Arafat in critical condition

[BeardofPants]

I know it's not a certainty, that's why I stated that he "may" be dead. It's too soon to tell.

[EarthBound]

Always count on confusion....it's less confusing that way...burp.

[Radagast The Brown]

I think, from what I've heard, that he is going to die soon... I heard he's in a cauma right now... Hmmm, I think he's not going to continue being the leader of the Palestinians anyway, even if he's not dead of die in the future.

[Nurvingiel]

They might have chosen a successor. Um... Ahmed Qusar?

Disclaimer: Any mistakes in this post are not the fault of the Swedish news but that my vocabulary is still very limited.

[Jonathan]

Rumour has it that Arafat has named an 'heir' in his will, but I think prime minister Ahmud Quray or Mahmud Abbas will become the Palestinians' official spokesperson when Arafat dies.

The doctors say he's clinically dead and that they can keep him alive for days or maybe weeks. His wife is the one who decides whether they should continue keeping him alive or not.

[jerseydevil]

Well it seems as if Arafat will be dead in a few hours.

This is an interesting article. I belong to the newsletter.

Arafat's Bedroom Farce

by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com
November 10, 2004
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2203
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=15899

It is hard to find words adequate to describe the malevolent 40-year long career of the world's longest reigning terrorist (it began in January 1965), a man who fouled his nest in Jordan, Lebanon, and then in the West Bank and Gaza, a moral monster who fooled the world into thinking he had reformed (remember that Nobel Peace Prize?). Yet his farcical death-scene provides perhaps the appropriate coda to an unworthy life.

The mise-en-scène is as preposterous as what came before, only much funnier. First, there is the wife, Suha, a Greek Orthodox convert to Islam who nonetheless continued to observe Christian holidays and now bellows out "Allahu Akbar" as she spends a reputed $100,000 a month living the good life in Paris. Then there are the long-suffering minions, hoping to get their day in the sun, free at last of their irascible, unpredictable, domineering leader. Finally, there are the hapless French politicians, stung by their own stupidity in sending a military plane to Jordan to retrieve Arafat to Paris, then treating him like royalty (including a courtesy visit by President Jacques Chirac), only to find themselves parties to his death-bed antics.

Here are some of the specifics; as they say, you couldn't make this stuff up.

On Nov. 7, French foreign minister Michel Barnier told the LCI television channel that Arafat was alive, but "I would say he is in a state that is very complicated, very serious and stable at the time we are speaking." Asked if Arafat was already dead, Barnier memorably answered: "I wouldn't say that." The foreign minister of a major country, supposedly a serious man, has satisfyingly been made to look like an idiot.

What Arafat might be dying of has been conspicuously not mentioned, leading to many speculations. Of course, some Palestinians have hatched a conspiracy theory about Israel poisoning Arafat. The PLO's news service, WAFA, with a straight face demands an inquiry into the exact manner of his poisoning. "We have the right to know the type, the source of the poison as well as the antidote and how to get it," writes WAFA's political editor. More interesting, though, is the plausible thesis that the "president" is dying of AIDS, especially given his reputed pre-nuptial activities. David Frum elaborates on this hypothesis in National Review Online:

We know he has a blood disease that is depressing his immune system. We know that he has suddenly dropped considerable weight – possibly as much as 1/3 of all his body weight. We know that he is suffering intermittent mental dysfunction. What does this sound like?

Former Romanian intelligence chief Ion Pacepa tells in his very interesting memoirs that the Ceaucescu regime taped Arafat's orgies with his body guards. If true, Arafat would a great deal to conceal from his people and his murderously anti-homosexual supporters in the Islamic world.

Before airlifting Arafat to Paris, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier promised to "stand by" him. Was that why Arafat chose to be treated in France rather in any of the fraternal Arab countries that supposedly support his movement – because he could trust the French to protect his intimate secrets?

Meanwhile, the Israelis, when not lying low, give out that Arafat is "clinically dead."

Then there is this unique paragraph of Steven Erlanger in the New York Times:

Mr. Arafat's condition was described as unchanged by a spokesman for the French military hospital in Paris where Mr. Arafat is variously said to be in an irreversible coma, a reversible coma or no coma at all. The rumor of Saturday [Nov. 6] was that Mr. Arafat had sat up and waved at his doctors; the latest rumor on Sunday is that he has suffered liver failure - denied by Mr. [Nabil] Shaath - and is being kept alive on machines while his aides and his wife fight over his burial place and his bank accounts.

The allusion to a "fight over his burial place and his bank accounts"? There is widespread suspicion that Suha and her allies are pretending Arafat is still alive so that they have time to tussle with the Israeli authorities over getting him buried in Jerusalem and also plunder Arafat's bank accounts, reputed to be as much as billions of dollars. A "senior Palestinian banker" is quoted noting that Arafat alone knows the numbers of his secret accounts and these could well accompany him to the grave. "If the numbers die with him, then the Swiss bankers and other bankers worldwide will be rubbing their hands in glee."

Perhaps Suha has already dipped her delicate hand in the honey pot. An account in the Washington Times finds that shortly before Arafat was flown to France, Suha "received $60 million in her Paris bank account." And that's on top of an alleged $11.4 million deposited in her accounts between July 2002 and September 2003 (which French authorities are looking into). The same Washington Times article states that "At least 60 percent of the Palestinian Authority's budget comes from international aid contributions, of which the European Union is the largest donor." Translation: most of us Westerners share the privilege of footing the bill for Suha's legendary shopping expeditions.

continued...

