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Recent Appearances... Rantburg

Israel-Palestine-Jordan
About clearing Gaza: Half of All Palestinians Are Expats
2025-02-23
Answering the unasked but important question. Especially given that in surveys in the years before the invasion something like three quarters of Gazan young people wanted to leave the Strip, but were not allowed to by Hamas. President Trumo’s proposal is answering a deeply felt need over there.
[RichardPollock] About half of all Paleostinians — six million - voluntarily live outside of 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...
and the West Bank. This inconvenient fact is ignored when we discuss where Paleostinians call home. Some choose to live in the Paleostinian territories, but at least half have shunned these lands - and for a very long time.

Up to 300,000 Paleostinians currently reside in Europe. A half million live in Chile and hundreds of thousands more live throughout South America. More than 200,000 are in the U.S. and influenced the 2004 election of Donald Trump
...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
In the Middle East, more than 2 million live in Israel as full fledged citizens who can vote and have representation in the Israeli Knesset, the country’s parliament. Others have found successful livelihoods in 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...
, Bahrain, the UAE, and Leb
...home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade....
and Jordan.

Having established themselves for half a century or more in their adopted homes, few consider going back to the West Bank or Gaza. So living outside of the Gaza Strip isn’t unthinkable. In fact, it has been thinkable for quite some time.

And there is another special kind of Paleostinian expat that has been a well-kept secret. This group consists of fabulously wealthy Paleostinians who are derisively called by the Paleostinian man-on-the-street as the "exiled bourgeoise of Paleostine."

Pamela Ann Smith, writing for the progressive Middle East Research and Information Project in 1986 first described this group of wealthy Paleostinians as the exile Bourgeoisie of Paleostine.

Smith wrote then that the rise of the Paleostinian’s Black September terror organization and the radicalization of its population "led to the emigration of substantial numbers of the Paleostinian middle class, to Cyprus, Amman, Gay Paree and London. As the (Lebanese) war dragged on, many began to build more permanent ties in their new places of refuge. Today Paleostinian firms play a leading role within the Arab community in London and, to a lesser extent, in Gay Paree as well."

As the Washington producer for ABC’s "Good Morning America," I once personally met hundreds of these well-heeled Paleostinians at a 1993 grand soiree in Washington, DC. I’ll never quite forget the experience. They screamed of unspeakable wealth and contrary to Moslem law, enthusiastically crowded the hotel’s well-kept bar.

These Paleostinian expats didn’t reside in the dusty West Bank or in Gaza or in other parts of the Middle East. These exiles called home in places like London, Gay Paree, Geneva, Milan, or Florence. The largest expat community outside of the Middle East was there too, from Santiago, Chile.

Far from the media’s gaze, these are wealthy and highly successful Paleostinians. They are largely invisible, and many have little interest in living in Gaza or in the West Bank.

One wealthy Paleostinian who did attract some media attention about his unseemly riches was the Paleostinian Liberation Organization leader, Yassar Arafat. Just before his death, CBS "60 Minutes" estimated his personal wealth to be between $1 and $3 billion.

CBS reported that a large portion of Arafat’s wealth came from corruption and from secret sweetheart deals that were hidden from the Paleostinian people. They reported, "part of the Paleostinian leader's wealth was in a secret portfolio worth close to $1 billion -- with investments in companies like a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Ramallah, a Tunisian cell phone company and venture capital funds in the U.S. and the Cayman Islands."

His wife, Zuha Arafat, a Paleostinian Christian, married the PLO leader when he was 61 and she was 27. She was already living in Gay Paree, where Arafat eventually died.

The average Paleostinian apparently despised Zuha. The Times of Melbourne reported in 2004," On the streets, Suha is more often condemned as a scheming minx who bewitched the leader and ripped off vast sums of public money to finance a lavish lifestyle in Gay Paree."

Their only child was daughter Zahwa who was born in 1995 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, La Belle France.Neuilly-sur-Seine is one of the most affluent areas of La Belle France and it’s the wealthiest and the most expensive suburb of Gay Paree.

Zahwa is estimated by Israeli sources to be worth as much as $8 billion. Although highly secretive, she reportedly lives in luxury with prime real estate in London, Gay Paree and Malta. Despite this, she is still considered a "refugee" and is eligible for UNRWA funds — welfare payments from the highly corrupt United Nations
...boodling on the grand scale...
Relief and Works Agency.

