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Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/06/05/the_brothers_abbas
The Brothers Abbas
(Foreign Policy) Jonathan Schanzer - New details are emerging of how close family members of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a major U.S. partner in the Middle East, have grown wealthy. Have they enriched themselves at the expense of regular Palestinians - and even U.S. taxpayers? After Abbas targeted Mohammed Rachid, an economic advisor to the late Yasir Arafat, in a high-profile corruption probe, Rachid fired back with claims that Abbas himself has socked away $100 million in ill-gotten gains. The conspicuous wealth of Abbas' own sons, Yasser and Tarek, has become a source of quiet controversy in Palestinian society since at least 2009. Yasser owns Falcon Tobacco, which reportedly enjoys a monopoly on the sale of U.S.-made cigarettes in the Palestinian territories, while his engineering company received $1.89 million from USAID in 2005 to build a sewage system in the West Bank town of Hebron. Reuters reported in 2009 that Tarek's principal enterprise, Sky Advertising, received $1 million in USAID funds to bolster public opinion of the U.S. in the Palestinian territories. The writer is vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.