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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
‘Thousands’ demand end to Gaza war, two-state solution at Jerusalem ‘peace summit’
2025-05-10
[IsraelTimes] Second conference of its kind since Oct. 7 draws broader ideological mix amid rising despair over hostages’ fate; ex-PM Olmert attends event, which Macron and Abbas address remotely.
Drawing from not only the far left this time, but also the occasional center left politician looking for a few additional voters. Oddly enough, all of the article’s photos are cropped too narrowly to allow estimation of the size of the audience seated in the auditorium, but we are intended to assume that at least 2,000 attended... which is not impressive. At least while seated in velvet stadium seats they won’t be rioting in the streets and attacking the soldiers and police on duty, like they usually do.
Israel’s beleaguered peace camp gathered for a two-day convention in Jerusalem from Thursday to Friday, uniting around the shared goals of a hostages-for-ceasefire deal and negotiated end to the Israel-Paleostinian conflict.

The gathering came to a head Friday morning as thousands of peaceniks packed an auditorium in the city’s International Convention Center to hear speeches from politicians, bereaved families and left-wing activists.

Organized by a broad coalition of left-wing and shared society groups, the "People’s Peace Summit" was the second conference of its kind held since the Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
-led October 7 onslaught.

This year’s event attracted a broader swath of participants than its forerunner in Tel Aviv last summer. Amid rising despair over the hostages’ fate as Israel enters its 19th month of war, some center-leaning opposition figures took to the stage alongside seasoned members of the Israeli left.

Politicians of international renown also partook in the conference, with French President Emmanuel Macron expressing his support for the gathering in a pre-recorded address, as well as Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....>
Macron lauded the conference as a "signal of hope in a time marked by pain."

He went on to call the two-state solution the "only possibility for peace and security for all," noting that La Belle France in June will co-chair a conference to this end alongside Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
A two-state arrangement, he added, must be based on three prerequisites — the release of hostages, disarmament of Hamas and reform of the Paleostinian Authority.

Abbas, who spoke not long after Macron, also called for a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as the capital of a prospective Paleostinian state.

The aging PA leader’s former negotiating partner, former prime minister Ehud Olmert, sat in the auditorium’s front row, and later addressed a smaller panel at the heels of the main speaker lineup.

Olmert touted a new plan that he and former PA foreign affairs minister Nasser al-Kidwa had drawn up for a two-state solution.

The ex-premier called for an interim security force to ensure that Hamas does not return to power, and a new administration linked to the Paleostinian Authority that can rebuild Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
without any involvement of the terror group.

"We must pull out from Gaza," Olmert said during the panel. "Gaza is Paleostinian and not Israeli. It needs to be part of a Paleostinian state."

’PEACE THE BEST GUARANTOR OF SECURITY’
The wider ideological spread of this year’s conference meant that some speakers met opposition from the crowd, as did National Unity MK Alon Schuster.

"I believe that the first job of the State of Israel is to protect the security of its citizens in any place, at any time," said Schuster. "At the same time, we must strengthen the political, economic and moral basis for our existence in the Middle East by signing peace agreements... Peace is the best guarantor of security."

When mentioning his party chairman Benny Gantz, Schuster was met by a wave of boos from the crowd.

"I am diverging from the written remarks to beg you, pursuers of peace, do not omit [anyone] from the peace and democracy camp, even those who don’t agree with everything you say," the politician urged.

As he walked off stage, some called on him to invoke a two-state solution, which he neglected to explicitly mention in his speech.

While this year’s confab featured a few new faces, many of the keynote speakers remained the same, such as Labor MKs Gilad Kariv and Naama Lazimi, who ascended to the stage as a pair. Taking turns talking, the two denounced not just the ongoing war but the government’s "de facto annexation" in the West Bank.

"Under the auspices of this war, the annexation machine in the West Bank is grinding on at a dizzying and violent mostly peaceful pace," said Kariv.

Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ayman Odeh, who was also at last year’s event, gave an impassioned speech to loud applause from the audience. He began with an anecdote about a mother and her three children who are chased down by a pack of hungry wolves.