In 2024, President Biden, along with a dozen other countries, halted payments to UNRWA after it was discovered that members of the relief organization enthusiastically took part in the October 7, 2023 Hamas
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
-led slaughter, killing 1,200 and seizing 250 hostages.

Many years earlier, in 1993, I had the opportunity to meet and socialize with many of the Suha Arafat’s affluent contemporaries. In September of that year, Arafat traveled to DC to sign a peace accord with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. They did so on the South Lawn of the White House. A beaming Bill Clinton
...former Democratic president of the U.S. Bill was the second U.S. president to be impeached, the first to deny that oral sex was sex, the first to have difficulty with the definition of the word is...
stood beside them.

To celebrate the event, thousands of the wealthy Paleostinians filled a deluxe DC hotel then called the "ANA Hotel," named after the Japanese airline.

The ANA was an exclusive, four diamond-rated hotel. When you entered, you faced a three tier Italianate fountain. The ninth floor was a secure floor, isolated from the rest of the hotel for security. There, Arafat and his PLO staff resided.

The Presidential Suite, where Arafat likely stayed featured portraits of George and Martha Washington. The hallways were decorated with portraits of previous First Ladies.

I was asked by my "Good Morning America" bosses in New York to try to book Arafat or one of his top advisors on our morning show.

So, I showed up at the hotel in DC’s affluent Foggy Bottom. The hotel was bustling with the Paleostinian elite’s "beautiful people." They mobbed the hotel’s lobby, bar and restaurant. They were elegant. The women wore sexy haute couture dresses that hugged them. The men wore custom tailored suits.

I knew Hanan Ashwari, the PLO’s central spokeswoman who resided in one of the PLO’s ninth floor suites. She was more modestly dressed than those socializing in the hotel. And she was on her game with American news hounds: friendly, articulate and energetic.

As a news hound and producer, I wanted to understand: who are these well-dressed people swarming throughout the hotel? I spent several afternoons and evenings to meet as many Paleostinian as possible. At first, I naively asked them where they lived in the Paleostinian territories.

One well-dressed young Paleostinian at the bar sneered at me when I mentioned, "The West Bank." He retorted, "I haven’t been to the West Bank in ages." His parents were originally from Ramallah, the West Bank’s capital. Home as it turned out was in London. He was born there.

From then on, I didn’t ask where in the Paleostinian territories they called home. I simply asked where they lived.

As it turns out, they were living in Gay Paree, Florence, Milan, Stockholm, New York, Geneva and Santiago, Chile. Santiago has the largest diaspora community with today more than a half million Paleostinians living there.

And while most Paleostinians are regarded as leftists, in Chile the Paleostinians were opposed to the socialist government of Salvadore Allende and welcomed the military coup that installed Gen. Augusto Pinochet, according to Paleostine studies.org.

The idea of population transfers to other countries isn’t new. In fact, it’s what the United States has been built on. Many have added value to other countries and to their families, translating a near-disasters into success stories.

The movement of populations isn’t unique. In fact, it’s the story of our modern time.

As Sadanand Dhume, a Wall Street Journal columnist recently wrote, "Many population transfers have taken place over the past century. In the 1920s, Greece and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...a NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
member, but not the most reliable...

agreed to a forced population swap: Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey moved to Greece, while Moslems in Greece moved to Turkey. After World War II, millions of Indians and Paks were forced to find new homes, as were ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. In the 1970s, Uganda expelled Indians. Only in the Paleostinian case has the refugee question festered endlessly.

So, I salute the exiled bourgeoise Paleostinians. They are a roaring success to their expat communities and proud members of their adopted countries.
Link


International-UN-NGOs
Europe court refuses to hear case on Yasser Arafat death
2021-07-02
[AlAhram] Suha El Kodwa Arafat
...Suha Arafat for short, the fashionable bottle-blond, formerly Catholic Palestinian expat who ran off and married the elderly PLO Number 1 in a queer sort of patriotism, then lived to regret it...
and Zahwa El Kodwa Arafat, who are French citizens, filed their case with the Strasbourg-based European court in 2017 after French courts dismissed their claims

