Friday, November 05, 2004

It’s not over till the fat lady sings

Suha Arafat

Word on the street in Israel is that Suha is keeping him alive till she can get her fleshy paws on every last cent.

According to that most excellent of Israeli daily publications, Yediot Aharonot, Suha and Muhammad Rashid, Arafat's financial advisor, are the only ones who know the numbers of the bank accounts where the dying ra'is keeps his fortune, at least three hundred million dollars, according to Forbes, much of it purloined from the Palestinian people.

That's why Suha rushed over to Ramallah, like a bat out of hell, to take over the handling of the dying husband she hasn't bothered visiting for three years, and swiftly had him moved to her territory, Paris. She wasn't taking any chances of him mumbling the account numbers to anyone else.

According to Yediot, Rashid and Suha each know about different bank accounts. Suha and Rashid don't like each other very much.

It's like American daytime TV, without the good-looking actors.

By the way, Ehud Ya'ari, top Israeli commentator on Arab affairs, said on Israeli TV channel 2 evening news tonight that Yassir Arafat died yesterday lunchtime, and that since then everything we've been hearing has been politics.

Update: Ah, a commenter on Silent Running enlightens us:

Accessing those swiss numbered accounts is a new ball game since the swiss had to change the rules a year or so ago. Even if you are co signatory you can no longer access without swiss inheritance documents. However whilst the holder is alive you can transfer pretty easily. So I guess the "coma" situation will assist the transfers. Otherwise the swiss banks will get another windfall like they did 60 years ago.

Kindly brought to my attention by Alisa.