull out and the costs of premiums and deductibles soar.
Even presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not really defending the Obama administration's past "red line" in Syria, the "reset" with Vladimir Putin's Russia, the bombing of Libya, the Benghazi tragedy, the euphemistic rebranding of Islamic terrorism as mere "violent extremism," the abrupt pullout from (and subsequent collapse of) Iraq, or the Iran nuclear deal that so far seems to have made the theocracy both rich and emboldened.
The U.S. economy -- with its record-low growth over eight years, near-record labor non-participation rates, record national debt and record consecutive years of zero interest rates -- is not much of a legacy either.
Racial relations in this country seem as bad as they have been in a half-century.
Given the scandal involving Hillary Clinton's use of a private, unsecured email server for official State Department communications, the politicization of the IRS, the messes at the GSA and VA, and the current ethical confusion at the FBI and Justice Department over Clinton's violations, Obama has not made good on his promise of a transparent, efficient and honest government.
Near energy independence through fracking is certainly a revolutionary development, but it arrived largely despite, not because of, the Obama administration.
The sharper the sermon, the more Obama preps himself for his post-presidency as a social justice warrior, akin to the pre-political incarnation of Obama as a community organizer.
Following the Clinton model, a post-presidential Obama will no doubt garner huge fees as a "citizen of the world" -- squaring the circle of becoming fabulously rich while offering sharp criticism of the cultural landscape of the capitalist West on everything from sports controversies to pending criminal trials.
What, then, is the presidential legacy of Barack Obama?
It will not be found in either foreign or domestic policy accomplishment. More likely, he will be viewed as an outspoken progressive who left office loudly in the same manner that he entered it -- as a critic of the culture and country in which he has thrived.
But there may be another, unspoken legacy of Obama, and it is his creation of the candidacy of Donald J. Trump.
Trump is running as an angry populist, fueled by the promise that whatever supposed elites such as Obama have done to the country, he will largely undo.
Obama's only legacy seems to be that "hope and change" begat "make America great again."
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3)The Voters’ Presidential Choice: Certainties and Possibilities
2)
The Legacies of Barack Obama
By Victor Davis Hanson
On his recent Asian tour, President Obama characterized his fellow Americans (the most productive workers in the world) as "lazy."
In fact, he went on to deride Americans for a list of supposed transgressions ranging from the Vietnam War to environmental desecration to the 19th century treatment of Native Americans.
"If you're in the United States," the president said, "sometimes you can feel lazy and think we're so big we don't have to really know anything about other people."
The attack on supposedly insular Americans was somewhat bizarre, given that Obama himself knows no foreign languages. He often seems confused about even basic world geography. (His birthplace of Hawaii is not "Asia," Austrians do not speak "Austrian," and the Falkland Islands are not the Maldives).
Obama's sense of history is equally weak. Contrary to his past remarks, the Islamic world did not spark either the Western Renaissance or the Enlightenment. Cordoba was not, as he once suggested, an Islamic center of "tolerance" during the Spanish Inquisition; in fact, its Muslim population had been expelled during the early Reconquista over two centuries earlier.
In another eerie ditto of his infamous 2008 attack on the supposedly intolerant Pennsylvania "clingers," Obama returned to his theme that ignorant Americans "typically" become xenophobic and racist: "Typically, when people feel stressed, they turn on others who don't look like them." ("Typically" is not a good Obama word to use in the context of racial relations, since he once dubbed his own grandmother a "typical white person.")
Too often Obama has gratuitously aroused racial animosities with inflammatory rhetoric such as "punish our enemies," or injected himself into the middle of hot-button controversies like the Trayvon Martin case, the Henry Louis Gates melodrama and the "hands up, don't shoot" Ferguson mayhem.
Most recently, Obama seemed to praise backup 49ers quarterback and multimillionaire Colin Kaepernick for his refusal to stand during the National Anthem, empathizing with Kaepernick's claims of endemic American racism.
What is going on in Obama's home stretch?