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday dismissed a case brought by the widow and daughter of Yasser Arafat,
..formally Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini (1929-2004). Born and educated in Cairo, in a French hospital. The flamboyant and brutal USSR-trained terrorist failed to destroy Israel in the service of Arab transnational socialism under the guise of Palestinian national liberation, though he was lauded internationally for his efforts. After founding Fatah sometime in the 1950s, Arafat was chairman of the PLO from 1968 until he died, probably of AIDS from unusual interactions with his personal guards, though his people claimed Israel had poisoned him. Whether the child of the wife he took near the end of his life was also his has never been tested, nor the rumour that she inherited his ill-gotten millions, and nobody seems to know what happened to his red binder...
who have claimed the iconic Paleostinian leader's death was the result of poisoning.

Arafat died at the Percy military hospital near Gay Paree aged 75 in November 2004 after developing stomach pains while at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Many Paleostinians accuse Israel of poisoning Arafat, a charge flatly denied by the occupation state.

But in 2012 his widow, Suha El Kodwa Arafat, said traces of the radioactive isotope polonium 210 had been found on his clothes, prompting a French lawsuit alleging his murder.

After a series of analyses and witness interviews, a court in Nanterre, west of Gay Paree, dismissed the case, a ruling upheld on appeal.

Lawyers for Arafat's widow said the investigation had been "fundamentally biased" and accused the judges of closing the probe too quickly.

Arafat's wife and daughter turned to the European court in 2017, saying they had been refused their right to a fair hearing, in particular a refusal of their request for an additional expert report on his death.

In a unanimous decision, three judges said that after reviewing the case, "at all stages of the proceedings the applicants, assisted by their lawyers, had been able to exercise their rights effectively".

"Judges did not appear to have reached arbitrary conclusions based on the facts before them and their interpretation of the evidence in the file or the applicable law had not been unreasonable," they added.
Related:
Suha Arafat: 2020-08-23 Yasser Arafat's widow apologizes to UAE over insults, burning of flags
Suha Arafat: 2015-05-07 Suha's Lawyers Say French Murder Inquiry Must Go On
Suha Arafat: 2013-02-11 Suha Arafat: I Wish I'd Never Married Him
Related:
Red binder: 2019-04-30 ISIS chief Baghdadi makes first video appearance since 2014
Red binder: 2019-04-18 Israel Detained Over 1,600 Palestinian Prisoners In 2019 - PLO Report
Red binder: 2014-04-17 Abbas: Committed To Security Coordination, With Or Without Negotiations
Link


Arabia
Yasser Arafat's widow apologizes to UAE over insults, burning of flags
2020-08-23
Mrs. Arafat returns briefly to the world stage.
[Jpost] Suha Arafat,
...the fashionable, formerly Catholic, bottle-blond Palestinian expat who ran off and married the elderly PLO Number 1 in a queer sort of patriotism, then lived to regret it...
the widow of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat,
...formally Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini. Born in Cairo in 1929, and educated there, died in 2004 in a French hospital. The flamboyant and brutal USSR-trained terrorist failed to destroy Israel in the service of Arab transnational socialism under the guise of Palestinian national liberation, though he was lauded internationally for his efforts. After founding Fatah sometime in the 1950s, Arafat was chairman of the PLO from 1968 until he died, probably of AIDS from unusual interactions with his personal guards, though his people claimed Israel had poisoned him. Whether the child of the wife he took near the end of his life was also his has never been tested, nor the rumour that she inherited his ill-gotten millions...
has apologized for the burning of Emirati flags in protest of the normalization deal between the UAE and Israel. The apology, which appeared on Instagram account called "officialsuhayasserarafat," was welcomed by some UAE citizens but criticized by several Paleostinians.

Some Paleostinians expressed concern over the harsh response of the PA leadership to the Israel-UAE accord. They accused the PA leadership of an "overreaction" and warned that scenes of Paleostinians burning UAE flags and photos of bin Zayed would cause great damage to the Paleostinians, particularly those living in the Gulf.

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat
...negotiated the Oslo Accords with Israel. He has been chief Paleostinian negotiator since 1995. He is currently negotiating with Israel to establish a de jure Paleostinian state...
appealed to Paleostinians not to harm the symbols of the UAE. "The Emirati flag is a symbol that must be respected, and so are all other symbols of Emirati illusory sovereignty," he said.

