Israel Resource Review |
5th June, 2001 |
Contents:
Where Are Arafat's Secret Accounts?
Ronen Bergman
Senior Investigative Reporter, Yediot Aharonot
In the early morning hours of Friday,April 20, a group of armed masked men knocked on the door of the home of Jawad el-Russein in Abu Dhabi. El-Russein, the PLO treasurer, opened the door and was met with drawn weapons and an offer he couldn't refuse -- to accompany them. According to reports that reached London, he was flown, while bound, in Arafat's plane to the Palestinian Authority. Only a few PA officials were privy to the secret operation. Even today, only a few people know where the man who was the senior money man in the PLO is being held.
Members of el-Russein's family, who live in London, were given very
sketchy information about his whereabouts. They say that he was acquainted
intimately with the PLO's financial set up overseas. They say that there
are some PA officials who are trying to prevent the treasurer from sharing
this information with others. "El-Russein is a walking time bomb for
senior PA officials, including Arafat himself," confirm Israeli sources.
El-Russein and Arafat are old acquaintances and their relationship is
complex and charged. For years el-Russein was the PLO's chief bookkeeper. He is familiar with the smallest details of the organization's assets, how they are held, where, and who exactly has the right to sign. He is the man who knows the private bank accounts of the chairman and how PLO money has been spent from the early 1980s to this very day.
Arafat, according to reports, began to fear recently that el-Russein was
about to open his mouth. And the distance from that to his abduction in
Abu Dhabi was short.
The el-Russein family is not without means. The daughter, Mona Boanas,
acquired infamy in British tabloids for her close relations with Culture
and Sport Minister David Mellor. The family pulled strings and moved
heaven and earth in an attempt to release el-Russein. Scotland Yard became
involved (el-Russein is a British subject) as did the secret service, MI5,
to a certain extent. The Palestinian Authority adamantly denied it was
holding him. Until recently.
"PA intelligence agents are holding el-Russein in a secret hideaway,"
confirmed here, for the first time, the speaker of the Palestinian
parliament and the chairman of "Samad," the PLO's economic arm, Ahmed
Qurei, a.k.a. Abu Ala. According to Abu Ala, el-Russein was not abducted.
"What do you mean abducted?! He was legally arrested in Abu Dhabi at an
extradition request made by the PA and brought here. He took a loan of a
few million dollars from us, and did not return it. We are demanding of
him that he return the money."
Abu Ala's version is puzzling in light of the fact that there is no
extradition treaty between Abu Dhabi and the Palestinian Authority. The
Justice Ministry there did not publish any announcement on the matter, nor
did the PA. Moreover, why should the PA, or the PLO, lend millions of
dollars to its treasurer?
According to articles published in England, el-Russein was abducted
indeed. The reason for his abduction may constitute further proof to
allegations raised in the course of the years about corruption in the PLO's
monetary set-up. "It's hard to believe that the PA's intelligence agents,
who are busy with urgent matters, would get involved in such a complex
operation, one that perhaps violates Abu Dhabi's sovereignty, if this was
purely a loan," officials in Israel say. "Only a very important reason for
the chairman could prompt him to take such an irregular measure."
For Israel, the importance of the information stored in the abducted
treasurer's head is of even more urgency nowadays. The signing of the Oslo
agreements in 1993 changed overnight the way the Israeli intelligence
community viewed the PLO and the Palestinian's economic activity, rendering
it irrelevant -- or at least that's what they thought. The economic
department of the IDF Intelligence research branch and the parallel unit in
the GSS nearly fell into degeneration. The PLO became a legitimate
organization and its money management were no longer of any interest to
Israel. "Money that goes in or out of the PA does not interest us," many
in the security establishment were wont to say, "If the Palestinians choose
to be corrupt, that's their business."
The el-Aksa Intifada changed this premise. The questions that had been
central before the Oslo agreement, and which were neglected since, are now
of interest Israel again. How is the Palestinian Authority funded? Does it
make use of money given for welfare to purchase weapons or to augment its
security organizations? Is it active inside the Green Line (particularly in
Jerusalem and among Israeli Arabs) disguised or covered by other
organizations? To what extent do organizations that do not bear the title
PLO fund the Intifada? And how much money does the rais have in his
pocket, in the territories and in banks overseas?
The answers to these questions could determine Arafat's standing in the
territories, his ability to persevere and his ability to influence the next
moves in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In his book, The Armed Struggle and the Search for a State, the most
comprehensive and impressive research ever done on the PLO, Dr. Yazid Saigh
describes the rare access el-Russein had to Arafat's most carefully kept
secrets. The latter in 1984 appointed el-Russein, one of his oldest and
most loyal friends, to the senior position in order to strengthen his
control over the monetary and organizational set-up in Fatah, in
particular. and the PLO in general. El-Russein made sure to transfer from
the Palestinian National Fund to Arafat's personal account, every month,
between 7.5 and 8 million dollars, for what was termed operational needs of
the "Palestinian liberation army," a branch of the PLO.
