How Yasir Arafat destroyed Palestine

Mostly through theft, according to this article (subscription req'd) by David Samuels in the September issue of The Atlantic. But also because of the disorder created when Arafat and his thugs took over the Palestinian territories.

The amounts of money stolen from the Palestinian people through the corrupt practices of Arafat's inner circle are so staggeringly large that they may exceed one half of the total of $7 billion in foreign aid contributed to the Palestinian Authority. The biggest thief was Arafat himself. The International Monetary Fund has conservatively estimated that from 1995 to 2000 Arafat diverted $900 million from Palestinian Authority coffers, an amount that did not include the money that he and his family siphoned off through such secondary means as no-bid contracts, kickbacks, and rake-offs. A secret report ... concluded that in 1996 alone, $326 million, or 43 percent of the state budget, had been embezzled, and that another $94 million, or 12.5 percent of the budget went to the president's office, where it was spent at Arafat's personal discretion. An additional 35 percent of the budget went to pay for the security services, leaving a total of $73 million, or 9.5 percent of the budget, to be spent on the needs of the population of the West Bank and Gaza.

Arafat, who kept details of his finances in little notebooks in his pocket, used (some) of the money to burnish his standing among the people. When he visited cities, he would be accompanied by an aide with a suitcase stuffed with cash, and dole the money out. He also paid for weddings and funerals and it was not uncommon for Palestinians to advertise in newspapers to beg Arafat for money. They needed to beg, because the kleptocracy had destroyed the Palestinian economy. Palestinians paid "double or triple the price for everything." And because so many people had accepted money from Arafat, criticizing him was next to impossible.