Arab-Israeli journalist: ‘Arafat crook from day one’

By Paul Haist

article created on:

“If Arafat had invested one half of the money he received, the Palestinian people would not have erupted into violence.”

That’s the assessment of Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab-Israeli journalist who spoke before a luncheon gathering sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Community Relations Committee April 2 at the Benson Hotel.

Toameh is the West Bank and Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and U.S. News and World Report.

He was speaking of funds provided to the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat by the world community and the violence that followed on the outbreak of the second or al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000.

Toameh said Arafat “drove people into radical movements” because of his refusal to allocate those international funds to public service and social infrastructure needs—because they “didn’t see the fruits of peace.”

Speaking to a banquet room filled with American Jews, Toameh said, “I will take you to any refugee camp and I won’t be able to show you one hospital or school built with your dollars.”

Arafat, he said, “was a crook from day one.”

Toameh said it was wrong to give money to Arafat without accountability.

After Arafat’s death in 2004, Mahmoud Abbas, running as a candidate of Arafat’s Fatah party, succeeded to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in 2005 in elections in which he campaigned vowing to end the corruption and lawlessness of his predecessor, according to Toameh.

“He came with this promising message. He wins over 60 percent…and what does he do? Nothing,” said Toameh.

It was no surprise, he said, when, a year later the radical Islamic group Hamas trounced Fatah in a second round of Palestinian voting.

The Wall Street Journal published an article by Toameh at that time in which he predicted the Hamas victory, even though Journal editors disagreed with him, as did most officials of the Bush administration.

Calling Hamas “very clever,” Toameh said, “They stole Abbas’ platform of a year earlier—‘we will get rid of corruption’…so, the Palestinians voted for Hamas.”

“How come,” asked Toameh, “Condi, Bush, Cheney, the White House, the FBI didn’t know what every child on the street knew over there?”

In the aftermath of the Hamas victory at the polls, the P.A.’s refusal to admit defeat and Hamas’s refusal to relinquish its mandate led to a power struggle between the two factions that has resulted in a level of violence that Toameh said has gone largely unreported.

It is not, he said, a struggle between good and bad.

“It is a power struggle between bad guys and bad guys. They are fighting only over money and power,” said Toameh.

Efforts by the United States and other governments to help crush Hamas, said Toameh, have “helped them, made them
victims and made them strong.”

The result so far, he added, is that the longed for two-state solution has been achieved, “two Palestinian states.”

Gaza, he said, has become an Islamic state supported by Iran, al Queada and Islamic Jihad.

The West Bank, he said, is “a puppet state” that “hardly has control.”

Toameh believes it is pointless to speak to Abbas because any agreement he might make is unreliable. Likewise, Toameh believes it is pointless to talk to Hamas.

He suggested the wisest course was to do nothing.

“Wait until you have a partner on the Palestinian side,” said Toameh.

Cautioning that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “is already in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria,” he warned that he also may soon be in the West Bank.

Toameh called on Israel and the West to encourage the Palestinians to form a government that can work with Israel.

Toameh was asked whether it was feasible for Israel to speak to Hamas through back channels.

Toameh replied, “If I were Israel, I would talk to anyone who wants to talk to me, and anyone who wants to shoot at me I would shoot back.”

Asked to speak as an Israeli Arab about growing division between Jewish and Arab Israelis and unrest among Arab Israelis, Toameh said, “We Israeli Arabs are fighting for integration. The Palestinians are fighting for separation.” He added, “We are not a group of terrorists; we have been loyal to the state of Israel.”

He allowed, however, that today “there is no dialogue between Arabs and Jews inside Israel,” which he said is very dangerous.