A secret and internal Fatah investigation in 1993 found that to this
account alone, el-Russein transferred USD 540 million. This account has
never been under any sort of supervision and today as well, apparently,
there are only three people who know exactly what happened to the money:
Arafat, el-Russein, and the powerful secret consultant, Mohammed Rashid,
the person in whom Arafat places full trust.
"When Arafat was the PLO chairman in exile, the organization's economy
was run by a system of notes signed by the chairman," says Brig. Gen. Gadi
Zohar, formerly a senior officer in IDF Intelligence Branch and the
coordinator of government activities in the territories. He says "the
person who truly knows the details and who handled the large projects is,
of course, Abu Ala."
El-Russein and Abu Ala know each other well. Abu Ala's central position
before the Oslo agreements, a position he holds to this day, was head of
the "Samad" organization, or by its full name, "the Palestinian Sons of
Shahids Project." In practice, this is the Palestinian counterpart to the
Histadrut with an economic branch called "Samad el-Iktisadi," which over
the years became a huge economic organization controlling assets of
tremendous value.
The establishment of the Palestinian Authority forced a transition from
an underground/operational/secret organization to an autonomous authority
meant to be legal and structured, prior to becoming a state. However, this
transition was not complete. Arafat, Israeli sources believe, did not
order the PLO to internalize the change. "Samad" remained intact,
activity-less, but still worth a great deal of money. Leading PLO and PA
officials consistently refuse to divulge information about the extent of
the organization's assets outside the PA. Publishing these numbers would
undoubtedly generate immense agitation in the Palestinian street. How is
it possible, many would ask, that we suffer here from economic recession
while PLO functionaries control huge sums frozen overseas without using them.
The fighting with Israel has generated a great deal of internal tension
inside the PA. Lately, because of the Intifada, calls have again been
heard to stamp out corruption and to invest all resources in helping the
suffering Palestinian people. In the last several weeks, in parliament and
among the public, the phrase "min heik hada laka?" (Where did you get
that?) is frequently heard. This saying was originally said in the
Egyptian parliament and was used by those fighting corruption, and is once
again relevant.
It is very very difficult to determine what is the true extent of the
PLO's assets. […] The organization does not release information about its
economic activity. Another riddle that el-Russein could solve for Israel
is the precise nature of the link between the PLO and the PA to various
ostensibly non-political Palestinian organizations. The most important of
these, with whom el-Russein was in contact, is the "Palestinian Welfare
Society."
Col. Shalom Harari from the IDF Intelligence Branch, who is familiar
with daily life in the territories, researched the subject in the 1980s and
wrote a few reports about the Palestinian Welfare Society. "A real danger
to Israel," Harari described it, "political subversion." The welfare
society, the reports noted, purchases assets throughout the territories and
inside the Green Line, supports families of killed or maimed terrorists, is
linked to funding PLO activities, and forms alternative institutions to the
Israeli rule.
These reports were greeted with indifference at first. The GSS was
preoccupied with the first Intifada and did not attribute a great deal of
import to political subversion. An unknown organization that gives money
to schools, hospitals and kindergartens did not spark too much interest.
The IDF Intelligence Branch was interested principally in the PLO overseas,
so that the "Welfare Society" fell between the cracks.
This indifference came to a halt in 1988, after a group of experts
broke into the computer network of "Samad," the PLO's economic branch that
linked PLO headquarters in Tunis to its economic delegations overseas. The
breakthrough exposed an immense monetary turnover and numerous bank
accounts, mainly in Europe, and a complex network of ties and people
handling the money. Computer experts realized that they had not uncovered
the entire picture. They were under the impression that there was not one
central bank account, but a mosaic of monetary reservoirs whose destination
would change, usually, according to who the owner of the account was or who
its courier was.
Close monitoring of the computer network sometimes showed the route of a
money shipment, from its beginning as a mysterious grant, through several
couriers until its final destination, for example, "shahid allowances,"
paid from bank accounts in East Jerusalem. In this large web of private
and official accounts, of couriers and anonymous donors, the name "welfare
society" came up again and again as a central economic organization in the
Palestinian world and one that Arafat sees as part of PLO assets and as an
emergency reserve. From that point on, it was clear to the Israeli
intelligence community that the "welfare society" should be of a great deal
of interest to them.
In recent weeks, Harari's reports and other materials on the "welfare
society" were taken out of the archives. The dust-covered files suddenly
took on new urgency and tangible significance. Israel believes that today
as well, the "welfare society" holds extensive assets and money.
Intelligence sources say that without much difficulty they were able to
trace many funds of the organization transferred to purchase lots in
Jerusalem and its environs, or transferred to Israeli Arabs, to the
Bedouins and also to support the families of Intifada casualties.
These are not necessarily suspicions of involvement and funding of
violence, which were also raised in the past but were never proven. In a
crazy world where friend becomes fore overnight and yesterday's allies
shoot mortars today, what appeared half a year ago as legitimate act is
today interpreted as political subversion.
A European group made a study this past year of the various economic
aspects of the Palestinian Authority. In doing so it encountered over and
over the name "welfare society." With the help of various means, mainly
technological, thousands of documents and notations relating to the society
were collected. Due to (mainly political) disagreements among the group
doing the research, it was stopped. The material, along with its initial
conclusions, was given to Yedioth Ahronoth and it appears here for the
first time.
