PALESTINIANS: The Well-Heeled Guerrillas

When Syrian forces began attacking Palestinian troops and their Muslim leftist allies during the Lebanon civil war, a worried Yasser Arafat flew to Saudi Arabia seeking help. To the dismay of the Palestine Liberation Organization leader, the Riyadh government refused to intervene with Damascus. But as a kind of consolation prize, Crown Prince Fahd expansively wrote Arafat a check for $5 million.

That modest gift—no strings attached—was in addition to the $25 million that the Saudis annually fork over to fedayeen organizations. Depending on their oil wealth, other Arab states chip in with similar but smaller tokens of support, while such ideological allies of the Palestinians as the Soviet Union and China contribute arms and other materiel. In fact, despite the much publicized poverty and squalor of the refugee camps that provide the fedayeen with a power base and a manpower pool, the Palestinians have what is probably the richest, best-financed revolutionary terrorist organization in history.

Last year, for example, the P.L.O., its frequently insubordinate members and other guerrilla groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who prefer to remain out of the P.L.O. umbrella, took in an estimated $90 million. The bulk of the money —about $70 million—came from Arab governments either in the form of individual donations or as part of the $29 million a year provided jointly by the 20 governments of the Arab League. In addition, the 300,000 or so Palestinians working in the oil states regularly have 5% of their pay withheld by host governments; this head-tax revenue, amounting to about $10 million at present, is forwarded to the P.L.O.. although not always as promptly or as completely as the Palestinians wish. Complains Rifaat Nimr, deputy chairman of the P.L.O. financial committee: "Dubai, for instance, seems to mistake the initials P.L.O. for Dubai municipality and keeps the tax for itself."

Palestinians living outside the Middle East, including at least 150 multimillionaires in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, make regular and generous contributions to the cause. The movement also earns revenue by operating business enterprises, including a modern $8 million chicken farm in Syria. For a time Palestinians ran a popular and profitable discotheque in Rome. It was shut down by authorities, presumably because it might serve as a target for Israeli counterterrorist attacks.

Every so often, Palestinian coffers have been replenished with income extracted by terrorism. In December 1975 a group—working with the mysterious superterrorist "Carlos"—invaded an OPEC meeting in Vienna, killed three people and took 81 hostages. The hostages were gradually released in return for a $25 million ransom paid jointly by Saudi Arabia and Iran. The loot was split, $5 million for Carlos and $20 million for the Palestinians. The Palestinians also claim to make $5 million a year operating an illegal drug market inside Israel, using Oriental Jews as pushers.