Israel Matzav

Middle East 'peace': Follow the money

In the Middle East 'peace process,' as in almost everything else in life, it's always worthwhile to follow the money.

London's Daily Mail did just that, and discovered that 'unpaid' quartet envoy Tony Blair made a lot of money for JP Morgan (which pays him an annual 'consulting fee' of 2 million British pounds) and for 'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen by pressuring the Israeli government to grant certain cell phone wavelengths to a 'Palestinian' phone company.

Acting in his capacity as the international Middle East peace envoy, Mr Blair helped to save the company by spending months putting pressure on Israel’s prime minister and his colleagues in a bid to change their minds.

An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has revealed:

• Mr Blair spoke of the need to get Wataniya up and running in order to boost the Palestinian economy. However JP Morgan, the American investment bank that employs him as a consultant, has a financial stake in Wataniya through Wataniya’s owner, the Qatari firm Qtel, which is an important client of JP Morgan.

• Financial documents show that back in 2007, JP Morgan had been one of four ‘mandated lead arrangers’ of a $2 billion loan with which Qtel bought Wataniya from its original Kuwaiti owners. Last year, the bank joined a syndicate that lent Qtel a further $500 million, and became a ‘lead arranger’ for a Qtel bond issue which raised yet another $1.5 billion.
  

In these deals, JP Morgan would have been paid many millions of pounds in fees, and if the loans had gone bad, could have been exposed to substantial losses. ‘Its original exposure was probably around $200 million,’ one Wall Street expert said yesterday.

Last night a bank spokesman refused to comment, or to disclose any further details. He did not deny that Qtel was a significant JP Morgan client.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said he had no knowledge of any connection between JP Morgan and Qtel.

Mr Blair’s lobbying campaign also helped to enrich the family of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas – a central figure in the search for Middle East peace. A firm run by his son Tarek has secured a lucrative contract to provide advertising for Wataniya.

Mr Blair’s envoy role – for which, as he has often boasted, he is not paid
a salary – has now been enhanced.

There's much more to this story - including the use of an American 'small business' loan fund to finance it (yes, American taxpayers, you are once again footing the bill for 'Palestinian' corruption). Read the whole thing.

Tony's such an attractive guy, isn't he?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:30 AM