Even a hasty perusal of the documents makes it immediately clear: this
is not a group of community center counselors, but an immense
multi-branched, intricate, well-oiled economic body, built like one
gigantic knot of innumerable bank accounts, and a never ending chain of
money transfers, organizations and sub-organizations. Thus, for example,
the CV of a senior bookkeeper in the welfare society in the Palestine
branch, Saliva G. Shada, under the heading "work experience," writes that
her job entails managing money transfers in the welfare society "from over
20 accounts in five countries in seven different currencies."
"Despite the quarrels and the differences over the years between Arafat
and the heads of the welfare society, Arafat views the colossal assets of
the society that are invested overseas, along with "Samad's" assets, as
part of his 'Plan B'", says one of the directors of the European
investigation, "this is his economic reserve in case he is forced to leave
the territories."
The European researchers encountered frequent unclear money transfers
from the organization's accounts to Arafat himself. Thus, for example, on
January 1, 2000, Abed el Aziz Shakshir and Munzar el Halidi, two of the
organization's directors, sent a letter to Jean Pierre Bouli, director of
the Arab Bank in the Geneva branch. They asked him to make a USD 150,000
transfer from bank account number 225.200.00.00.333 to the welfare
society's account in the same branch, number 225.200.03.00.333.
The senior directors serve as investment consultants and their private
businesses fuse with the organizations supported by the society. In
contrast to most of the Palestinian non-government organizations and
non-profit associations supported by international bodies, the "welfare
society" operates with the direct funding and almost exclusive support of
private Palestinian institutions and Arab governments. The material
collected by the European group shows that the means and the methods used
to manage its assets and investments are more like an international
investment organization than a humanitarian welfare organization.
Many of the documents cite two names linking between the non-government
organizations and financial centers throughout the world: the Arab Bank
and its owners, the Shuman family, the promoter of the welfare society, and
one of the most influential families in the Arab world.
The welfare society manages most of the investments (cash, stocks, funds
and real estate) by means of four international private investment
companies: Inost Corp. -- a company working from New York, London and
Bahrain specializing in investments of private and public bodies from the
Persian Gulf in the U.S. and Western Europe; Carlisle -- a group that works
in Washington, specializing in investments and in real estate companies and
which today manages an investment portfolio of over USD 21 billion;
Flemings, one of the largest investment companies in Britain, and Capital
International.
As of today, the organization's investment portfolio is worth about USD
50 million. In 1998 it was worth about USD 32 million.
In parallel to the money in investment companies, the society also
manages money by means of an intricate network of accounts in Arab Bank
branches all over the world. Today they have accounts in branches in
Geneva, London, Athens, Amman, Dubai, Beirut, Ramallah and Gaza. More
activity takes place in the Bank of Palestine in Gaza and even Barclays
Bank in Jerusalem.
A small example of the extent of the organization's activities can be
seen from an examination made in the Arab Bank's Geneva branch. On
September 22, 1999, in this branch alone, the organization had at its
disposal in cash a sum of over USD 10 million, managed by means of several
accounts [the bank account numbers follow…].
The "Palestinian Welfare Society" is not alone. Throughout Jerusalem,
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for many years, dozens of organizations
and non-profit associations, non-governmental and international
organizations are active. Various governments, the World Bank, the UN, the
EU, private bodies and institutions and wealthy Palestinians, sent and
still send hundreds of millions of dollars.
"Whereas in the 1980s a large part of these organizations were indeed
welfare organizations, the trend of non-political involvement changed after
the signing of the Oslo agreements," says a senior Israeli security source,
"we fear that some of them, who enjoyed complete autonomy from us, began to
be used by the Palestinian Authority as a conduit to whitewash capital and
to send it to East Jerusalem and other places in Israel."
"Even if we ignore the information the security establishment has about
the use of these assets, it is not at all clear to us why this money must
be overseas," says a source in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. "We are
talking about enormous assets that the PLO still holds all over the world,
and the explanation of an economic reserves for times of crisis, is not
reasonable. It is inconceivable that official or semi-official Palestinian
bodies, linked to the PA umbilically, continue to hold such a large
quantity of assets overseas while the PA economy is starving for outside
investments and Arafat's subjects in the territories suffer from a low
standard of living, unemployment and poverty. How, in these days, can they
suddenly invest in building a computer center in Lebanon or in buying real
estate in Saudi Arabia?
"The moment the independent Palestinian Authority was established, there
is no justification of maintaining this body separate from the PA. Selling
its assets and transferring the money paid for them to the territories
could help in the battle against poverty, and therefore also against Hamas
and be to the benefit of Arafat's survival."
Various declarations of organization heads of not being involved in
politics do not conform to the facts. Thus, for example, one organization
supported by the welfare society is the saraya, scouts, in Ramallah.
Internal welfare society reports show that in 1987 alone, it transferred
a sum of USD 100,000 to the scouts, money that was used to pay for legal
aid given to movement members arrested in the Intifada.
