Monday, April 01, 2002
By Michael WidlanskiYasser Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah have also served as the heart of a secret Palestinian operation to flood Israel with counterfeit money, Israeli officials told The Media Line Monday (April 1).
The secret phony money operation could have had far-reaching consequences, said an Israeli army officer, citing several possible scenarios:
*--Undermining the already-weakened Israeli economy;
*--Helping Arafat to pay Palestinian terrorists and agents operating in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
“There were hundreds of thousands of shekels and the printing plates to produce millions of shekels,” said an Israeli army officer.
Israeli army (IDF) units that seized parts of the Arafat headquarters compound discovered hundreds of thousands of counterfeit Israeli currency bills in denominations of 50, 100 and 200.
The colorful red, tan and green counterfeit bank notes—bearing the portraits of late Israeli presidents Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Zalman Shazar-- looked quite authentic to the untrained eye.
Israeli inteligence sources told The Media Line that they suspect that Arafat also had printing plates for counterfeiting American currency, but these have not yet been discovered.
Israeli and Western intelligence officials have long suspected that Arafat might have a counterfeit money operation, like the one he maintained in Lebanon during parts of the 1970’s and early 1980’s.
Islamic terrorists have also used counterfeit money as an element in financing their operations.© 2002 Michael Widlanski, The Media Line
