The PA published a statement saying that former General Intelligence chief Fahmi Shabaneh’s allegations were part of an Israeli conspiracy aimed at undermining Abbas because of his refusal to return to the negotiation table unconditionally.

The Israeli Channel 10 television on Tuesday night aired claims made by Shabaneh that officials close to Abbas and his predecessor Yasser Arafat were entangled in corruption scandals amounting to millions of US dollars stolen from public coffers.

Shabaneh claimed that he placed before Abbas evidence of widespread economic corruption around him, but that the president declined doing anything about it. According to him, senior Fatah officials during Arafat’s rule stole millions of dollars from PA coffers, a large amount of which originated from Arab states, Europe and the US as donations.

The Fatah officials allegedly requested inflated sums for purchasing land, which was valued far lower than the numbers they presented, and the proceeded to pocket the difference. Shabaneh hinted that even Abbas’ family members were involved in the corruption, but has yet to prove so.

Shabaneh also revealed an embarrassing video from 2008 depicting the head of Abbas’ office, Rafiq Al-Husseini, rubbing his body against his secretary and apparently trying to convince a woman seeking employment in the office to have sexual relations with him.

Shabaneh was suspended from his position. When Abbas sought to reinstate him, he was arrested by Israel for holding membership in a foreign security body in light of the fact that he is a resident of East Jerusalem and holds an Israeli identity card. Shabaneh claims, however, that he was arrested at the behest of the Palestinian Authority.

The PA said that the video revealed by Shabaneh is a personal issue known for quite some time and that its staff is not rattled by the corruption claims. The PA added that it PA maintains transparency with donor countries and operates a strict oversight mechanism on their payments.

The PA said that Shabaneh was arrested for three months for corruption scandals that he himself was involved in and alleged that he recently tried to blackmail senior PA officials in order to receive the post of deputy governor of Jerusalem.

To backup their claims, the PA noted that Shabaneh first negotiated with them to exchange monetary compensation in exchange for not publishing the claims reported Tuesday.

“If we had any concern, we would have closed that file by paying Shabaneh,” said the PA.