One of the welfare society's projects is called "children of the
future." The European group that investigated the welfare society had
questions as to the real goal of this project. In the period between July
1998 and July 2001, this project was budgets with USD 289,704, a large sum
for the PA. Israel suspects that the money from the project was
transferred to goals that do not only foster the children of the future, or
at least not in the usual sense of fostering. The suspicions relate to
transferring some of this money to encourage activity related to recent
events in the territories.
The welfare society claims that all the money is invested in educational
projects, but cannot explain why the computer files show sketches of
T-shirts for children saying "Intifada" and "el-Aksa," as well shirts
saying "el-Kuds" under a large saying "no entry." These computer files
were written a long time before the Intifada erupted, supporting IDF
Intelligence Branch's contention that the September events were planned
long before Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount.
One document of the welfare society reads that "the organization today
gives direct assistance to families of the martyrs, to rehabilitation
centers and to those wounded in recent events in Palestine… in light of the
emergency situation and the Palestinians' urgent need for help, we have
established the el-Aksa Intifada fund…."
A branch of the Arab Bank in Jordan manages the money of this fund.
Col. Shalom Goldstein, formerly of IDF Intelligence Branch and today
Ehud Olmert's adviser for East Jerusalem, says that the activities of
Palestinian organizations in Jerusalem serves as a cover for the PA itself.
"We have known for a long time on the use the PA makes of this. The Oslo
agreements prohibit the PA from operating in Jerusalem and the Palestinian
leadership understood that the most 'legitimate' way of circumventing this
prohibition was to make use of those independent organizations that were
already active in the city before the PA's establishment." […]
It's not hard to find evidence of real estate purchases and other
investments in Jerusalem in the European research. […] Among the documents
collected by the European group, are also many sketches of sites in the Old
City and in East Jerusalem, diagrams of the Temple Mount, aerial
photographs of Jerusalem showing the key points and land registration
papers for property bought by the organization or one of its branches.
Some of the big money that passes through the organization makes its way
to the accounts of its directors. In terms of the territories, the
directors of the society earn enormous salaries. The acting CEO, Victor
Kashkus, earns USD 7,500 a month; the CEO in the PA, Rafik Husseini, earns
USD 6,080 a month and others earn a bit less. All in all, the welfare
society spent in 1998, according to the European group, USD 586,254 on
salaries.
The researchers stressed that the society's founders are also very
wealthy businessmen who have economic interests of their own in the Middle
East and their involvement is very pronounced. Thus, for example, Abdel
Majid Shuman appointed on February 15, 2000 Abdul Mohassan el Kutan and
Abdul Aziz Shakshir, two members of the Arab Bank board of governors, to
manage the investment portfolios of all the companies who manage the
welfare society's money. This sort of work is generally left to bank clerks.
These wealthy Palestinians behind the welfare society are also behind
the two main Palestinian companies for purchasing properties in Israel and
in the PA, Padico and Jadico. They are owned by the Arab Bank and the
Shuman family and Saudi prince billionaire Walid Bin Talal.
The activities of these two companies touch on, but do not overlap, with
that of the welfare society, and not coincidentally. Upon the
establishment of Jadico, its chairman, Abed el Majid Shuman, told
reporters: The company's goals, which numbers 240 shareholders, are the
purchase, development, management and selling of property in East
Jerusalem. Shuman even emphasized: "The company was founded to halt the
Judaization of Jerusalem."
And indeed, since its establishment, the company as invested many
millions in buying land and property in the PA, in East Jerusalem, and some
sources say, in other places inside the Green Line.
"There's nothing wrong with government or non-governmental Palestinian
bodies helping raise the living standards of PA residents," says Shalom
Harari. "However, I see the welfare society as very dangerous because this
organization is building the foundations for a state within a state and for
the cultural autonomy of Israeli Arabs. The society encourages creating
separate institutions inside the State of Israel."
The big question is how much money the PLO has. It depends who you ask.
It's hard to get el-Russein's version at the moment. The CIA estimated a
decade ago that the PLO had assets worth 8 to 14 billion dollars. This
wealth was accumulated by a 5% tax paid by every working Palestinian in
Arab countries. But not only taxes.
Until the Gulf War in 1991, says the French newspaper Le Figaro, the
organization's cash reserves amounted to more than 7 billion dollars.
Arafat divided this immense sum among numbered accounts in Zurich, Geneva
and New York.
The closing of the "International Bank for Credit and Trade" because of
its managers' involvement in terror and drug trading, in a joint operation
of Interpol and the World Bank in July 1992, exposed many secret bank
accounts of Arafat and his people worth millions of dollars.
The end of the Gulf states' support for the PLO and the deportation of
the Palestinian workers in the wake of Arafat's support for Saddam
Hussein, brought it to the verge of bankruptcy. Some of Samad's assets
were sold at the time to pay for the PLO's day-to-day activities. It's not
clear which activities.
