Auditing Arafat

摘要

Frozen out by the bush ad-ministration and hemmed in by the Israeli military, Yasir Arafat is now facing a new threat: the cutoff of funds from his very own Palestinian Authority. Financial reforms might succeed in hampering the flow of money to terrorists―might even end up toppling Arafat himself. Money keeps Arafat in power. With a tight grip on much of the $5.5 billion in international aid that has flowed into the PA since 1994, he appears to have overseen virtually all disbursements, from $600 payments to alleged terrorists and $1,500 in "tuition" for security officers, to $10 million, reportedly paid by a company controlled by friends of Arafat, for a 50-ton shipment of weapons from Iran.