Apparently Obama is veering even further to the left, in hopes of establishing a rhetorical progressive legacy in lieu of any lasting legislative or foreign policy achievement. Turning the presidency into an edgy soapbox is seemingly all that is left of Obama's promise to "fundamentally transform" the country.
But divisive sermonizing and the issuing of executive orders are not the same as successfully reforming our health care system. The Affordable Care Act, born of exaggeration and untruth, is now in peril as insurers pull out and the costs of premiums and deductibles soar.
Even presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not really defending the Obama administration's past "red line" in Syria, the "reset" with Vladimir Putin's Russia, the bombing of Libya, the Benghazi tragedy, the euphemistic rebranding of Islamic terrorism as mere "violent extremism," the abrupt pullout from (and subsequent collapse of) Iraq, or the Iran nuclear deal that so far seems to have made the theocracy both rich and emboldened.
The U.S. economy -- with its record-low growth over eight years, near-record labor non-participation rates, record national debt and record consecutive years of zero interest rates -- is not much of a legacy either.
Racial relations in this country seem as bad as they have been in a half-century.
Given the scandal involving Hillary Clinton's use of a private, unsecured email server for official State Department communications, the politicization of the IRS, the messes at the GSA and VA, and the current ethical confusion at the FBI and Justice Department over Clinton's violations, Obama has not made good on his promise of a transparent, efficient and honest government.
Near energy independence through fracking is certainly a revolutionary development, but it arrived largely despite, not because of, the Obama administration.
The sharper the sermon, the more Obama preps himself for his post-presidency as a social justice warrior, akin to the pre-political incarnation of Obama as a community organizer.
Following the Clinton model, a post-presidential Obama will no doubt garner huge fees as a "citizen of the world" -- squaring the circle of becoming fabulously rich while offering sharp criticism of the cultural landscape of the capitalist West on everything from sports controversies to pending criminal trials.
What, then, is the presidential legacy of Barack Obama?
It will not be found in either foreign or domestic policy accomplishment. More likely, he will be viewed as an outspoken progressive who left office loudly in the same manner that he entered it -- as a critic of the culture and country in which he has thrived.
But there may be another, unspoken legacy of Obama, and it is his creation of the candidacy of Donald J. Trump.
Trump is running as an angry populist, fueled by the promise that whatever supposed elites such as Obama have done to the country, he will largely undo.
Obama's only legacy seems to be that "hope and change" begat "make America great again."
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3)The Voters’ Presidential Choice: Certainties and Possibilities
By Patricia McCarthy
Americans are faced with a difficult and ugly choice in the coming election. Never in American history have there been two more unpopular candidates for president. For a year Donald Trump offended just about everyone, one way or another, but somehow managed to beat sixteen other conventionally more qualified candidates to become the Republican nominee.
What explains his victory? His rage against the tyranny of the DC establishment, left and right, that resonated with many millions of people who are fed up with the blight upon free speech that is political correctness. They are fed up with Obama's eight years of flooding the nation with illegal immigrants and refugees with questionable loyalties. They are fed up with the billions of taxpayer dollars that go to subsidize those people. They are fed up with Obama's "leadership from behind" that has put the country in grave danger - from Iran, from ISIS, from Russia, China, from home-grown terrorists, from a stagnant, over-regulated economy. A community activist does not a president make. And like Obama, Hillary is a woman who wants power in order to reorder American culture according to the theories of Cloward, Piven and Saul Alinsky that she has long embraced. Like Obama, she has no love or respect for the Constitution. If elected she will finalize its shredding.
But while Trump is an unlikely, often unpleasant, and shockingly uninformed candidate who infuriates Republicans, Hillary is, and has always been a pathological liar, a woman who got where she is by grasping for dear life onto her husband's coattails. She has no accomplishments in the political realm, no record of achievements or successes. Her attempt at overhauling healthcare during her husband's presidency failed due to her incompetence. Her years as a senator yielded nothing. Her years as Secretary of State were disastrous at every turn. The books written about her by people who know her mostly do not paint a pretty picture. She is an arrogant, invidious woman who sees herself as above the law and superior to all of us outside of her rarefied world of fabulous ill-gotten wealth and privilege. She oversaw the harassment of the women her husband abused. It was she and her sycophants who used her position at State to enrich themselves; they literally sold access to American favor for personal gain. The crimes of the Clinton Foundation are barely known, but they began by the Clintons stiffing Haiti after that devastating earthquake and using the tragedy to financially benefit themselves and their friends.