"Out of despair and her survival instinct, the mother throws her eldest son — maybe the wolves will be satisfied with him — but their hunger only intensifies. She throws her second son, then the third, and in the end when she alone remains, the wolves devour her," Odeh recounted. "This is is exactly how fascism
fasces -- thin reeds, each flimsy in itself but unbreakable when bound into a bundle. Its distinguishing philosophical feature is the Corporate State. The word is nowadays thrown around by all sorts of people who have no idea what they're talking about...
works. It pursues the opposition, and the opposition, frightened, rushes to sacrifice us all."

Odeh likened the panicked mother to the anti-Netanyahu opposition, which he claimed gave up on peace with the Paleostinians, and soon after, on partnership with Arab Israeli leadership.

"I want to put before you a crucial proposition — the historic role of Arab citizens. Without us, it is possible to build a dictatorship, but without us, it is impossible to build a democracy," he said.

"Even during this excruciating and bloody war, Jews and Arabs — you all — continued to have faith in each other and believed that only together we can win," he continued, invoking the well-known wartime slogan.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Palestinian peace activist pays condolence visit to Bibas, Lifshitz families ‘to ask for forgiveness’
2025-03-01
[IsraelTimes] Palestinian peace activist Samer Sinjilawi pays condolence visits to the families of slain hostages Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz.

“As I gave [former hostage] Yarden [Bibas] and [Lifshitz’s daughter] Sharon my condolences, I struggled to hold back my tears, but when they hugged me I couldn’t stop the tears,” Sinjilawi writes on X.

“Yarden told me how much it meant to him that a Palestinian had come to visit.”

Sinjilawi adds: “I feel it is our duty as Palestinians to share the pain and grief of these families, to say loud and clear that we condemn these murders, and to apologize and ask for forgiveness.”

“I think both Yarden and Sharon needed to hear these words from me. I can only hope I have done something, however small and fleeting, to ease their pain,” he continues.

After spending several years in Israeli prison for violence committed as a teen during the Second Intifada, Sinjilawi has worked to advance reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. Over the past year, he has worked to advance a joint plan from former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian Authority foreign minister Nasser al-Kidwa for a two-state solution.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Arafat’s nephew returns to Gaza, mounting challenge against aging, unpopular Abbas
2022-09-27
[IsraelTimes] Nasser al-Kidwa builds support in terror-ruled Strip, calling Paleostinian Authority ’totalitarian’ and destructive, as PA’s rule appears increasingly tenuous

A year after fleeing the West Bank, a nephew of late Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat has returned to Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
and is challenging his uncle’s embattled successor, 86-year-old president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Palestinians Approve 36 Candidate Groups to Run in May Vote
2021-04-06
Assuming the election actually comes off, it will be interesting to see what happens when Hamas wins...
[ENGLISH.AAWSAT] Paleostinian election officials announced Sunday that 36 candidate lists had been approved to run in legislative elections set for next month, the first Paleostinian polls in 15 years.

The vote, which precedes a presidential election called for July 31, is part of an effort by the dominant Paleostinian movements -- Fatah secularists and Hamas, one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede, Islamists -- to boost international support for Paleostinian governance, AFP reported.

Groups had until Wednesday to submit their lists of candidates to contest in the May 22 legislative polls.

Individual names on each list are due to be published Tuesday, but the Paleostinian electoral commission announced on its website that it had approved all 36 applications.

President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
’s Fatah movement, which controls the Paleostinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is contesting the polls, as is Hamas, which has run the Israeli-blockaded Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip since 2007.

Fatah is facing challenges from dissident factions including the Freedom list, led by a nephew of the late Paleostinian icon Yasser Arafat, Nasser al-Kidwa.

Freedom has been endorsed by Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader whom supporters have described as the Paleostinian Mandela.

Barghouti is serving multiple life sentences in Israel for allegedly organizing deadly attacks during the second Paleostinian intifada (uprising) from 2000-2005.

Abbas’s former Gaza security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, is also backing a list of challengers.

Former Paleostinian prime minister Salam Fayyad
...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either...
, an ex-World Bank official with a track record of fighting corruption, is supporting another.