But the PLO, say Western intelligence assessments, recovered. In 1993,
on the eve of the famous handshake between Arafat and Clinton and the White
House lawn, the Scotland Yard published a report saying that most of the
PLO's income was from "donations, extortion, bribes, illegal trade in arms,
drug trading, money laundering, fraud, etc." In that same assessment, the
British descried the PLO "the richest organization of all terror
organizations." In 1994 the British repeated this assessment and even
stated that because of the Oslo agreements, the illegal activities of the
PLO had grown and put much more money in Arafat's and his colleagues in the
PL O leadership's pockets. This money was put into real estate investments
and industry in various places, as well into Swiss and other bank accounts.
The GAO report of the American Congress accountant from 1995 estimated PLO
assets at 10-13 billion dollars, with an annual income of 1.5 to 2 billion.
The report has never been published in full and was classified top secret.
These estimations are exaggerated, Israeli and other officials think.
They are a result of a clever disinformation campaign put out by Israel in
the 1970s and 1980s to aggrandize the PLO's economic strength. Many of the
exaggerated figures are from items disseminated by Israeli officials and
delegates to the international press.
"The PLO's assets are less than published," Brig. Gen. Gadi Zohar says.
"What they have overseas mainly serves as a personal insurance fund of the
Palestinian leadership. Like every third world leader, Arafat too never
knows when he will have to get on a plane and make tracks."
Nevertheless, figures collected in Israel and elsewhere show that the
PLO, today as well, still has very large assets, worth about a billion
dollars. The list includes tax free stores at the Kenyatta airport in
Kenya, at the airport in Lagos Nigeria, in Tanzania and Mozambique; the
ownership and part ownership in African airlines and the Maldives islands;
farms, shoe factories, refineries, stocks of giant companies like Mercedes,
investments in large industrial companies traded on the Frankfurt stock
market, Paris and Tokyo; land in Mayfair London, shares in the Monte Carlo
radio station and other radio stations.
The PLO is also the owner, or was in the past, of many newspapers (one
of which, Sawat el Bilad, was edited by Mohammed Rashid when he was in his
revolutionary stage) and many buildings in Cyprus, Greece, France, Spain,
Jerusalem and Lebanon.
And in the meantime, the economic situation in the territories is harder
than ever. More than 30% of the population lives on less than $2.10 a day.
Unemployment is rampant and the economy has suffered from the Intifada.
The official debt of the PA has grown from USD 1.7 billion in 1995 to USD
3.8 in 1999.
Officially, PA spokespeople say they are doing all they can to transfer
PLO assets to "Palestine." Mohammed Rashid declared that he personally is
in charge of the process meant to dismantle the PLO's economic empire.
Chairman of the Palestinian National Council Salim Zaanoun claims that he
heads a committee meant to restore Palestinian assets from Syria and
Lebanon from the hands of private people who fraudulently took them over.
The Palestinian media, apropos Zaanoun, has published in the last few
months reports about his private fortune, proving there are other sides in
addition to suffering in being a senior Palestinian official. These
reports say that Zaanoun bought a large house in Amman for him and his
family, costing 7 million dinar (around USD 10 million). Zaanoun claims
this building was bought for the PNC and cost 210,000 dinar only.
Senior sources in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank,
responsible for monitoring the money donated to the PA, say that in
violation of promises, the PA is not transparent of PLO assets overseas.
They say there is no indication that Arafat plans to sell any of them soon
and use them for his people's benefit.
"Write whatever you like," Abu Ala says, chairman of the PLO economic
wing. He also says that "Samad" no longer exists in practice. […] He
says: "We moved Samad here. It was established in Lebanon and remained in
Lebanon until it was destroyed by the Israeli army. They destroyed the
factory and the workshops belonging to Samad and even stole some of our
textile machines."
Question: What about the farms in Africa?
Abu Ala: "Yes, we have a few large projects with a few African
countries, but nothing close to the propaganda you have."
Question: And the duty free shops?
Abu Ala: "We've sold them all, there's nothing left."
Question: And your assets in Syria, the offices, the land, the money?
Abu Ala: "We have some assets in Syria. So what?"
This feature appeared in Yediot Aharonot on June 1, 2001
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How to Stop Terrorism
Benjamin Netanyau
The horrible murders of the last few days are tearing at the hearts of the whole nation, and causing a feeling of no way out for some of us. We are being told that terrorism cannot be stopped at all, and certainly not by military means. I completely disagree with this statement. Terrorism can be stopped only by rehabilitating Israel's power of deterrence and the willingness to employ it when needed.
|
Netanyahu Speaks
We stopped the terrorism from Egypt and Jordan using military means,
many years before there were any sort of diplomatic processes with them.
But there is no need to look back decades. In the three years of my
government's tenure, we took terrorism off the national agenda. In 1996 we
were elected to stop the wave of buses exploding and suicide bombers. In
the 1999 elections, the security issue was no longer on the table. After
three years that were nearly completely quiet and safe, I handed over to my
successor a tranquil country whose citizens had a sense of security.
Arafat is the same Arafat, Hamas is the same Hamas, and the suicide
bombers are the same suicide bombers. What has changed?
During my government's tenure, we rehabilitated Israel's power of
deterrence, and would not accept terrorism as part of our daily routine.
Following our firm reaction to the events of the Hasmonean Tunnel and the
three terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Arafat understood three
things:
- That I am prepared to use the IDF's full force against the
Palestinian Authority, even to the extent of toppling it.
