Palestine or Money ?

October 31, 2004
_ (The Times)

Fading Arafat fights to keep hold of $1billion war chest Uzi Mahnaimi, Ramallah and Matthew Campbell, Paris

IN THE END it came down to money. While fighting for his life in a French military hospital, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, was engaged in another, secret battle last week as he tried to keep control of bank accounts that are central to his survival in power.

Arafat’s godfather-like sway over his people derives less these days from his revolutionary credentials than from the estimated $1 billion in bank accounts to which he alone has access. He uses the money to encourage loyalty among a fractious people and was resisting all efforts to prise the key to this impressive war chest out of his hands.

Just before he boarded a Jordanian helicopter at the start of his journey on Friday to the hospital in Paris where he is undergoing tests for a blood disorder, two potential successors asked him what to do about money.

Ahmed Qureia, the prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, his predecessor, told the 75-year-old Arafat that they needed funds to keep the Palestinian territories running in his absence. Instead of producing his chequebook, however, Arafat, in light blue pyjamas and a woollen cap, replied : “I’m still alive, thank God, so don’t worry.”

There was reason enough to worry by the end of last week. Arafat has been ill before but seldom has the Palestinian figurehead appeared so visibly frail. Whatever the nature of the mysterious illness he suffers from, it inevitably focused the world’s attention on the uncertain scenario of a Middle East without Arafat, who has led the Palestinians for 40 years.

Because he has held the reins of power so tightly and for so long, there were predictions that his departure would leave a vacuum of power and generate chaos. From Washington to Moscow, the risk of violence overshadowed optimism about the possibility of a new beginning in peace talks with Israel under a different leadership.

President George W Bush has long argued that Arafat must go before peace talks can resume. Ariel Sharon, the hawkish Israeli leader, also refuses to deal with him and has kept him isolated in his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah for the past three years.

The conflict, however, has helped to inflame Arab sentiment against the West and swell the ranks of Palestinian suicide bombers and Al-Qaeda jihadists. The sooner Arafat’s agony ends, some argue, the better for the war against terror.

Set against that are assessments of the difficulties of a post-Arafat world. There are fears that rival Palestinian security forces could take advantage of the vacuum to go to war against each other to settle old scores.

These well-armed groups are hard to control at the best of times, and while Qureia and Abbas might try to stabilise the political position at the head of some interim governing committee before presidential elections could be held, they would be powerless over the gunmen - especially without money.

THE crumbling Palestinian headquarters has taken so many Israeli tank rounds that its inhabitants are used to seeing plaster and dust spill from the ceiling. What they witnessed on Wednesday at about 7pm gave them much more of a jolt.

They had gathered around the dining table for iftar, the meal that ends the day of fasting during Ramadan. At the head of the table, Arafat broke pieces of bread into his soup with trembling hands.

He ate one spoonful, then another - and suddenly collapsed, his head falling on to the table. He appeared to have lost consciousness. His bodyguards took him to another wing of the partially destroyed compound and called for a doctor.

Arafat has suffered from various illnesses since being corralled in Ramallah, and time and again the medics have come to see what is wrong. This time it was serious enough to summon doctors from abroad.

They diagnosed a blood disorder that could indicate various diseases, including leukaemia. They told him that, if he needed more tests and was not treated in a specialist hospital, he might die.

In the midst of these grim deliberations came a telephone call from Suha, Arafat’s wife, announcing her imminent arrival. This formidable blonde 41-year-old matriarch divides her time between a flat in Paris and a villa in Tunis.

She has never been a favourite among the Arafat entourage, not least because of the belief that she has started a separate life dominated more by designer clothes than the intifada, or uprising, against Israel.

Whether or not that perception is fair, Palestinian figures in the Arafat bunker were hissing venom at what they regarded as her intrusion after an absence of more than four years. “Somebody must have told her he was dying,” sniffed a source close to the leader. “She never bothered to come when he was sick before.”

According to this source, Suha - whose comfortable Parisian lifestyle is supposedly sustained by a monthly transfer from the Palestinian war chest - rushed to Ramallah in part to inquire about money.

“She wanted to know the details of the bank accounts ; she wants to make sure that the financial future of Zahwa, their daughter, is safe,” said the source, adding that Arafat had refused to divulge any details of the accounts.

THE truth is that funds are much depleted since the early 1980s when the Palestinians made a fortune from drug trafficking in Lebanon and had up to $5 billion in their accounts.

Although Arafat has occasionally given others temporary access to the accounts, he is the sole signatory to many of them. The Palestinian Authority is often described as corrupt, but its leader Arafat has led a relatively simple life in his bunker.

Suha may receive a monthly allowance, but Arafat has spent more on keeping the loyalty of his friends. An example was the wedding gift to one of his advisers’ sons who was presented with a cheque for $50,000.