Erekat’s statement came after many Gulf citizens strongly condemned the Paleostinian leadership’s campaign of incitement against the UAE. Several UAE and Saudi academics, journalists and political activists accused the Paleostinians of being "ungrateful" and denounced the burning of Emirati flags and pictures of bin Zayed.

Suha’s apology, however, drew sharp criticism from other Paleostinians, including bigwigs in the West Bank who said that she was not entitled to speak on behalf of the Paleostinian people.

Some Paleostinians claimed that the apology was a sign of the close relationship between Suha Arafat and Mohammed Dahlan, the deposed Fatah operative who serves as special adviser to bin Zayed. Based in Abu Dhabi, Dahlan is considered an archrival of Abbas.

Suha, who does not hold any official position in the Paleostinian Authority, has been living in Malta for the past decade.

After the death of her husband in 2004, she and her daughter, Zahwa, moved to Tunisia and obtained Tunisian citizenship. In 2007, Tunisia revoked her citizenship. Four years later, the Tunis Court of First Instance issued an international arrest warrant for her in connection with a corruption scandal that involved the former Tunisian first lady, Leila Ben Ali.
Related:
Suha Arafat: 2015-05-07 Suha's Lawyers Say French Murder Inquiry Must Go On
Suha Arafat: 2013-02-11 Suha Arafat: I Wish I'd Never Married Him
Suha Arafat: 2012-12-30 Report: Suha Arafat Admits Husband Premeditated Intifada
Related:
Leila Ben Ali: 2012-06-23 Leila Ben Ali says Tunisian strongman was victim of plot
Leila Ben Ali: 2011-09-10 Tunisian Former Justice Minister Arrested
Leila Ben Ali: 2011-03-12 Ben Ali, Trabelsi cash found in palace
Link


Europe
Suha's Lawyers Say French Murder Inquiry Must Go On
2015-05-07
[AnNahar] Lawyers representing the widow of late Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday denounced a French decision to close a murder inquiry into his 2004 death and vowed to ensure the investigation continued.
"Where's the damned Kruggerands???"
"We do not approve of this decision... and we will obviously seek further investigation," said Suha Arafat's lawyers, Francis Szpiner and Renaud Semerdjian.
"You will keep searching until you find proof the Israelis dunnit!" Suha shrieked, stamping her feet with the sound of an elephant stampede.
On Tuesday, judges reexamining evidence surrounding the historic leader's death wrapped up their investigations.

The prosecutor now has three months to prepare his submissions on whether to dismiss the case or forward it to court.

In the meantime interested parties can produce written depositions. However if, as is currently the case, there is no defendant's name attached to the proceedings, the case is likely to be dismissed.

"With all due respect to the judges and the prosecutor, no-one can say what Yasser Arafat died of nor explain the circumstances of his death," his widow's lawyers told AFP.

"This element alone means the inquiry should continue," they said, adding that they were "shocked at the speed" with which the investigation was closed.

Arafat died aged 75 on November 11, 2004, at the Percy military hospital in Clamart, close to Gay Paree.

He was admitted there after developing stomach pains at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he had lived since December 2001, surrounded by the Israeli army.

Arafat's widow Suha lodged a complaint at a court in Nanterre near Gay Paree in 2012, claiming that her husband was assassinated. The complaint triggered a murder inquiry.
She had to say something, anything to deflect attention from all the money that Yasser stole and that she in turn purloined...
The same year, Arafat's tomb in Ramallah was opened for a few hours allowing French, Swiss and Russian Sherlocks to collect samples from his remains.

Many Paleostinians believe that the Israelis poisoned Arafat, with the complicity of people in his entourage.
One does wonder what happened to the members of his entourage...
Whatever it was, they deserved worse...
A university in the Swiss city of Lausanne tested samples taken from his belongings given to his widow after his death in Gay Paree, and found "abnormal levels of polonium", but stopped short of saying he had been poisoned by the extremely radioactive toxin.

French experts believe the polonium-210 found in his grave and remains was environmental in nature, Nanterre prosecutor Catherine Denis said last month.