- That the ministers supported this policy.
- That the government I headed would employ this policy despite all the
international pressure.
Understanding the threat from us to his regime caused Arafat to take
action against the Islamic terrorist organizations and to lock up
terrorists. After the 1999 elections, Israel's policy was changed utterly
and completely. The government that replaced mine returned to the policy of
the Oslo government: it expressed a willingness for excessive concessions
to the Palestinians, including under fire (and even hurriedly withdrew from
Lebanon). As in the days of Oslo, the result was the same: a wave of terror
once again engulfed the country.
In order to bring the power of deterrence back to Israel, we have to
once again insist on three things:
- Israel is prepared to use any power necessary to stop the terror,
including to the extent of paralyzing the Palestinian Authority and causing
its collapse. Arafat is not worried about his people, upon whom he has
brought one disaster after another, but he is certainly worried about his
continued rule.
- The government must stand together behind this policy, which the
majority of the people support.
- Israel will explain to international public opinion that we are
implementing the natural right of any country to defend its citizens. This
PR campaign is ever so much simpler with the present American
administration, and with a coordinated diplomatic-PR effort, it will succeed.
These steps will bring about a halt to terror, and perhaps even before
the Palestinian Authority collapses. But should Arafat not understand this,
his successors will surely have learnt the lesson. In order to survive in
power they will have to stop the terrorism against us.
The key to stopping the terror is not in the identity of the regime
facing us or its intentions, but in deterrence. Arafat will not forsake the
ideology of destroying Israel, which was once again exposed at Camp David.
But he, or his successor, will stop the terrorism when they are forced to
choose between it and the continuation of their rule. Ghadaffi is the same
Ghadaffi, but he forsook terrorism when the U.S. bombed Libya and imposed
heavy sanctions on it. North Korea is the same North Korea, but it too has
moved away from using terrorism as a result of the incredible economic and
international damage that terrorism had caused it.
The conception of Oslo, which is that relations of peace with the
Palestinian can be established based on the assumption that they had
altered their intentions towards Israel, was mistaken. In its place, the
concept of security which has served Israel since its establishment, which
brought about the cessation of fighting with two of our neighbors, and
which ultimately enabled the establishing of peaceful relations with them,
must be brought back: a strong Israel which knows how to stand up for
itself and is prepared to use its power when necessary.
This article ran in Maariv on June 3, 2001
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Sara Blaustein's Son Mourns a Murdered Mother
Yoni Berg
You'd never know it from looking at her, but apparently my mother was a dangerous woman. On Tuesday, she was shot to death on her way to what must have been a sinister deed. Why else would she be killed in a horrible manner? If the gunmen who so callously ripped my mother away from me felt that they needed to put a bullet through her head in order to stop her, she must have been quite a dangerous woman indeed.
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Oh, she put up a good front, though. On the outside, you'd never know my mother was this scheming devil, like these anonymous shooters seemed to have known. To her husband, she seemed like the loving woman he married fourteen years ago. To her children, she seemed like the stern but nurturing mother of her four kids. To her granddaughters, she was the doting Savta that brought them treats. And to her neighbors, she was a caring friend who would do anything asked of her.
But my question to the shooters is this: If my mother was so dangerous that she needed to be killed in order to stop her, when did she have time to do all of her nefarious planning? Was it before she saw her daughter off to school in the mornings? Perhaps it was between her prayers, recited daily? Or maybe it was when she was on her way to her classes every day, where she learned Holy Scriptures in holy sites.
I lived with my mother for twenty-three years, and she must have had me fooled but good. Here I thought she was a kind woman who delighted in entertaining guests whenever the opportunity arose. A woman who volunteered her time and money to charitable organizations of all sorts. A woman whose loss is being felt in communities spanning from her childhood home in Bensonhurst and the entire New York City area, to the home of her dreams in Israel.
Thousands of people came to her funeral on Wednesday night to mourn for her and weep over her grave, but these thousands of people must have been wrong. The men that drove by and killed her must have been right. Because only a terrible person deserves to be left so unprotected by her government, to allow her to be killed so brutally. And besides, if she were any good at all, wouldn't her government exact some measure of justice? Of course it would.
But my mother is dead. She was shot by a passing car on the highway. And nothing was done about it. Apparently her killers were right - my mother was a dangerous woman.
Yoni Berg
On behalf of himself and the other mourning children of Sara Blaustein: Adena Mark, Samuel Berg, Atara Blaustein
June 1, 2001
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Sara Blaustein: A Man Remembers His Murdered Wife
Norman Blaustein
My wife, Sara Blaustein, was brutally murdered in a drive-by shooting by Arab terrorists last Tuesday on the road from our home in Efrat to Jerusalem. We had moved to Israel with our 13 year old daughter, Atara, last summer fulfilling our life's dream of living in the Land of Israel. My wife's life revolved around her family, which meant more than just her husband and children, but by extension included the entire Jewish world. Anyone who ever needed any kind of charity - be it food, money, volunteering, or any other means of help - never came away from her empty-handed. The driving force of her personality, which was helping others at all costs, made it easy for her to make the transition to life in Israel. She instantly found her niche in the town of Efrat, where she continued to attend to her fellow-man at every opportunity.
