'Arafat's Widow And The Tunisian Scandal

Several years back the corrupt wife of late and lousy Palestinian leader Yasser 'Arafat, Suha Arafat, was unceremoniously stripped of her Tunisian citizenship. Given the nature of the Tunisian government, only speculation was available for Tunisians to make sense of the sudden loss of favor for Suha 'Arafat. The Palestinian's Marie Antonetta, who stole millions from the Palestinian people, was a close friend and even business partner of First Lady Leila Ben Ali and had many other prominent and elite relationships in the current. Without any past intimations that she had run afoul, Suha 'Arafat was suddenly persona non grata. No official reason was given.

suha arafat0 yqGbS 19672

But recently unauthorized de-classifications of U.S. diplomatic cables from the Tunis embassy shed some light on what may have cause the fissure between Madame 'Arafat and the Ben Ali clan. Several theories are listed from two documents, for reasons of simplicity Document One:

The School Theory, Version I

----------------------------------------

¶4. (C/NF) Mrs. Arafat attributed her ouster to her falling

out with First Lady Leila Ben Ali over the Carthage

International School, a new, private, for-profit school, of

which they had been co-owners. According to Mrs. Arafat's

version of events, the dispute stemmed from Leila Ben Ali's

decision to force the closure of the Bouebdelli school (also

known as by the name of its parent group, Le Fondation Louis

Pasteur), a highly respected private school, from which many

of Tunisia's elite have graduated. (Note: The Bouebdelli

school was notified in mid-May that the Minister of Education

had ordered it to close, ostensibly for failure to comply

with registration regulations. Public outcry ensued, fueled

in part by a petition and letter-writing campaign organized

by parents of Bouebdelli schoolchildren. Many local and

international media reports criticized the decision to close

the school as a flagrant attempt to stifle potential

competition of the International School of Carthage. The

fact that parents of Bouebdelli schoolchildren were

encouraged to enroll their children at the Carthage school

only served to fuel these charges, as did the August 29

Presidential decree in which President Ben Ali granted

1,794,600 Tunisian Dinars (approximately US $ 1.5 million) to

the Carthage School, an estimated 25 percent of its operating

budget.)

¶5. (C/NF) Mrs. Arafat asserted that Leila Ben Ali had

TUNIS 00001489 002 OF 003

overreached in the decision to force the Bouebdelli School to

close. She claimed that she had tried to convince the

Tunisian First Lady that "what we are doing is unethical,"

and that competition ultimately would be healthy for the new

school. Their arguments over this issue continued to

escalate, according to Mrs. Arafat, culminating in the

decision to revoke her citizenship while she was on vacation

in Malta. Mrs. Arafat told the Ambassador that she intends

to remain in Malta, where her brother serves as Palestinian

Ambassador, but that she hopes to spend Christmas in the

Palestinian Territories.

-----------------------------------------

But Why?: Version II of the School Theory

-----------------------------------------

¶6. (C/NF) Other rumors have circulated with a different spin

on the school story. According to this theory, it was Mrs.

Arafat who overreached, not Leila Ben Ali. Specifically, it

is said that Mrs. Arafat convinced the Ministry of Education

to force the closure of the Bouebdelli School. She

reportedly did so by invoking the name of Mrs. Ben Ali.

Critically, though, according to this theory, Leila Ben Ali

was not aware that her name was being invoked. Thus, the

Tunisian First Lady was incensed when she learned about the

school's closure -- and her alleged role in that decision --

in the highly critical pieces in the local and international

media. (Comment: The fact that the Bouebdelli School did

not reopen, even after the revocation of Suha Arafat's

citizenship, would seem to cast doubt on the accuracy of this

theory. End Comment.)

------------------------------------

But Why?: An Array of Other Theories

------------------------------------

¶7. (C/NF) Plenty of other theories have stoked the rumor mill

in the Suha Arafat affair. One well-connected Palestinian

resident in Tunisia told EmbOff that what sealed Mrs.

Arafat's fate was that on a recent visit to Tripoli, she had

asked Libyan Leader Qaddafi for money. Qaddafi had readily

provided a hand-out, but he reportedly subsequently called

President Ben Ali to chastise him for failing to provide

adequately for the widow of the late Palestinian President.

Ben Ali's acute embarrassment, so the story goes, quickly

turned to wrath. It was not long before Mrs. Arafat's

citizenship was revoked. Another theory holds that Suha

Arafat was ousted because she had absconded with a

significant amount of the first family's assets. Finally, in

the face of persistent rumors that Mrs. Arafat had secretly

married Belhassen Trabelsi, brother of the Tunisian First

Lady, some commentators chalked up the whole ordeal to the

failure of that relationship.

Document Two:

XXXXXXXXXXXX also offered a theory as to what was behind

the GOT's decision to revoke Suha Arafat's Tunisian

citizenship in 2007. (Note: Reftel also reports on this

incident.) He said that he had heard that Leila Ben Ali at

that time had been scheming to marry off an 18 year-old niece

(NFI) to UAE Prime Minister and Dubai Ruler Sheik Mohamed bin

Rashid al-Maktoum, one of whose wives is the half-sister of

the King of Jordan. According to this rumor, Suha Arafat

warned Jordanian Queen Rania about Leila Ben Ali's plans.

Word of Arafat's intervention got back to the Tunisian First

Lady, who turned against Arafat and soon forced her out of

Tunisia.

The last one is certainly the most intriguing. Corrupt Arab regimes from Tunis to 'Amman to Dubai, backstabbing, Palestinian double-team between Suha and Rania, resentment, calculating marriages for profit, polygamy and revenge...is this not ripe for a soap?.