His first Test = His last Test.

by ($=€) Fri Apr 28, 2006 19:25

No-one can have missed it. The moment that Hamas won the elections in Palestine, elements in the Israeli state decided to renege on their obligations to pay duty and excise revenue which they collect at the borders of the occupied territory to the Palestinian authority.
Even though the chairman of the Israeli Central Bank expressed his opinion (as a bona fide capitalist) that really they should honour their comitment, (not for the moral side of things but the long term fiscal sense).

Then of course the EU under Austria's presidency and the USA under Bush "the clever and wise but with a bit of a fundamentalist problem with the whole Jerusalem end time thing" decided that even though the Palestinians had democratically elected (& Jimmy Carter was there it was squeeky clean) Hamas to their government, they had chosen wrongly. So they cut off all the aid.

Coz that would make things better. 100,000 people, office workers, police men, and that sort of type, teachers (who don't work for Hamas directly already) and hospital staff (who don't work for Hamas directly) are going without their pay.

This is so that Hamas gets punished for being terrorist. & the Palestinians get punished for electing a government which wasn't corrupt. Because as well know, the western model of democracy means electing a corrupt government every time. "rule by mafia".

Chirac "the good" (& to be frank he is good outside of the metrepole et ultra mer " meeting Abbas has appealed for this horrible situation to be rectified. But the way he's done it is really extra-ordinary. Asking the WB to set up the fund, not the IMF, not the Council of Europe, not even Russia (who alone of the "great powers" have met with Hamas) seems to me at least to be a very odd way of off setting the previously commonly perceived solution :- "leaving it up to the arabs". Who as we remember led by "former brickie and rabidly anti-Israeli, and nuke know how" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (president of Iran) divested from Western Markets and put all the dosh in Malaysia and Indonesia and Dubia instead...

Poor palestinians.
They really need an agnostic appearing president of the US who likes having his "C--k S--k-d" instead.

by if s_o_a Sat Nov 20, 2004 17:35

Arafat's widow Souha has received from Percy Hospital Paris a copy of Yasser Arafat's medical tests.

The Palestinian people area awaiting their first free and democratically acountable elections of a state leader in the opening of next year, one possible contender has been released from custody after satisfying someone that though a recognised spokesperson and leader of an organisation listed as terrorist he's not really a terrorist, the other contender has survived an assasination attempt in the meantime in which two of his guards did however lose their lives.

And the Palestinian poor are still the vast majority and are still very very very poor. The main question now appears to be - Who will they choose to give expression to their wishes and needs as the world moves to in Bush's words "the end of final negotiations and establishment of two neighbouring democratic states" (before the end of his current term.

by sofia Sat Nov 13, 2004 11:33

at the link you may read the transcript of yesterday's press conference given by President Bush and Tony Blair in Washington DC, in which Bush outlined his plans for middle East peace, at the same time Arafat's body was enterred in Ramallah and spontanous mass emotion was varyingly reported as "chaos", "anarchy" and a "complete break down of order".
This is because the many thousands of palestinians who wished to express their grief for the now dead leader, didn't form polite and orderly queues behind the Saudi crown prince and conveniently forget that for most of his career Arafat was a "pariah".
These young palestinians chanted Arafat's nom de guerre and for once the green headbands of Hamas suicide bomber volunteers were not much in evidence, yesterday's martyrs choosing to wear rolled PLO scarves instead, but the intent remains the same.

Bush and Blair (whom Blair reminded us have worked together since the 11th of September 2001) have resolved to work together from the arguably historically more pivotal 11th of November 2004.
- They will mobilise the international community to support free and democratic neighbouring states where human rights are respected and the prices of olives are stable, one will be called Palestine and the other will be called Israel. To which end they will probably have to come with an awful lot lot of money and spend it on infrastructure in the Palestinian territories just like the EU used to do before Sharon ordered it all to be bulldozed. There may be some evil doers and terrorists but things like that are murky.

They will not flinch nor will they tire until democracy emerges in the middle east, as indeed it is emerging daily in Iraq just about prime time tv time for about five minutes when it gets really scared and goes and hides somewhere else again.

They will ensure that the normal rules of civilisation such as political asylum, religious sanctuary and so on will be respected, just like in the anglican chapel in Israel last week, the synagogues of Istanbul two years ago and the shrines of Al Sadr and Falluja this year. Because these things are _really_ important, and no people without them can expect to allow their democracy to properly emerge without at least a few hundred years of internicine strife, ethnic hatred, frontier disputes compressed into a few sound bites.

They will do thier best to meet with other leaders most notably of Europe, and Bush will even try and stay in the same room as them and look like he's listening.

They are very happy Sharon announced his withdrawl plan last April, and they hope he sticks to it, and they're not saying anything about that dodgy hamburger Yasser is rumoured to have eaten almost 8 years ago.

If you're interested in parsing their performance for body language and so on watch out for this-
Blair's eyes scrunched the moment he got out of his car. His gait was heavy and he was carrying something under his jacket. He played the dominant rôle for the first time in any simultaneous appearance with Bush directing him to his podium with a pat on the back.

Bush in contrast still can't say "Europe" without a tick registering in his right eye.

by ipsiphi Thu Nov 11, 2004 14:05

Saleem = Shalom = Pax = Peace.

Yasser Arafat died today, the 11th day of the 11th month, 2004.