[jerseydevil]

It's no wonder they are angling to dispose of the corpse in Jerusalem, considering the state of Arafat's family burial plot in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Agence France-Presse vividly describes this decrepit site (the French original is even more colorful):

Unkempt, ankle deep in rubbish and the air thick with flies from the stinking market next door, the Arafat family plot could not be a more inauspicious burial place for the icon of Palestinian nationhood. …

Less than 100 square metres with two dozen tombs already in pride of place, a minimum of mourners would be able to crowd the site, stumbling over the roughshod ground to pay their last respects. Hidden behind a cement wall and accessible through a solitary white, metal door encrusted with mud, nothing could be less imposing or more humiliating for a man who is now unlikely to achieve his dream of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.

Bin liners, a child's T-shirt and a traditional red keffiyeh (headdress of the type favoured by Arafat) are ground into the dust. Empty crisp bags, milk cartons, plastic bottles and broken glass are strewn across the burnt grass. Overgrown scarlet and white bougainvillia do nothing to sweeten the nauseating stench of rotting fruit and meat, laced with dung from half-dead donkeys tied up in the adjacent market.

Laundry hanging from a run-down high-rise flat flaps over the grave of Arafat's sister, Yussra al-Qidwa, who was laid to rest in August last year, alongside their father.

To the prospect of Arafat forever gracing the Holy City, Israel's justice minister Tommy Lapid said on Nov. 5, in perhaps the best one-liner of the whole sordid affair, that Arafat "will not be buried in Jerusalem because Jerusalem is the city where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists."

When four of Arafat's flunkies, including Ahmed Qurei, his pretend "prime minister," no longer could bear Suha's capricious ways, they announced a trip to Paris to hear directly from the doctors on the state of the great man's health. Suha responded viciously, calling up Al Jazeera television early on Nov. 8 and accusing the quartet of engaging in a "conspiracy" against Arafat. "Let it be known to the honest people of Palestine that a gang of would-be inheritors are coming to Paris," she screamed in a segment Al-Jazeera aired repeatedly. Using Arafat's nom de guerre, she warned: "You have to understand the scope of this conspiracy. I tell you, they are trying to bury alive Abu Ammar." She also added for good measure, "He is all right and he is going home."

To this, the flunkies replied by calling Suha "evil" and a "madwoman," and went anyway. Suha's stock response is "Every beautiful flower ends up surrounded by weeds."

To make matters yet more interesting, rumors have swirled around Arafat's military hospital that he twice refused to speak to Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO's number-two, by telephone and instead has on the quiet made Farouq Kaddumi his successor. Who, you might ask, is Farouq Kaddumi? Erlanger explains that he is a founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization who rejected the Oslo accords and refused to return with Mr. Arafat to the West Bank and Gaza. He still lives in Tunis, where he retains the title of P.L.O. foreign minister, despite the fact that Mr. Shaath holds the Palestinian Authority's title of minister for external affairs

Got that? The farce is complete, and Arafat dies as wretchedly as he lived.

What I find interesting - with all these billions of dollars at his disposal - couldn't he have built homes, schools, hospitals and other infistructure to make the palestinians life better - instead of using it for terrorism and himself? Oh wait - nevermind - the whole thing with Israel was to keep himself in power and to wipe Israel off the face of the earth - he needed his people to suffer to make sure they kept attacking Israel.

[Jonathan]

Supposedly, the only organs in Arafat's body that still work are his lungs and heart. His liver, kidneys etc. have stopped functioning and it's likely that he'll die soon.

Palestinian officials say Arafat's body will be flown to Kairo (where he was born and grew up) where his funeral will take place. His body will remain in Kairo some time before he is most likely transported to his headquarters in Ramallah to be buried.

[jerseydevil]

Channel; 5 - Fox News (network) in NY is saying that Arafat has died - but neither Fox News or CNN is having anything on. I wonder if he has - they said that a press conference was going on in Paris right now.

Edit - Channel 7 ABC - in NY is saying that he has died also - so I guess it's true.

It is official (well has been for about an hour now) that Arafat is dead. No more wondering what level of dead he is at anymore - this seems to be the final, no coming back kind.

[Pytt]

yes, he is final and utterly dead. has the follower been decided, or are they still arguing?

[Khamûl]

Apparently, Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh is going to head the Palestinian government for the next 60 days until elections can be held.

[Jonathan]

Arafat was a tough old man, he's been close to death before but now he is dead for good. Hope there won't be any disturbances in the Middle East as a result of his death.

He was a nail in the eye of Israel for a long time, but while he was the spokesperson of the Palestinians, Israel knew who they have to deal with. Now they are adrift in uncertainty until a new president is elected. Since the elections are to be held within 60 days, that might mean 60 days of power struggle.

[jerseydevil]

I'm sorry - the thought of Arafat dead - just makes one want to sing "the witch is dead" from the wizard of oz.

I find it distrubing that Jaques Chirac said that the Palestinians should continue on with the goals of Arafat - his goals were the distruction of Israel - even while he put on the face of peace. He still funded the terrorists - still supported them, even while publicly condemning them.