Ask any Palestinian about the death of former leader and symbol of national resistance, Yasser Arafat, and he or she will immediately say that he was killed by Israel for refusing to give in to pressure to accept an unjust final peace settlement. Arafat’s death, in mysterious circumstances at a French military hospital, in November 2004, remains one of the most contentious issues for millions of Palestinians.
And yet no official inquiry was able to confirm that the father of national struggle for liberation was a victim of foul play. The secret behind his death, a few days after his health quickly deteriorated, was buried with him in a Ramallah mausoleum. That is until now.
An Al Jazeera investigative report last week revealed that findings by Switzerland’s Institute of Radiation Physics showed that belongings linked to Arafat contained an elevated level of a radioactive agent — a deadly substance called Polonium. The Swiss lab’s findings were inconclusive, but the revelations prompted calls by Arafat’s widow, Suha Tawil, and leading Palestinian figures to exhume his remains and carry out further examinations.
Arafat’s successor, President Mahmoud Abbas, announced that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was ready to authorise an autopsy, but a final decision is still pending. Palestinian and Arab press went berserk and columnists pointed fingers at former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and hinted that Palestinian officials were part of a Mossad assassination plot to take out the besieged Palestinian leader who had vowed to defend his people’s rights or die a martyr.
Further reports were quick to make comparisons between Arafat’s murder and the deadly poisoning by Polonium of KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. His death was pinned on the Russian government. Israel has formally denied reports that it had anything to do with Arafat’s death. And two Palestinian probes had failed to conclude how the Palestinian leader died.
Some Palestinian officials had accused the PNA and Israel of exerting pressure on investigators to suspend their inquiry. Deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Dr Hassan Khreisheh, said Palestinian and Arab officials refused to disclose important information about Arafat’s death in 2004.
He was quoted as saying that some PNA leaders were involved in Arafat’s death, which is why they prevented his physician, Dr Ashraf Al Kurdi, from giving information to a PLC committee.
Another ministerial committee was formed in 2005 and it received copies of reports from the French military hospital, but Dr Khreisheh said it too was asked to suspend its work.
There is no doubt that Arafat’s life was in danger since the collapse of peace talks and the break out of Al Aqsa uprising in 2000. In March 2002, Israel carried out Operation Defensive Shield, storming the West Bank and placing Arafat under siege in his Ramallah compound. He remained there until his terminal illness. A few days later, he was flown to Paris for treatment.
The official statement announcing his death failed to determine a cause, saying only that he had a “mystery blood disorder”, and under French law, only his close relatives, in this case his wife and nephew, Nasser Al Qudwa, were allowed to have access to his medical records. In the end, Al Qudwa was given a copy of Arafat’s 558-page medical file by the French Ministry of Defence.
Since his death, many close aides of Arafat made accusations regarding the circumstances of his demise. His personal physician, Al Kurdi, was denied access to him by Suha who, he says, had refused to conduct an autopsy. And Arafat’s former adviser, Bassam Abu Sharif, claimed that the Mossad had poisoned the Palestinian leader by tampering with his medications.
Since then, the controversy over Arafat’s death had quieted down. But now with Al Jazeera’s new claims, the case is at the centre of public attention, especially in the West Bank. The timing of the revelations has raised many questions. Why did Al Jazeera carry out its investigative report now and why has Suha changed her mind about the autopsy? And who is really behind this latest crisis? Who stands to benefit and who might lose?
Some pundits have speculated that the current controversy is aimed at casting more doubts on the current Palestinian leadership. For most Palestinians, Arafat’s murder can only be blamed on Israel, but the real killers are those who were close to Arafat and who were able to slip the radioactive material into his food or medications. The circle of close aides does not exclude anyone. It is this sense of doubt and suspicion that is undermining the Palestinian leadership at this stage.
The findings of the Swiss lab have only muddled the situation. Now the pressure is mounting on PNA to exhume Arafat’s remains and carry out detailed examinations. One Palestinian official, Saeb Ureikat, had called for an international tribunal to investigate the circumstances of Arafat’s death, along the lines of the UN probe over former Lebanon prime minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination.
But even if Arafat’s body was exhumed and his murder was confirmed, the political repercussions of such a development would be too huge to contain by the PNA and its beleaguered President Abbas.
In the absence of Palestinian reconciliation and the deep financial troubles of the Ramallah authority, in addition to the collapse of the peace process, the fallout would be deadly. Palestinians are growing tired and frustrated over all these issues. The last thing they need now is to believe in a conspiracy linking their own leadership to the killing of their national hero.
Even after his death, Arafat remains a potent figure in Palestinian national psyche. The latest revelations will haunt his detractors and cast a huge shadow over a miserable Palestinian scene.
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