In fact, Arafat is constantly doling out money. “From flight tickets to refurnishing a house, from money for needy families to money for medical treatment, everything went through Arafat,” said a Palestinian source. “Now there is nobody to authorise these payments.”

No wonder they were all praying for a speedy recovery. To that end, some of his aides suggested he should seek treatment in Israel. “We told him in Tel Aviv he’d get better treatment than anywhere else,” said Ahmad Tibi, a confidant. “But he said he’d rather die than be hospitalised in Israel.”

There followed difficult and protracted negotiations that did little to reinforce belief in the notion of Arab solidarity. Arafat’s personal doctor is Jordanian and he wanted the leader to be treated in Amman.

The Jordanians were reluctant to take Arafat, however. According to one version, this was because the Hashemite royal court feared reprisals from the local Palestinian population if he died while under its protection.

A similarly apprehensive Egypt also refused, so the Palestinians approached the French, who had rescued Arafat in 1982, laying on a military escort for his withdrawal from Beirut when he was encircled by the Israelis.

On a visit to Paris in 1997, Arafat confided that whenever he had a problem he always went to see “Dr Chirac”.

That honorific seemed appropriate last week, even if it referred merely to President Jacques Chirac’s university diploma. Even so, relations with Chirac are not what they used to be : the French leader is known to have been irritated by Arafat’s failure to make a deal at Camp David, when former American president Bill Clinton also threw up his hands in despair.

Some aides warned Chirac that helping a figure seen by America as a terrorist leader would hardly further the present priority of French diplomacy - improving battered relations with Washington.

There were also complaints from French relatives of Palestinian suicide bombing victims, who threatened to bring legal action. Yet Chirac, citing a French tradition of sanctuary, sent a Falcon military jet to collect Arafat.

ISRAEL would not let Arafat into its airspace so the plane had to make an hour-long detour. Accompanied by Suha, he was admitted to the Percy military hospital, where he was undergoing tests for leukaemia and other possible illnesses.

The hospital specialises in blood disorders and was well qualified to dismiss West Bank rumours that Arafat had been poisoned by Israel.

Abbas Zaki, a veteran Palestinian activist, remembered that 25 years ago he had seen the same symptoms in Wadi Haddad, who masterminded hijackings of aircraft in the 1970s and died from a rare type of leukaemia. “I saw Wadi,” he said, “and I’ve seen Arafat. The symptoms are the same.”

However, Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, announced last night that the first tests had already ruled out leukaemia.

Whatever ails Arafat, his people are coming to terms with the idea that he may not return to Ramallah. Depending on the diagnosis, treatment in Paris could take weeks or months.

This has made everything in the violence-plagued region seem more uncertain than ever. Qureia and Abbas have been put in charge. Briefly prime minister in 2003, Abbas is viewed with suspicion by many Palestinians, partly because Israel regards him as an acceptable leader ; and Qureia has no popular following.

If there is anyone to whom Arafat will hand control of the money it is expected to be Mohammed Dahlan, his strongman in Gaza. The fact that Arafat asked Dahlan to join him on the flight to Paris seemed a vote in his favour.

By far the most popular young Palestinian leader is Marwan Barghouti, the head of an Arafat militia called Tanzim. He is hardly in a position to lead the Palestinians, after being jailed for life in Israel.

If Arafat does not return, the Palestinians will be under pressure to hold an election. Before the latest intifada the extremist group Hamas had only limited support among Palestinians. After four years of brutal conflict with Israel, the fundamentalist movement responsible for suicide bombings is said to command up to 50% support in Gaza and is a force any aspiring Palestinian leader will be obliged to take into consideration.

Whether or not Sharon tries to negotiate the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza instead of withdrawing them unilaterally, as he had planned, he can certainly not count on the next Palestinian leadership being any more flexible than Arafat, with whom he said it was impossible to achieve peace.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, can only hope that Arafat does not fall unconscious again before explaining how to access the bank accounts.

“In case of the sudden death of the president there is a strong possibility we’ll be unable to locate the accounts,” fears one of his aides. “We need to make an arrangement with him. So far we’ve achieved nothing.”

Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen

Popular former prime minister, 69, deputy chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Critic of Palestinian violence during intifada. Angered Arafat with an attempt to reform Palestinian security forces

Ahmed Qureia, aka Abu Ala

Current prime minister and nominal head of the Palestinian Authority. Skilled politician, 66, long-term ally of Arafat. An advocate of the peace process, he has met Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, several times

Mohammed Dahlan

Former security chief in Gaza and the West’s preferred candidate to succeed Arafat. Popular, 43, spent several years in Israeli jails. Seen as alternative to Palestinian old guard. Retains strong influence in Gaza but weaker in West Bank

Marwan Barghouti

Former head of Arafat’s Fatah movement in West Bank, aged 44, now imprisoned by Israelis. Once a strong backer of the peace process but now more militant. Closely identified with al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group responsible for numerous attacks on Israelis