Polonium-210 became famous in 2006 when a runaway Russian intelligence officer turned opponent of President Vladimir Putin
...Second and fourth President and sixth of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from polonium poisoning. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead...
, Alexander Litvinenko, was killed in London by a strong dose of the hard-to-get radioactive isotope.
Link


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Suha Arafat: I Wish I'd Never Married Him
2013-02-11
Palestinian leader's wife denies she has millions in the bank, claims to have turned down dozens of suiters.
Well, sure. Lots of people want to bed a celebrity's... love interest. It's almost like bedding the celebrity. Only in this case with a considerably lower probability of getting some deadly disease or permanent injury.
[Times of Israel] Nine years after the death of Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat, his widow said she regrets the marriage and given the choice again, would not have wed him.
One would feel for her, had she not of her own free will and against advice married one of the most vicious men in the world at the time. When you lie down with a Komodo dragon, it is rather unreasonable thereafter to complain that when you get up various limbs are rotting and falling off.
"The marriage to Arafat was a big mistake and I regret it," said Suha Arafat in an interview published last week in the Turkish-language Sabah newspaper. "We were married for 22 years and it felt like 50."
It was so awful that you had a child by him...
Arafat added that she had repeatedly tried to leave her husband but was denied her freedom.
That's generally the way it is in a Muslim marriage, isn't it -- you aren't free to leave but he's free to leave you by saying the magic words. Didn't you know that?
"I tried to divorce Arafat more than 100 times and he didn't let me," she said. "Everyone knows about this story, especially those who were in his inner circle."

According to the report, the two first met in 1986 when she was a student in Gay Paree and engaged to a local lawyer. At the time, Suha recalled, the Paleostinian leader, 33 years her senior, was a much sought after man.

"There were many women who wanted to marry him but he only wanted me, despite the objections of my family," she said.

Suha said that although her relatives, a well-established Ramallah family, were opposed to the union, the pair married in secret on her birthday four years later. Her mother was furious at the development and flew to Tunis where she angrily berated Arafat for entering into a marriage with her daughter, which she deemed inappropriate.
And she lived? That doesn't smell right...
"Fate chose me and it wasn't easy right from the start," she said.

As soon as she became Mrs. Arafat she was locked away behind walls for security reasons, Suha said.

"I had to be careful in my phone conversations because of bugging, and we were always moving from one location to another."
Boy howdy, that's what happens when you marry a poisonous Komodo dragon terrorist. For some reason people are always out to get him. And you, just because...
Suha recalled that after her husband initiated the first intifada in 1987 -- it actually began as a spontaneous uprising -- the world's media attention was focused on him, "and it is no secret that it [the media] is controlled by Jews" she noted.

As the wife of man who spent so much time in the international media spotlight, Suha said she felt like the weakest link in the chain.
For good reason, apparently...
"My identity was completely destroyed," she said.

Since Arafat's death in a Gay Paree hospital in 2004 -- she has claimed that he was poisoned -- Suha said she has had dozens of marriage proposals, but rejected all hopeful suitors with the same answer: "Arafat was my hero."

Suha lives on a stipend she gets from the Paleostinian Authority, which she said is barely sufficient to support her and her daughter, and is a far distance from reports on millions of dollars that went to her through secret bank accounts.

"All the stories about Arafat putting millions in my bank account are nonsense and lies," she said. The money is with those who were close to Arafat and anyone who is determined can find it."
My bet is that she has plenty of Krugerrands stashed away but of course can't admit it publicly...
She also denied a rumor that the apartment she now shares with her teenager daughter Zawa in Malta was purchased as a gift by the former Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy
... one of those little rainstorms from the Arab Spring...
. The apartment, she said, is rented.

"Even if I have regrets I accept the reality. Arafat was a great leader and I was very lonely in my marriage. I was always on the defensive because of the rumors that they spread about me. But life without him is even harder."

"If I could turn back time I wouldn't marry Arafat," she added.

Arafat was a strong supporter of the decision to exhume her husband in November 2012 amid claims he was poisoned.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Report: Suha Arafat Admits Husband Premeditated Intifada
2012-12-30
Yasser Arafat's widow admitted that the late Paleostinian leader premeditated the Second Intifada, in an interview with Dubai TV earlier this month, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

"Immediately after the failure of the Camp David [negotiations], I met him in Gay Paree upon his return. ... Camp David had failed, and he said to me: 'You should remain in Gay Paree.' I asked him why, and he said: 'Because I am going to start an Intifada. They want me to betray the Paleostinian cause. They want me to give up on our principles, and I will not do so,'" the research institute translated Suha Arafat as saying.

