ARAFAT: KOSHER CATERER

Arafat, wealthy investor: bar mitzvahs and kosher catering
A small portion of the vast fortune stolen by Yasser Arafat is coming to light. Bloomberg Markets magazine reports the following:

Arafat used a holding company to buy stakes that ranged from $285 million in Egyptian mobile-phone company Orascom TelecomHolding SAE and its affiliates to
some $30 million in private equity, mostly in the U.S. These included $3.2 million in Herndon,Virginia-based Simplexity Inc., which makes electronic-commerce software, $2.1 million in New York- and Boston-based Vaultus Inc.,which makes software for wireless computers, and $1.3 million in New York-based Strike Holdings LLC, which owns the Bowlmor Lanes bowling alley in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

Arafat, who died on Nov. 11 at age 75, disclosed $799 million of investments in documents the Palestinian Authority has released over the past two years that show he didn't just invest in building basic services in the West Bank and Gaza. At a time when the authority was starved for funds, Arafat's money managers placed bets from Tel Aviv to Silicon Valley on venture capital funds, software startups and telecommunications companies....

Over the past two years, Fayyad, Rachid and their staff have been weighing which assets should be sold in order to keep the Palestine Investment Fund in line with the primary aim of its charter: developing the Palestinian economy within a democratic process.

One investment that might not meet that goal is the bowling alley. Bowlmor Lanes does brisk business with Wall Street, boasting a client list on its Web site that includes Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bear Stearns Cos. and Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney unit.

Bowlmor also promotes bar mitzvah parties and offers a kosher caterer. To Masri, such investments don't seem incongruous. ``At the end of the day, we all do business together,'' he says. ``It's just business.'' As records of Arafat's investments show, such business didn't always yield profits. The Palestinian leader had the same mixed record as an investor that he had as a peacemaker.