Fatah Corruption Exposed by IPS and Hamas.

 

 

By Ezra HaLevi

Palestinian Authority corruption was exposed Tuesday by both Gaza's Hamas regime and the Israel Prisons Authority.

Hamas finally released a portion of the documents that its officials have been touting ever since the Islamist group wrested control of Gaza, including office buildings which belonged to Fatah.

The documents were presented to reporters from the Arabic press mostly by Hamas official Mahmoud A-Zahar. He said they are but the first in a series of displays that will show the depth of the corruption engendered by the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority.

This first batch documents those bribes and payoffs authorized directly by Palestinian Authority chairman and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat from 1994 to 2004.

• Arafat approved the payment of $30,000 for the tuition costs of his media advisor's daughter in London and $9,000 annually for the son of another Fatah official in Germany.
• A Fatah official in Lebanon was given $40,000 for his son's wedding and $130,000 for "damage to his daughter's car," as well as hundreds of thousands more to purchase homes and luxury vehicles.
• Paintings worth $66,000 were presented as a gift to a Paris woman.
• Millions of dollars were used for personal expenses of senior Fatah officials and their families.
• PA officials were involved in illegal tax collection scams, including under Fatah-appointed PA prime minister Salam Fayyad, when he was Arafat's Finance Minister.

Previously, Hamas claimed it had evidence that Fatah-run PA intelligence collected photos of Hamas officials and others in morally compromising scenarios. Those pictures were not disclosed. "Today is light weapons against corruption," A-Zahar explained. "But the heavy arsenal will be used soon." A-Zahar said Fatah's corrupt officials would stand trial in the future. "The judicial system should be established again, reformed again," he said, "in order to put these documents in front of them and to prepare [for a] proper trial." He said the compromising pictures would not be made public.

Fatah officials in Judea and Samaria accused Hamas of forging the documents, though the Arab journalists who examined them, many not sympathetic to Hamas, testified to their convincing authenticity. Fatah officials called upon Hamas to give an accounting of what it did with millions of dollars it received from Iran and Qatar over the past two years.

Prisons Service Exposes PA Cheating Ring, Cancels Exams
As a goodwill gesture to the PA a number of years ago, Israel began to allow PA Arab terrorists to take matriculation exams while in Israeli prisons, excluding chemistry, due to a fear that the knowledge would be used for bomb-making.

The PA supplied proctors to administer the examinations, which consisted of PA-curriculum subject matter.

The Israel Prisoners Service (IPS) announced Tuesday, however, that the tests will be discontinued due to rampant cheating and several attempts by proctors to pass messages from terror groups to the prisoners.

Proctors refused to hand over exam booklets after it was found that several prisoners who had already been released were still given grades as though they had taken the matriculation exams. The grades were then reported to the Palestinian Authority, enabling the freed prisoners to enjoy a test-free diploma.

It was reported that the proctors also succeeded in deceiving the IPS and administering the chemistry exams, under the heading "sciences."

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