"'I do not want Zahwah's (Arafat's daughter's) friends in the future to say that Yasser Arafat abandoned the Paleostinian cause and principles. I might be martyred, but I shall bequeath our historical heritage to Zahwa and to the children of Paleostine,'" Arafat quoted her husband as saying, according to the translation.

Arafat's comments run contrary to claims that former prime minister Ariel Sharon's infamous visit to the Temple Mount was the trigger to the Intifada, which was launched in September 2001.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Arafat Foundation: 'No Need for More Proof' of Poison
2012-09-10
[An Nahar] The Yasser Arafat Foundation said Sunday there was "no need" for more proof the Paleostinian leader was poisoned in what appeared to be a stance against French plans to exhume his body.

"Since the formation of this Foundation, it has forcefully held on to the fact that Yasser Arafat died abnormally after being killed by a poison which was unidentified at the time," it said in a statement.

"The Foundation does not see a need here for more proof."

The statement was issued just days after a delegation of French magistrates said they would travel to the West Bank to investigate following claims Arafat may have succumbed to poisoning by the radioactive substance polonium.

No date has been given for the trip which would involve forensic officers exhuming the body and taking samples for laboratory testing in an investigation sought by Arafat's widow Suha.

Speaking to Agence La Belle France Presse on condition of anonymity, a source from the Foundation said they would only agree to a further examination of his body if it was conducted as part of an international investigation committee.

"If there is an international committee, we will agree to the body being checked," he said, without explaining further.

Arafat died in a French military hospital near Gay Paree on November 11, 2004 and French experts were unable to say what had killed him, with many Paleostinians subscribing to the belief that he was poisoned by Israel.

Arafat's nephew, Nasser al-Qidwa, who heads the Arafat Foundation, has long insisted that Israel was behind his uncle's death but a Paleostinian investigation into such allegations ruled out poisoning, AIDS and cancer.

Last month, French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry into Arafat's death after Al-Jazeera
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS...
news channel broadcast an investigation in which Swiss experts said they found high levels of radioactive polonium on his personal effects.

In July, President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
and Suha Arafat both gave their consent for samples to be taken from his remains, which are buried in a mausoleum in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
France Opens Arafat Murder Inquiry
2012-08-29
[An Nahar] French prosecutors have opened a murder inquiry into Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat's 2004 death near Gay Paree, sources close to the matter told Agence La Belle France Presse Tuesday.

The probe comes after Arafat's family launched legal action in La Belle France last month over claims the veteran Paleostinian leader died of radioactive polonium poisoning.

Arafat's widow Suha and his daughter Zawra lodged a murder complaint on July 31 in the Gay Paree suburb of Nanterre.

Arafat died at a military hospital near Gay Paree in 2004.

Allegations that the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was poisoned were resurrected last month after Al-Jazeera
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS...
news channel broadcast an investigation in which experts said they found high levels of polonium on his personal effects.

Polonium is a highly toxic substance which is rarely found outside military and scientific circles, and was used to kill former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 shortly after drinking tea laced with the poison.

Suha Arafat has said she backs exhuming her late husband's remains from his mausoleum in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

A Swiss radiology lab at the Lausanne University Hospital Centre said on Friday it has received Suha Arafat's go-ahead to test his remains for poisoning by polonium.

Arafat, who led the struggle for Paleostinian statehood for nearly four decades, died in a French military hospital after being airlifted there for treatment from his Ramallah headquarters.

At the time of his death, Paleostinian officials alleged he had been poisoned by long-time foe Israel, but an inconclusive Paleostinian investigation in 2005 ruled out poisoning, as well as cancer and AIDS.

Israel has consistently denied the allegations.
No, no! Certainly not!
accusing Suha Arafat and Paleostinian officials of covering up the real reasons for the former leader's death.
Link


Europe
Poison probe: Swiss lab awaits Suha Arafat’s OK
2012-08-24
GENEVA: A Swiss radiation lab is awaiting a decision from Yasser Arafat’s widow on whether it should conduct tests on the remains of the former Palestinian president to see if he was poisoned, its spokesman said.
Still won't help with finding the Krugerrands, Suha...
The possible probe, which has already been requested by the Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, comes after a media investigation found elevated levels of the radioactive substance polonium on some of Arafat’s belongings, suggesting he could have been poisoned.