All of which brings us to today. Trump called Hillary a bigot and the media are in a dither. She is a bigot and anti-Semitic as well. African Americans, Latinos, LGBT's are just voting blocks to be pandered to and pander she does. Hillary released an ad egregiously pathetic and desperate linking Trump to the KKK! Which one of them stooped the lowest - Hillary to be sure. Trump may be the most undisciplined, exasperating candidate ever to run for President, but Hillary is the most execrable. Her schemes to operate under the radar of the government for which she worked were positively Machiavellian. The lengths to which she went to conceal her crimes are evidence of her malfeasant intent.
So voters must choose between these two massively flawed people. With Clinton we will get a doubling-down of all Obama policies: increased taxation, increased regulation of everything, especially businesses, the complete destruction of health care, continuing economic stagnation, more class stratification, increased racial discord, more crime, less law enforcement, much more illegal immigration and importation of refugees and an ideological Supreme Court that will barely even glance at the Constitution.
With Trump there is a chance of a Constitutional SCOTUS, a possibility of reduced illegal immigration, the possibility of reduced taxation, the possibility of a stimulated economy and jobs for some of the 95 millions people now out of work. A vote for Trump may crack the leftist oppression that is political correctness and revive reverence for the First Amendment. A vote for Trump may save the Second Amendment. A vote for Trump may save our Vets from killing themselves in despair over their lack of medical care. A vote for Trump may find a way to replace the utter failure that is Obamacare with something affordable, accessible and workable. A vote for Trump may turn around the sad state of our decimated cites like Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, etc., those cities that have been run into the ground by democrat pols for decades.
If Hillary is elected, we can be certain of the path she will choose, one that will continue to inch toward totalitarianism. It will be terribly depressing because we will know what is coming. If Trump is elected, it will be a spin of the wheel, but at least the possibility of a national turnaround will be there. We will be able to hope for a revived Constitutional Republic that is of, by and for the People. Sadly, there is only one choice; the one with possibilities rather than dead certainties.
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4)The Businesses of Mahmoud Abbas and His Sons
Mahmoud Abbas, his wife (front row, bottom right), son Yasser (top left), son Tareq (top right), and their families. Photo taken in 2005.1 (AFP Photo)
§ Abu Abbas is not prepared to countenance Muhammad Dahlan as his successor.
§ The PA chairman’s two sons, Tareq and Yasser, own an economic empire in the territories worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they rely on their connection with their father.
§ Mahmoud Abbas’ main endeavor is to find a fitting successor who will ensure both the continued existence of his sons’ businesses and their wellbeing.
The succession battle in the Palestinian Authority has become very elemental since Mahmoud Abbas rejected the request of four Arab states – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates – to mend fences with his bitter rival Muhammad Dahlan. Some of those states want to see Dahlan as the next PA chairman.
Although some in Fatah view Abbas’ rejection of the Arab request as an act of “political suicide,” Abbas does not show signs of stress. At the urging of Egypt and Jordan, which fear Hamas, he called off the elections in the territories and consented to a return to Fatah by some of Dahlan’s people. As far as Abbas is concerned, he has complied with most of Egypt and Jordan’s requests. Yet, still, he is not prepared to countenance Muhammad Dahlan.
PA Prime Minister Riyad al-Maliki claims that relations with Arab states are in perfectly good order.
This week, Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), a member of the PLO Executive Committee, revealed the way in which Abbas became PA chairman. It perhaps sheds light on how the next PA chairman, in the absence of elections in the territories, will be appointed.