While Fatah and Hamas have reached an agreement for voting to take place in the West Bank and Gaza, the ability of Paleostinians in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem to vote remains uncertain.

Israel bans all Paleostinian political activity in Jerusalem, but Paleostinian leaders insist voting be held in the city’s east, which they claim as the capital of a future Paleostinian state.

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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Barghouti Forms Separate Electoral List in Blow to Palestinian President
2021-04-01
[ENGLISH.AAWSAT] Prominent Fatah member, Marwan al-Barghouti, who is imprisoned by Israel, announced the formation of a separate electoral list that will run in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The move is a major blow to Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
and the movement’s leadership.

Barghouti instructed his close associates to form a list consisting of Fatah-based figures who were excluded from the movement’s official list, a Fatah source told Asharq al-Awsat.

Fatah supporters and members were surprised by the extent of the rift within the movement during the list formation process, with several figures venting their outrage on social media.

In theory, no one in Fatah could pose a challenge to Abbas, except Barghouti, who is widely popular in the movement, especially among the youth.

Upon the announcement, Barghouti’s name dominated the debate among decision-makers in Ramallah, within Fatah and Paleostinian and Israeli media, in the streets and on social media.

Minister of Civilian Affairs and member of the Fatah Central Committee, Hussein al-Sheikh, who is close to Abbas, was earlier granted approval to visit Barghouti in jail to discuss the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.

Barghouti had previously bid for the presidency in 2005, running against Abbas, before withdrawing from the race.

Barghouti, 63, hails from the village of Kobar in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He has been imprisoned by Israel since 2002, serving five life sentences for leading Fatah’s military wing and killing Israelis during the Second Intifada that erupted in 2000.

The new list limits the movement’s chances of winning the elections, especially after some former Fatah members, including Nasser al-Kidwa, the 67-year-old nephew of late Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat, and Mohammed Dahlan, a former senior Fatah official, have already announced that they would be fielding separate lists.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Abbas Suspends Funding to Yasser Arafat Foundation
2021-03-17
[ENGLISH.AAWSAT] Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
has decided to cut off funding to the Yasser Arafat Foundation, Nasser al-Kidwa, who heads the organization revealed on Monday.

This came one week after Abbas dismissed Kidwa from Fatah.

In a Zoom meeting on Monday, Kidwa briefed his party about Abbas’s decision and revealed a document signed by Head of the Paleostine National Fund (PNF) Ramzi Khoury instructing PA Minister of Finance Shukri Bishara to halt all direct and indirect payments to the Foundation on orders from Abbas as of March 11.

The Yasser Arafat Foundation is an independent non-profit organization, established in 2008 to preserve Arafat’s heritage and legacy. It also addresses the development of charitable, humanitarian, social and academic activities that serve the Paleostinian people.

Kidwa, the 67-year-old nephew of the late Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat, had earlier announced he would run on his own electoral list, which would consist of independents, business people and youth.

He also announced the establishment of the Paleostinian National Democratic Forum that would run in the elections, stressing that he was trying to put Fatah back on the right path.

Sacked prominent Fatah member Mohammed Dahlan had also announced he would field a separate list.

The parliamentary and presidential polls are set for May 22 and July 31, respectively, and will be the first Paleostinian elections in 15 years.
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International-UN-NGOs
Arabs offer Israelis olive branch
2006-03-30
Arab leaders meeting in Sudan have promoted a land-for-peace offer to Israel, even as Israelis voted in polls that could give their next government a mandate to impose permanent borders with the Palestinians. The annual Arab League summit demanded the opposite approach - a return to Middle East peace talks sponsored by international mediators - and leaders criticised threats to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority when Hamas takes office. The leaders also reached a summit deal to provide funding for cash-strapped African Union troops in Sudan's Darfur region amid international pressure to accept the dispatch of a UN force.

A draft final communique, which is not expected to undergo substantial changes, reaffirms an Arab initiative of 2002 which offers Israel peace in exchange for withdrawal from land occupied in the Middle East war of 1967. Israel rejects the offer. The statement calls on donor countries to respect the electoral choice of the Palestinians, who gave Hamas a sweeping victory in January, and fulfil commitments to give them aid.