“We have shown our interest as long as the independence, credibility and transparency in our involvement is guaranteed,” said Darcy Christen, a spokesman for Lausanne University Hospital’s radiology lab, was quoted as saying in AFP report.
Independence, credibility and transparency aren't the three words I'd use around any member of the Arafat clan...
Arafat’s widow, Suha Arafat, and their daughter, on July 31 filed a lawsuit suit in France over the radioactive poisoning claims. They lodged the complaint for murder against persons unknown in France because Arafat died at a military hospital near Paris in 2004.

Because a criminal complaint had been filed, Christen said the lab was waiting for Suha Arafat’s approval before it decided on its involvement. The lab is one of several specialists consulted by the Al-Jazeera news channel, which commissioned an analysis of Arafat’s personal effects, including clothing he wore in the days before he died age 75.

Suha Arafat has already said she would seek an exhumation to allow specialists to take additional samples for testing, and the Palestinian leadership has said it would be willing to allow exhumation if Arafat’s family agreed.
Link


Europe
Suha to wage law over Yasser's death: lawyer
2012-07-13
Ring-side seats and popcorn, please...
PARIS: Yasser Arafat's widow is to file a lawsuit in France following allegations the Palestinian leader died at a Paris hospital in 2004 after being radioactively poisoned, her lawyers said on Tuesday.

"Mrs Suha Arafat, widow of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, has asked a Parisian legal practice to file suit against an unnamed person under French jurisdiction," lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur's practice said in a statement. "Mrs Arafat hopes that the authorities will be able to establish the exact circumstances of her husband's death and find out the truth so that justice can be done," it said.
And once the truth comes out the Paleos will move heaven and earth to suppress it...
The move comes after an investigation commissioned by Al-Jazeera news channel found elevated levels of the radioactive substance polonium on some of Arafat's belongings, suggesting the leader could have been poisoned.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said he will ask the Swiss experts who probed Arafat's death to take samples from his body in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah for further tests.
Half-life of Po-210 is about 138 days, and Po-209 has a half-life of 103 years, so they could get lucky...
Polonium, which is highly toxic, was used to kill Russian former spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after drinking tea laced with the substance at a London restaurant.

The Al-Jazeera investigation, broadcast last week, centerd around the testing of some of Arafat's belongings, which the Percy military hospital gave to Suha Arafat after his death.

Suha Arafat gave Al-Jazeera permission to take possession of the items, which included clothing Arafat wore in the days before he died aged 75, and hand them over for specialist testing.

Suha Arafat has said she would seek an exhumation to allow specialists to take additional samples for testing, and the Palestinian leadership has said it would be willing to allow exhumation if Arafat's family agreed.

Many Palestinians believe Arafat was poisoned by Israel, which has denied the allegations,
...since if they had wanted Yasser dead he would have been dead long ago...
accusing Suha Arafat and Palestinian officials of covering up the real reasons for the former leader's death.
Polonium poisoning doesn't exactly point to Israel. But it does point in a certain direction...
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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Arafat's Widow to File Suit in Paris over His Death
2012-07-11
[An Nahar] Yasser Arafat's widow is to file a lawsuit in La Belle France following allegations the Paleostinian leader died at a Gay Paree hospital in 2004 after being radioactively poisoned, her lawyers said on Tuesday.

"Mrs. Suha Arafat, widow of Paleostinian leader Yasser Arafat, has asked a Gay Pareeian legal practice to file suit against an unnamed person under French jurisdiction," lawyer Pierre-Olivier Sur's practice said in a statement.

"Mrs. Arafat hopes that the authorities will be able to establish the exact circumstances of her husband's death and find out the truth so that justice can be done," it said.

The move comes after an investigation commissioned by Al-Jazeera
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS...
news channel found elevated levels of the radioactive substance polonium on some of Arafat's belongings, suggesting the leader could have been poisoned.

Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
has said he will ask the Swiss experts who probed Arafat's death to take samples from his body in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah for further tests.

Polonium, which is highly toxic, was used to kill Russian former spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after drinking tea laced with the substance at a London restaurant.