May he rest in peace.

by iosaf Mon Nov 08, 2004 14:04

the last settlement between the Swiss banking entities and collectives seeking "inherited funds" occured in the last five years and was a pinion of the new relationship signed between the EU and Switzerland during the Irish presidency which pre-empted the first Swiss Russian accord ever a week later.

Arafat's wife is on French TV today speaking of her belief that her husband has been "buried alive". The founder of Palestinian state would if dead pose serious problems for the divided Israeli people were he to be buried in Jerusalem (which seems proper) rather than Ramalah.
Thank you for spelling it out for any of the readers who might have thought they had a hope in Hell of getting all that lost money.
One sad thing is that it doens't collect interest.

Meanwhile, here's Goya-

the dream of reason produces monsters. Goya's 43º caprice has proved a popular slogan with libertarians ever since.

by gnome of zürich Sun Nov 07, 2004 17:33

RE. "If Yasser's accounts may be transferred to others who were not the official account holders ..."

Not very likely, the Helvetians have pretty strict banking regulations you know .... not that easy to get any money out of the accounts .... you first have to prove that the account existed .... and then have some viable legal ground, e.g. inheritance ....

Yasser's wife apparently lives in Paris and allegedly gets a EUR 100.000 a month "allowance" ... but it's unlikely that she has any inside information about the complex financial network which produces this nice little "earner" for her .....

by sunday papers - (we never go away just get harder to see) Sun Nov 07, 2004 15:29

"If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? / Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? / If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? / And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered."

If Yasser's accounts may be transferred to others who were not the official account holders then not only will the Palestinian police force get their wages at the end of the month assisting Israel in it's two day old emergency security situation, but those who did not open their ancestors accounts which are estimated at 50,000,000,000$+ will have very good arguments to get their dosh out of the Helvetians.

So-
Bush's test is this-
Isreal - 2,000,000,000$ a year aid.
Palestine - minimum 4,000,000,000$ liquidity.
Holocaust victims versus Swiss banking law
50,000,000,000$
oh and there's a defecit too.
800,000,000,000$
that's a lot of cash.
isn't it?

Meanwhile, not only is Iraq now in emergency law, but Palestine is facing economic meltdown, and Yasser slips from Coma 1 to coma 4, very odd that. But the doctors of Percy, (traditional jerusalem templar name btw) are confident they can like squeeze out that bad bad juice.

by iosaf the ipsiphi and merrovinginvanjan - .:. Sat Nov 06, 2004 13:33

He has responded to doctors of the Percy Hospital, opening his eyes which have responded to light stimulus.
He has also responded to sound and touch passing the standard tests for Coma level 2.

If there are any alive who know where he has been, and what he has seen in the dominion of dreams, they will be glad to see comfort offered unto all the peoples of Jerusalem and perhaps reflect that iniquity is pardoned.

For a variety of reasons, mostly security, the monies of the Palestinian state are under the personal control of Yasser Arafat. The funds vary in size between roughly 4 and 6 billion Euros are held in no less than thirty accounts under differing jurisidictions.

Whomever now wish "succeed" Yassar Arafat the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people and founder of the Palestinian state, will not only have to deny him a burial place which honours his contribution, but face protracted legal battles with Swiss, Lichtenstinian, Andorran and Channel Island banking entities.

This has long proved to be the main reason why Yasser has not been murdered. And let me remind everyone, that Sharon has expressed his wish to see Arafat dead.

President Bush must now, whilst considering his own "success" as a leader, remember his own words that Yasser Arafat had "failed" as a leader. The withdrawl of the 4,000,000,000€ minimum which underpins the Palestinian state will also undermine the state of Israel an event completely beyond the current assistance offered by the White House to that state of 2,000,000,000$ a year.

= "do not write him off so easily for all the glitterss aint gold".

by Michael Fri Nov 05, 2004 23:28

The little dictator is dead, and where there not the issue of succession (he's spent the latter part of his career making sure there could be none in sight) the hospital would have said so already. Muslims are supposed to be buried within 24 hours of death, and cause Israel isn't likely to budge on the Jerusalem issue without a fight, they might keep up this charade until then (who knows?).

Move on. The Palestinians have a chance again to move on too.

by iosaf Fri Nov 05, 2004 21:53

are now telling us and our trans-atlantic bi-partisan partners in the next four years that Yassar Arafat has been refused a burial plot in certain key areas of Jerusalem.

The man is not dead yet, but one sort of gets the feeling that obituaries are being written.

Yassar is asleep, and in the dominion of dreams his grave becomes a talking point.
Imagine that, you get run over by a tram and end up in coma, and the world's media says- you're not getting a round tower in Glasnevin cemetary, or enterred under the Spike or your ashes scattered over Carlingford lough.

He may sleep a very long time.
A lot longer than one would normally expect to sleep in a medicare hospital in the USA, or indeed in a NHS ward in a National health service hospital in our neighbouring Engurland where hospital managers recommend "gradual withdrawl" of quality treatment after a few weeks on level 4.

by Mike Fri Nov 05, 2004 21:44

".....and are denied citizenship and voting rights by both the Israeli and Jordanian states where they live and work.""

Uh, might be true about Jordam (I think it is) but the Israeli Palestinain Arabs most certainly do have Israeli citizenship with voting rights. There are Israeli Arab parties with MKs in the Knesset. Like the Israeli Druse and Beduins they are not DRAFTED into the Israeli military, but can enlist. Fairly common for Druzim, rare for Beduins (they prefer their inter clan wars to inter state wars) and very rare for "Palestinians" to enlist.