Foreign ministers meeting at the weekend recommended their governments maintain aid to the Palestinian Authority at $55 million a month and waive Iraqi debt worth billions of dollars. Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian foreign minister, said: "It is basically to continue with the funding as it has been."
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Fatah splits
2005-12-15
Rebels in Fatah, the Palestinian ruling party, have banded together to run for parliament on a competing ticket, sparking one of the gravest crises in the dominant faction's 40-year history.
Whoa! Didn't see that one coming!
Reacting immediately, in an attempt to defuse the crisis, the official Fatah party on Thursday named rebel leader Marwan Barghuti as its head in place of Ahmed Qurei, the prime minister, who had been expected to lead the slate in January's parliamentary elections. "Marwan Barghuti is at the top of the Fatah list," Nasser al-Qidwa, the foreign minister told reporters in Ramallah after registering the official party slate. Qorei, who was chosen to head the official list by the party's central committee late on Tuesday, was relegated to number four on the actual list.

Earlier on Wednesday, Fadwa, the wife of jailed uprising leader Marwan Barghuti entered the election headquarters in Ramallah to formally present the list, signalling that Barghuti was leaving Fatah. Kadoura Fares, a leader of the young activists, said they had presented their own list of candidates for the election. Saeb Nimr, Barghuti's campaign manager, told reporters, "We have registered an independent party under the name, 'The Future,' headed by Marwan Barghuti."

Mohammed Dahlan, the powerful civil affairs minister, was number two on the list, which also includes Abbas's security adviser, Jibril Rajoub, Fatah officials said. Dahlan said:" This is a new dawn. We will remain loyal to this movement and Fatah will come out victorious."

Among others on the list were MP Qadura Fares, top Fatah official Samir Mashharawi and Sufiyan Abu Zayid, minister for prisoner affairs. All of them represent the younger generation within the ruling Fatah party. Fadwa Barghuti, who was flanked by Dahlan as she entered the office, is also a candidate.

Barghuti, serving five life terms in an Israeli prison, has won West Bank primary elections conducted by Fatah, but oldtime Fatah leaders, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, tried to insert old guard figures in the list ahead of the younger leaders, setting off the rebellion. The split is a bitter blow for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and his Fatah old guard. Half an hour before the deadline, oldtime Fatah officials came to present their list of candidates, in effect finalising the split, but they said efforts were still underway to unify the party. They called for rebels in the dominant Fatah faction to close ranks. "I am coming to register Fatah's list. We hope that there will be only one list," Nasser al-Kidwa told reporters upon arriving at a Central Elections Committee office to register, minutes after a breakaway list was filed.