The Al-Jazeera investigation, broadcast last week, centered around the testing of some of Arafat's belongings, which the Percy military hospital gave to Suha Arafat after his death.

Suha Arafat gave Al-Jazeera permission to take possession of the items, which included clothing Arafat wore in the days before he died aged 75, and hand them over for specialist testing.

Suha Arafat has said she would seek an exhumation to allow specialists to take additional samples for testing, and the Paleostinian leadership has said it would be willing to allow exhumation if Arafat's family agreed.

Many Paleostinians believe Arafat was poisoned by Israel, which has denied the allegations.
No, no! Certainly not!
accusing Suha Arafat and Paleostinian officials of covering up the real reasons for the former leader's death.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Arafat Suffered from Leukemia, Medical Treatment Exasperated His Condition
2012-07-06
They meant exacerbated. But it's a common problem, even among native English speakers.


This is what transpired in October 2004. IDF intelligence received news regarding severe deterioration in the physical health of the head of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat. The initial assessments discussed that it was due to flu complications exasperated by poor sanitation conditions in the section of the Mukataa governmental building in Ramallah where Arafat was besieged, surrounded by IDF forces.

While the Second Intifada had begun to fade in those days, Yasser Arafat remained a form of serious trouble. The IDF allowed for the constant supply of food to Arafat, a few people with him, and the order was that he was not to be released from the siege.

At that time, Israeli lawyer Dov Weissglass, then the head of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau, received a phone call from the Spanish diplomat Javier Solana, then in charge of foreign and defense matters for the European Union. Solana, who was in touch with senior Palestinian Authority officials, asked that Yasser Arafat be approved for urgent medical treatment (he was examined in Ramallah by doctors from Jordan, Egypt, and Tunisia), and a follow-up request arrived very quickly: release Arafat from the siege and allow him to receive medical treatment in Europe.

Major General Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, then the head of the IDF's Directorate of Military Intelligence, emphatically opposed this. The IDF's assessment was that Arafat's life was not facing a genuine danger and that the real purpose was to extract him from the siege, allow him to renew his political efforts, and carry out activities to bring the dying Intifada back to life.

Prime Minister Sharon debated whether or not to answer Solana's request when a conversation took place that tilted the balance -- a senior Palestinian Authority official spoke with Weissglass and told him that "Arafat only had a few weeks left to live. If he dies in the Mukataa, you will be perceived as responsible for his death, and that death will haunt you as the way the Christians have been blaming you for killing Jesus for 2,000 years."

The Prime Minister's bureau also consulted with a senior doctor at the Shiba Hopital in Israel, who also assessed that Arafat was suffering from flu complications. Sharon decided to allow Arafat's leave in order to undergo treatments at a hospital in France. Major General Yoav Galant, the military secretary, was angry over the decision, but conveyed the message to the IDF: the Prime Minister gave the order -- let him out.

So what happened in France? Here's another exposé. Arafat arrived on October 29 in serious condition. According to the information that reached few Israeli officials, and is revealed here for the first time, he suffered from complications stemming from leukemia. It's possible that the publications that said he was suffering from AIDS were correct and it's possible they weren't -- this writer has no conclusive information on that issue. What was known among those at the top of Israel's defense echelon was that Arafat's condition had begun to improve at the French hospital. Then, according to Israeli sources, the French doctors performed a dramatic measure -- a full body blood transfusion. The process put Arafat in a state of shock and into a coma, one from which he never recovered. He died on November 11, 2004, and was transferred for burial to Ramallah.

What of the investigation being published by the Al Jazeera news network this week, which claims that Arafat was poisoned by Israel? It's a collection of details, some of which might be true, but together create a completely groundless picture. The details being revealed here for the first time are based on sources that had first-hand knowledge of the full situational picture, and which do not hold any official public position today.

Why has Israel not bothered to officially refute the rumors of Yasser Arafat's poisoning all these years? Because it had no interest in sustaining rumors as though the Mossad's long reach made its way into Arafat's circulatory system as well. Why have the French kept silent about it? Allegedly because of patient confidentiality of the deceased, but also because the true story reveals the fact that the direct cause of Arafat's death was the medical treatment he was given. Lastly, why have the heads of the Palestinian Authority and the widow, Suha Arafat, kept quiet until this week's investigation? Because they knew the truth all along, and they know it just as well today.
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