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My wife and I are among the 200,000 Jewish Israeli citizens of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Often, we are referred to as "settlers", which to many connotes some form of fanaticism. Actually, my Sara was a perfect example of a member of our community. She was not an extremist in any way. She was simply another Jewish citizen returning to her national home.
Her outlook on life was that of a true American - she firmly believed in the ideal of justice and equality for all its citizens. Her faith in American values makes her loss all the more tragic, because it was American policy that lead directly to her death.
I was astonished to discover that the United States has a website offering a reward for the capture of any terrorist who acts against American citizens worldwide EXCEPT for acts of Arab terrorism. Such a blatantly racist and anti-Semitic policy was nothing short of an invitation for the gunmen to kill my wife. But more than that, it was a betrayal of the faith she had in the American government, and in the American way of life which she cherished so much.
Adding insult to injury, there was no representative of the United States government at her funeral. When contacted, the embassy claimed that Efrat was out of their jurisdiction, while the American Consul-General refused to send anyone in order not to make "a political statement." Aside from this being callous, it's extremely hypocritical. In 1996, the Consul-General at the time, Ed Abington (who now works for Yasser Arafat in Washington) made a condolence call to the Arab village of Husan - minutes away from where my wife was murdered. The Consul-General went to console a family whose son had been killed.
Yet my family, now sitting Shiva, has not merited a visit from our country's representatives. Why is there political discrimination in American consolation policy between Arabs and Jews?
The juxtaposition of all these things - the lack of US reward for the capture of Arab terrorists, the imposed restraint by the US on Israel from pursuing my wife's killers, and the lack of common decency by the American government in failing to pay a mere condolence call - leaves me feeling not only abandoned by a cold, unfeeling government which does not seem to care about a murdered American, but also betrayed by a policy which must share in the responsibility for that murder.
Norman Blaustein
June 1, 2001
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Sherri Mandell:
I Want the United States to Pursue the Murderers of My Son, Yaakov
Sherri Mandel
I want the United States to pursue the murderers of my son, Yaakov
Natan Mandell. He was a United States citizen and needs to be
protected by United States law which offers a 5 million dollar reward
for capturing terrorists, except for those terrorists here in Israel.
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I want the United States to pursue the murderers of my son, Yaakov
Natan Mandell. He was a United States citizen and needs to be
protected by United States law which offers a 5 million dollar reward
for capturing terrorists, except for those terrorists here in Israel.
Martin Indyk called me during the shiva and I asked him to visit me.
He said that "he wasn't allowed to." I asked him
to call George Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and have them call
me. They never called. They didn't write or send a letter of
condolence.
We are being branded war criminals by the UN. Meanwhile the murderers
of my son are free--and the United States is not helping to pursue
them and bring them to justice.
Koby loved America. He loved baseball and shopping malls and Michael
Jordan and Cal Ripken. He still followed sports in America. He had
even sent his bar mitzvah invitations to Bill Clinton and Al
Gore. We never heard back from them anything, not even a cordial
decline.
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Living with a War on the Road Near Our Home
Sara Bedein
Yesterday three brutal murders rocked our community. Two were from
Efrat. Sarah Blaustein, 53 was shot to death while on the way with
her family and some hitchhikers picked up in Efrat, to the funeral of
Gilad Zar, a civilian security specialist whose job was to travel the roads
of Judea and Samaria and to report security infringements. Gilad had been
ambushed and shot to death that morning while he was riding the roads
and protecting our families.
The Blaustein family had moved to Efrat from New York only eight
months ago to fulfill their dream of living in the Land of Israel. Sarah's
brother, a resident of Efrat was one of the influencing factors of
their moving to Efrat. Sarah's daughter, Atara is my thirteen year old
daughter, Leora's classmate. Later in the evening we learned the name of the young woman who was murdered in the car. Leora was on the way to console her friend Atara when she heard on the Israel radionews that the young woman who was travelling with Atara's mother, twenty year old Esther Elvan, had died in Hadassah Hospital from the wounds that she suffered in that drive-by attack.
Esther was Leora's youth counselor.
Of all our children, Leora has said the least about "the situation".
It is difficult to know what is going on in her head. Leora is our only "A"
student, sweet, kind, loving, with an immense love of animals, and an
innate goodness about her Leora'a paintings decorate our living room.
There is one painting of Leora's of which I am particularly fond of
and it always makes me smile. It is a painting of our family all wearing big smiles on our faces. She painted it when she was eleven years old.
When I look at it I think "all is well in Leora's world".
Today, all is no longer well in Leora's world. Today she will be
attending two funerals. One for her classmate's mother and the other
of her most beloved youth counselor, of whom Leora had tearfully told me
last night that she had always thought what a beautiful life Esther would
have because she is such a good person and makes everybody feel so good
about ourselves. "I can't believe that I'll never see her again", she said
crying inconsolably.
As a parent it breaks my heart to see the loss of innocence and
normal childhood that our children are experiencing. Our oldest daughter,
Rivka, had been a babysitter for our friend's son, Koby
Mandell, who was brutally stoned to death together with his friend
Yossi.
