Showcasing New Blog : The Deceit - Ghassan Abou El Ola

The Deceit - Ghassan Abou El Ola

Behind the slogans, speeches, political statements, and spirited songs of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) lies a hidden entity very different from descriptions widely circulated.

Through the personal experiences of an officer serving in the Palestinian Naval Forces, 'The Deceit' reveals the truth about an inscrutable shadow organisation whose fortune amounted to 50 billion dollars – a fortune of which its sources or destinations are unknown except to a handful of people entrusted by the leader, to run its investments.

The book describes how the junta, who held power in the PLO continuously for more than half a century, jostled for these fortunes and their returns, and how many wars were started and lost killing tens of thousands, mostly civilian, innocent people.

Once these wars stopped being profitable at the beginning of the Soviet Union collapse, this junta turned to the political arena and allied itself with 'peace talks’ begun by Ronald Reagan.

The PLO leadership's political performance was poor and all that they could accomplish was a miserable agreement in Oslo, giving them a meagre piece of land that they could hardly manage. That basic arrangement was intended to be followed with a final settlement within five years, yet twenty-five years later

negotiations are still going on between the Palestinian Authority and Israel with no further advance. The same junta kept its billions of dollars and received yet more from USA and other Western donor countries.

'The Deceit' addresses the enormity of personal fortunes amassed by those at the helm of power in the PLO and identifies sources. It also reveals the truth about the fake bankruptcy that was declared at the end of the nineties when payment of salaries to officers, soldiers and the families of those killed was stopped, yet around two hundred who formed their entourage continued to be paid. - including the wife of the leader, whose monthly salary amounted to $100000.

How the most powerful in the PLO kept their posts for extended periods of time – longer even than the father and son in the Assad family combined, the Libyan leader, Egyptian president, the Yemeni president or any other member of the Arab Dictatorship brotherhood, is also explained. And how tens of wars were fought without a single one of them, their sons, relatives, in-laws, or friends having been killed or even injured.

Aspects of financial corruption and the moral decline rampant in the institution of the PLO are exposed as the story tells of the Palestinian Naval Forces in Lebanon and how its leader used sexual harassment amongst its members and elected the youngest and most vulnerable men by applying financial, psychological and forced sexual pressure on them.

The relationships between the leaders of the PLO and Kings and Princes of Arabic Gulf countries is shown and how these leaders later swayed between Libya and Iraq, wherever monies were safest, ending up with Iran and it's new Shah at the time.

It tells how the Assad family built an horrific empire in Syria using hundreds of thousands of Alawi secret police, whose methodology was to imprison, torture and kill the Sunni majority of the country. Assad's continuous aim was to take control of the Palestinian Militias, nursing and resisting at the same time, the Iranian permeation into both Lebanese and Palestinian arenas.

This book is an honest and revelatory memoir that details aspects of life in the Middle East which many Arab writers tend to ignore. It recounts the inside story and real history of the PLO and its political vicissitudes that the author is an eyewitness to. An historic account that the media has never told, because it has been so deeply hidden.

Author Profile

Ghassan Abou El Ola was born in 1963 in Yarmouk refugee camp, south of Damascus, Syria.

In 1978 he joined the Fateh Movement (The movement of national liberation) and attended Pakistan Naval Academy (PNS Rahbar) from June of that year. He graduated in 1981 then served in Naval Headquarters located in Tripoli, northern Lebanon.

Between 1983 and 1986 he was forced to serve in Palestinian Liberation Army (owned and controlled by Syrian regime), for compulsory military service.

After demobilization from the Syrian government army, he re-joined the Palestinian Naval Force in Lebanon and was appointed as the Force’s Security officer and later the Force’s Administration officer.

He retired in 2005 holding the rank of Naval Captain, and immigrated to UK.

He has written for Al-Quds magazine and has written many articles in numerous online magazines.