Fatah, the party of the late leader Yasser Arafat, has ruled Palestinian politics for four decades. The "old guard" returned from exile with Arafat in the mid-1990s, while many of the young activists were in the West Bank and Gaza through the years, struggling against Israeli occupation. Abbas was elected head of the Palestinian Authority in January, succeeding Arafat, and did not plan to run for the parliament.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
PLO Calls for UN Probe Into Arafat's Death
2005-11-14
A senior Palestinian official has called for a U.N. investigation into the death of Yasser Arafat, reiterating allegations that the Palestinian leader was poisoned by Israel. Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's mainstream Fatah faction, said Arafat was poisoned by Israel "because he was a stumbling block to (Israeli) plans." Other Palestinians have made the same charge in the past and Israel has repeatedly denied it. The PLO will ask the U.N. Security Council "to form an international investigating commission into the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat." Kaddoumi told reporters on Saturday. Arafat died in a French hospital on Nov. 11, 2004 at age 75. The exact cause of death remains unknown, fueling persistent rumors that he was either poisoned or died of AIDS.
I'd go with the AIDS theory, myself. I don't think I'd touch his mausoleum without rubber gloves, in fact...
Kaddoumi was speaking in Damascus after meeting representatives of the Syria-based radical Palestinian factions opposed to the PLO's peace accords with Israel. He said all Palestinian groups are united in holding Israel fully responsible for Arafat's death.
What else can they do? Admit that one of his bodyguards infected him with a terminal pox? I think I'd just let the matter drop if I was them...
Arafat died in a military hospital outside Paris, two weeks after being flown there from his West Bank compound in Ramallah, where he had been cooped up for three years under Israeli siege. The Percy Military Hospital, which treated Arafat, has not clarified the cause of death, and its medical records, recently leaked to reporters, have proven inconclusive.
In that case, it's probably because they don't want to commit themselves to a politically sensitive statement about the leader of a group noted for booming cars.
Those records, obtained by two Israeli journalists who shared them with The Associated Press, cast doubt on the conspiracy theories. French doctors who treated Arafat at Percy concluded he died of a "massive brain hemorrhage" after suffering intestinal inflammation, jaundice and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC. But the records are inconclusive about what brought about DIC, which has numerous causes ranging from infections to colitis to liver disease.
I confess. It was me. I prayed for sepsis and — poof! — there it was.
On Friday, the Palestinians in the West Bank marked the first anniversary of Arafat's death. Arafat's nephew, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa, said at the time he is convinced his uncle did not die of natural causes, and that Israel killed him.
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Gaza may turn into prison camp - Palestinian leader
2005-10-31
SEOUL, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa said on Monday that the Gaza Strip could turn into a prison camp if there was no solution to the problems of the area. Kidwa's warning came as the region was gripped by the worst violence since Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip in September. "Unless a range of problems in the Gaza Strip is resolved, it will turn into a huge prison camp," Kidwa, speaking through an interpreter, told a news conference during a visit to South Korea.
I had a free-fire zone in mind, but a prison camp works
Israel's withdrawal from Gaza was "a positive step" but must be followed up by actions to hand over real control, Kidwa told the conference after talks with South Korean officials including Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon. "There has been no change in the legal status of the Gaza Strip," he said, adding Israel continued to control water resources and passage rights through the region.

On Sunday, Israeli troops shot dead two militants in the West Bank from the Islamic Jihad faction that killed five Israelis in a suicide bombing last Wednesday. Islamic Jihad said it reserved the right to avenge the killings, hours after it had agreed to halt rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip that had drawn Israeli strikes in which nine Palestinians, mostly militants, were killed last week.
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Israel-Palestine
Arafat's personal physician sez he had AIDS (but he died of astroke, really)
2005-09-08
Wasn't it Ion Pacepa who reported that the east-european handlers of Arafish back in the olden days used to record his bodyguards-based homosexual orgies? Or shrugged with disgust when the "rais" sent his security men to bring him back young boys? Or did I see that in a "Queer eye for the straight guy" episode?
JERUSALEM — A massive stroke caused by an infection killed longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat last year, though it remains unclear what led to the rapid deterioration in his health, according to French medical records kept secret since his death in November. The records were obtained from the military hospital outside Paris where Arafat died by The Associated Press. Yet the report did nothing to clarify the nature of the infection that caused the 75-year-old leader's stroke.

The medical dossier initially was obtained by the New York Times and two Israeli media outlets, which conducted separate reviews of the information, resulting in different explanations for the cause of the stroke and deepening the puzzle. "The mystery around Yasser Arafat will only grow bigger and bigger after reading this report," said Avi Isacharoff, the Israel Radio reporter who obtained the medical records with the Israeli daily Haaretz. He shared the contents of the dossier with AP.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa, an Arafat nephew and one of the few people who had access to the leader and his French doctors, also said the revealed reports shed no new light and the cause of death remains unknown. Arafat fell ill in his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah — where he had been confined by the Israelis for three years — a month before he died. He spent his last two weeks at the Percy Military Training Hospital in Clamart, France.

Arafat's wife, Suha, and Palestinian officials have never given a definitive cause of death and kept Arafat's medical records a closely guarded secret. Mrs. Arafat also rejected calls for an autopsy. The Israeli reporters got the records from an unidentified senior Palestinian official, then shared the information with the Times, which conducted its own review. Israeli and American medical experts were consulted. According to the French report, Arafat suffered a digestive ailment about 30 days before his death. He also had an "acute" case of a blood disorder, disseminated intravascular coagulation, or D.I.C. The report was signed by Bruno Pats, a senior doctor at the hospital.