In an interview with the Palestinian news agency, Amad, on September 10, 2016, Qurei said that he was the one who proposed Abbas as a candidate for the post and took him to Yasser Arafat, then on his deathbed at the Mukata in Ramallah the evening before he was flown to the hospital in Paris.
In the conversation Arafat did not suggest that Abbas should be his replacement; nor, however, did he express opposition to Abbas, with whom he had had sharp disagreements in the past. The conversation was friendly, and the issue of succession was not raised at all.
Qurei said that after Arafat’s death, all the members of the Fatah leadership agreed to Abbas’ appointment as successor because they trusted him.
The Abbas Family’s Businesses
The bitter succession battle within Fatah and the fact that Abbas rejected the Arab states’ request concerning Dahlan has impelled the interested parties to reveal publicly the power-wealth nexus of Abbas and his sons. Senior officials in Fatah and in Arab states sense the PA chairman’s political weakness and are now leaking information to the media about his governmental corruption.
In a report published on September 11, 2016, the Egyptian journalist Hussein Yousef of Al-Masri Al-Youm highlighted the business activity of Abbas and his two sons, Yasser and Tareq.2
Although his report gives a good deal of information on the topic, the Palestinian social networks have already been posting various material on the Abbas family’s corruption for quite a while.3
Yousef’s report describes the family’s business empire, which is based on Abbas’ own commercial ties and his connections with states and large companies worldwide, all of which benefit his two sons’ business concerns.
Abbas’ two sons own a large business consortium called “Falcon” that has taken over the West Bank’s commerce and its labor market. Abbas supports the group, and he has arranged many favorable conditions that give it advantages over other companies.
The Falcon concern has several constituent companies:
1. The Falcon tobacco and cigars company.
2. The Falcon electricity and mechanical contracting company (it has branches in the West Bank, Jordan, and the UAE). Abbas has mustered $890,000 in assistance for it.
3. The Falcon international media company.
4. The Falcon general investment company, whose profits total $60 million.
5. The Al-Mashrek insurance company, which has 11 branches in the territories with a worth estimated at $35 million.
6. The Al-Khayar al-Awal company for projects and development, headed by Yasser Abbas.
The Al-Masri Al-Youm report claims that the Abbas family has accumulated its wealth over many years and that Muhammad Rashid, who was Yasser Arafat’s economic adviser, told him that Abbas had misappropriated a sum of at least $100 million.
Yousef asserts that Tarek Abbas has smuggled antiquities from the territories abroad and has dealt in land and the selling of commercial concessions.
Dahlan, Erekat, Fayyad, Rajoub?
Dahlan alleges that Abbas is hiding away a sum of $600 million out of the $1.4 billion that then-Prime Minister Salam Fayyad transferred to him after Arafat’s death.
In an interview with the Jordanian website Amon on June 8, 2016, Dahlan said it was he who had arranged work for Abbas’ two sons with Fayyad at a monthly salary of $5,000, yet today their wealth comes to $300 million.5
These dollar figures well explain why Abbas, despite his advanced age, clings to his post and seeks a suitable successor who will safeguard his two sons’ economic empire after he retires.
The Abbas family’s corruption is the hot topic in the territories. It is clear that whoever succeeds Abbas will need to put the house in order and clean up the governmental corruption.
At first, Abbas wanted to appoint his trusted ally Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee, as his successor. Erekat, however, is considered a figure who is weak and lacking credibility and popularity in the territories, and who would well have served the family’s interests after Abbas’ departure as well.
Abbas’ bid to appoint Erekat encountered strong opposition by Fatah Central Committee members led by Jibril Rajoub, who sees himself as the successor, and Erekat had to declare that he was renouncing the post.
Since then the PA chairman has been seeking a different candidate to succeed him. Another aspirant is rumored to be General Majid Freij, head of the Palestinian General Intelligence, who is also considered a close associate of Abbas. So far, though, Abbas has made no move to promote him, such as appointing him as PA deputy chairman. Apparently, he fears going too far in ruffling the feathers of the Fatah leadership and the Arab states, which want to see Dahlan as the next PA chairman – something that would likely be to the Abbas sons’ detriment in the future.