Their faces and bodies were mutilated beyond recognition. Among the
many who came to the funerals were hundreds of children. We are groping in
the dark trying to make sense of this catastrophe that has befallen us.
I used to wonder how Jews in Europe continued living where they did
after the Nazis rose to power in 1933 when everyday brought more tragedy
into their lives. I no longer wonder.
Every Jew in Israel lives in the shadow of an official death
sentence that the new Palestinian Authority has pronounced for every Jew.
For that reason, you have heard nary a word of condemnation at any time in the Arabic media of the Palestinian Authority for the brutal murder of any
Jew during the eight years of what has been called a "peace process"
Yet the State of Israel was created so that Jews would have a safe
haven from the anti- semitism of the world which almost succeeded in the
genocide of the Jewish people.
Fifty three years after the establishment of the State of Israel we
are now in the position of apologizing for wanting to defend ourselves
against a ruthless aversary who train their children from infancy to hate and to celebrate the murder of innocent people for the glory of Palestine.
Over the past eight months we have grown accustomed to horrific
realities that would have been intolerable in any other country.
Today, we witness daily murders of people whom we have loved. Our
children go to school with orphans whose parents have been killed. Our
children have teachers whose spouses have been murdered or return to
class to find an empty seat of a classmate who will no longer return to
occupy the seat. Our children have attended more funerals than most people
attend during an entire lifetime.
We live in Efrat, a fifteen minute drive from Jerusalem and situated
between Bethlehem and Hebron. Efrat is a town with lush parks and
gardens, beautiful homes, excellent schools, with a population of over
7000 residents consisting of many professionals and people working in
the education field. The city of Efrat was purchased legally for a dear
price by local Arab landlords in 1983. Contrary to what many people would
like to believe, Efrat does not rest on land stolen from Arabs, nor do any
of the 144 Jewish settlement communities throughout the West Bank and
Gaza strip. All the land in these communities lie on land purchased at
full price from Arab landlords or they were constructed on government land
(no man's land that did not have any ownership rights to them).
Not everyone living in Efrat moved there for ideological reasons.
Many people have moved to Efrat because of a sense of community here,
which seemed until recently to be an idyllic place place to raise a family.
When we moved here in 1985 with two small children and one on the
way, we never imagined we would be living in a war zone situation. We are now the parents of six children ranging from 19 months to 19 years. Our three eldest dorm during the week at their schools which are situated in
various places in Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley. Since September we
have equipped them with cell-phones so that we can verify their safe
arrival to school. All three have been exposed to shootings on the road from the relative safety of the bullet-proof buses they travel in.
My daughter, Rivka, who goes to high school in Kiryat Arba, near
Hebron, tells me that she and her friends traveling on their school buses have adopted the odd custom of sitting on their legs when they pass these
Arab villages "so as to arrive with our legs on". This custom came about
following the deliberate bombing of the Israeli children's
bullet-proof school bus in Kfar Darom (the Gaza Strip) in which two teachers were killed and three children from the same family had their lower limbs blown off.
The first time I saw my neighbor, a lawyer who works in Jerusalem,
walk out of his house in the morning carrying his briefcase and wearing a
bullet-proof vest and helmet, I laughed and saluted. The picture was
so surreal. Since then, since twenty people from our communities have
been murdered on the roads while traveling in their non bullet -proof cars,
the sight of people sporting this new fashion has become more
understandable
We have somehow become accustomed to this most outrageous form of
existence.
We have become used to hearing the sound of shooting in the air.
Last Thursday, to the sounds of a gunshot battle (that was taking
place in the Dagan - Efrat's furthest northern neighborhood) I was reading to my six year old daughter, Meira, a story from Dr. Seuss. As the shooting
became louder, I looked outside my daughter's window to see what was
happening.
From the window I watched the local Yeshiva high school boys carry on with
their basketball game. The commercial center was teeming with
children out for pizza or just hanging out with their friends. People were
visiting the video store, and everyone was carrying out their middle class suburban life style, business as usual, totally oblivious to the sound of loud machine gun fire.
Meira, like many children these days, is having nightmares. Every
night when she says her nightly prayers she asks God not to let her have any bad dreams. She has become clingy and though prior to the current
situation she had never come into our bed at night, now, she often does.
Everyday she asks us if "somebody got killed today". She worries constantly for her father who travels the roads daily to work to and from Jerusalem.
When it is night time and her father isn't home yet, she calls him on the cell phone to see if he is all right.
Israel's Defense Minister, Benjamin Eliezer, was asked yesterday
whether Israel's one-sided cease-fire will continue. "Yes it will", he
answered.
"Until when?", he was asked. "Until the Nation Of Israel screams out
'no more'. Open your ears, Benjamin Eliezer. The people of Israel
scream of "No More".
In a seminal tractate of the Talmud known as "Ethics of the
Fathers", we learn that he who has destroyed a single life is rendered as if he has destroyed an entire world.
Article written on May 30, 2001, following the murders of
Sara Blaustein, Esther Elvan and Gilad Zar
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