The Times reported that Arafat's stroke was caused by D.I.C. stemming from an unidentified infection, though it rejected AIDS or poisoning. The newspaper cited an unidentified Israeli infectious-diseases expert as criticizing the French medical team for not testing for AIDS. But the expert said after studying the records, AIDS was unlikely due to the sudden onset of an intestinal illness. The Haaretz report, however, quoted Dr. Gil Lugassi, president of the Israel Hematologists Association, as saying the symptoms described could be typical of AIDS. "What is simply unacceptable and seems very perplexing is the absolute disregard for the possibility of AIDS," Lugassi, one of the doctors to review the records, was quoted as saying. Contacted by AP, Lugassi declined to comment.

Dr. Ashraf al-Kurdi, Arafat's personal physician, asserted that Arafat had the AIDS virus in his blood. "It was given to him the old fashioned, ass-bandit way to cover up the poison," he told AP. Al-Kurdi, however, did not say where the AIDS virus or poison had come from. He did not join the French doctors and would not say whether he had seen their records.

Israeli officials reject accusations of poisoning from senior Palestinians, and the Times review said poisoning was highly unlikely. It noted that toxicology reports conducted by the French doctors were negative.
See? Iocaine powder! I'd bet my life on it!
The French doctors said Arafat did not suffer the extensive kidney and liver damage they would expect from poisoning, the Times reported. It said that Arafat's condition improved in the hospital and that he was able to walk and talk before slipping into a coma on Nov. 3. Such an improvement would make poisoning unlikely. Al-Kidwa reiterated that Arafat died from massive organ failure following a brain hemorrhage. He told AP that doctors had ruled out cancer and poisoning, and that a Palestinian medical committee was still investigating the 558-page French report. "We are waiting for the results. Any other thing will be just speculation, and we don't think it's wise to speak about speculation," he said.

A senior Palestinian official, Saeb Erekat, suggested Arafat's family ask the French doctors to publicize the records and "put an end to all these allegations and rumors." The biggest unknown was the nature of an infection that appears to have led to the blood disorder D.I.C., which was never controlled and led to his death. The Times medical experts, like the French doctors, could not determine where in Arafat's bowel the infection was located and what microbes caused it. It said one possibility might have been food contamination. Arafat became ill with nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea after eating dinner in his compound last Oct. 12. The symptoms continued for more than two weeks before he was evacuated to France. He died Nov. 11.
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Israel-Palestine
Cause of Arafat death 'unknown'
2005-09-08
Medical records of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat appear to show that doctors could not determine the underlying cause of his death. The records, obtained by the New York Times newspaper, say that Arafat died from a stroke that stemmed from an unknown condition. But Israeli newspaper Haaretz says the records point to him dying from poisoning, Aids or an infection. Both newspapers say the records, have been withheld by senior Palestinian officials and Mr Arafat's widow until now, show that doctors could not agree on the cause of the 75-year-old's death.
"Excellent work, Smithers"
"Thank you, Minister"
The New York Times says the records show that it was highly unlikely that Mr Arafat died from poisoning or Aids. It reported that the actual infection that led to the stroke that caused late Palestinian leaders death was still a mystery. The Haaretz report cites an Israeli Aids experts as saying that many of Mr Arafat's symptoms were typical of the disease. Another senior Israeli doctor quoted by Haaretz describes the death as "a classic case of food poisoning." Mr Arafat's medical records are set to be published in an Israeli book next week.
"There are three possible causes of death: infection from a germ that poisoned the blood, Aids or poisoning from a dinner at his Ramallah headquarters on October 12, 2004," Avi Isacharov, one of the book's authors, told the AFP news agency. Speculation on the cause of Arafat's death has continued with many Palestinians believing that he was poisoned by Israel.
Yasser Arafat's nephew, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa, has said the late Palestinian leader's medical file does not allay suspicions that he may have died of "unnatural causes". But senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said the French doctors should publish their report in full to put an end to the rumours.
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