Gary Fitleberg, December 26, 2004

Arafat's aim at bowling is not knocking down pins but rather than people for profit.

According to the Associated Press, the "Chairman of Terror" and corrupt dictator of the Palestinian Authority/Palestine Liberation Organization (PA/PLO) was morally bankrupt but financially flush despite desperation cries of near poverty.

While his people suffered from poverty, billions of "humanitarian aid money" destined for clothing, education, food, and shelter went towards terrorism and his personal pocket.

The late Arab "Palestinian" invested the money in New York-based Strike Holdings, owner of Bowlmor Lanes in Greenwich Village, through a holding company he created called Onyx Funds, according to Bloomberg Markets Magazine.

"We are in the process of placing the funds in the amount they invested in escrow to be returned," Strike Holdings CEO Thomas Shannon said in a telephone interview. Strike Holdings also owns bowling alleys on Long Island and in Maryland and Florida.

"Effectively as of today the PCSC will have no investments in Strike Holdings," Shannon added. The PCSC is a Ramallah-based holding company owned by the Palestinian Authority/Palestine Liberation Organization (PA/PLO).

Later at a news conference at the bowling alley, Shannon said he was feeling "shock and outrage."

"We don't choose to be affiliated with any political-based organization, especially one that may or may not have ties to things we find absolutely abhorrent," Shannon said.

Zeid Masri, managing partner of SilverHaze Partners, a Virginia-based investment firm, had told Bloomberg Markets that he invested the money in Strike Holdings for Onyx because he had been a former classmate of Shannon's.

Shannon said at the news conference that he felt betrayed by Masri, that the origins of the money should have been revealed.

"My relationship with Mr. Masri is over," Shannon said.

Bowlmor is located several blocks from the campus of New York University and is popular with Manhattan hipsters, who pay about $8 a game per person to bowl in the evenings and on weekends.

News of the investment upset some customers at the alley, which advertises itself on its website as an ideal location for bar and bat mitzvahs for Jewish teens.

"If I had known, I wouldn't have come, but I promised the kids," Steve Saslow, 55, told the Daily News in Thursday editions.

The money was among $799 million in international investments by Arafat detailed in newly released documents, Bloomberg Markets reported. Other holdings included $285 million in Orascom, an Egyptian cellphone company, and $3.2 million in the U.S. software firm Simplexity, it said.

Arafat was a shrewd and successful businessman who cared nothing about human lives especially his own people.

Arafat was listed as one of the richest men in the world by Forbes magazine.

Arafat literally got away with murder and lots of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid money while laughing all the way to the bank - the "West Bank" of stolen money.

A sick terrible tragedy of modern history.

Arafat created a fictional Arab "Palestine" nation and "Palestinian" people in an effort to annihilate the Jewish people and steal land and money.

Who should get the money? Victims of terror. The recipients should not be the PA/PLO which despite the fact that its tactics of terror have never ever changed manages to extort millions more from the international community for the largest and most successful perpetual political propaganda ploy of a fictitious independent Arab "Palestine" nation and "Palestinian" people. Those who have suffered as the victims of all the bloody campaign of hatred, incitement, terrorism and violence launched with the aim to divert attention away from his corruption, murder and mayhem should be the ones to receive reparations for their pain and suffering.

Gary Fitleberg is a Political Analyst specializing in International Relations with emphasis on Middle East affairs.

Copyright © 2004 Gary Fitleberg