Arafat Reported Clinically Dead; PM Denies

[doyle]

Arafat Reported Clinically Dead; PM Denies




Thursday, November 04, 2004 11:40 a.m. ET


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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was declared clinically dead on Thursday in a French hospital, Israeli television said citing French sources.

But Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie denied the report, saying: "I have just spoken to the officials in Paris and they say the situation is still as it was. He is still in the intensive care unit."

Israel's Channel Two television cited unnamed sources in Paris saying that Arafat underwent a brain scan and was found to be "no longer alive."

Palestinian sources earlier told Reuters that the Palestinian president, who was admitted to hospital last week with a mysterious stomach illness, had slipped into a coma.

[Buzzsaw]

Good riddance to a career terrorist and opportunist whose hands are red with the blood of innocents.

[GBR]

And Israel has no blood on it's hands. I will believe he is dead when they bury him in Jerusalem no matter what Sharon says.

[Buzzsaw]

And Israel has no blood on it's hands.

Fallacious argument. We aren't talking about the Israelis. We are talking about Arafat, the enemy of peace.

[kilroy]

a couple minutes ago:

"President Arafat does not have cardiac arrest or heart failure," Ashraf al-Kurdi, Arafat's Jordanian doctor said.


"He is still alive. He is not clinically dead. There is no brain death, but his condition is deteriorating. Because there has been no diagnosis, we don't know what's wrong with him."


A senior Palestinian official said: "President Arafat is in very serious condition. He is still in a coma. The sense people are getting is that they are increasingly pessimistic."


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/mideast_arafat_dc

unfortunately, he aint kicked the bucket quite yet, or at least his spokesdoctors arent ready to admit it yet. still, he'll probably be dead soon, and what comes next for palestinian leadership is still a big-ass '?'. even if he does pull through for the time being, it probably wont be enough time to solidify the position of a successor, especially if his mental state can be called into question.

[haganah]

Most of us seem to be glad that Arafat is out of the way (almost), but let's consider what may happen in the near future. I detest Arafat as much or more than the next guy and I think iit's time to finally destroy the Alaqsa mosque, along with all those fuckin' Palestinians. They're not real people anyway.

[Prodigal Son]

Think they'll do a "weekend at Bernies" with Arafat?

[kilroy]

Think they'll do a "weekend at Bernies" with Arafat?

that would be soooo sweet. i'm cracking up just thinking about it. c'mon, just picture the original movie, only with arafat as the dead guy, and queria and the jordanian doctor as the two buddies who are carrying him around and tell me you dont at least crack a smile!

[Dim]

David Frum is spreading the rumour that Yassar Arafat has AIDS

Speaking of media bias, here’s a question you won’t hear in our big papers or on network TV: Does Yasser Arafat have AIDS?

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?

Yep - it's that ol' media bias against unlikely stories that have no substance to them whatsoever. Why can't the other news stations be more like FOX and CBS? Or better yet, the World Weekly News!

Anyone who's ever had any elderly relatives die knows that there's a multitude of diseases that Arafat could be suffering from. Presumably Frums been too busy fighting evil to waste his time visiting sick old people.

[Penta]

Comment
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Israel's death festival
Such unabashed glee is disrespectful and dangerous

Daphna Baram
Friday November 12, 2004

The Guardian

On November 5 1995, I went as usual to my office in East Jerusalem, next door to the Orient House, where the Palestinian leadership had its headquarters. I worked for the human rights advocate, Lea Tzemel. Lea and myself, two Jewish Israeli women working in a Palestinian neighbourhood, were already a familiar part of the street's scene. But this morning was different. When I went into the corner shop to buy cigarettes, the owner, Izzat Fraytah, greeted me with a grave face. "My condolences," he said. It took me a few seconds to realise he was conveying his sympathy for the death of the prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who had been assassinated the night before by a rightwing radical.
Izzat was a sympathiser of the Islamist opposition organisations, and an opponent of the Oslo accords signed two years earlier by Rabin and Yasser Arafat, but his feelings were genuine. "It's a sad day for you," he said, "and for us." During the day, dozens of the street's residents climbed the four floors to our office to express their sorrow. Clients who came to inquire about the fate of their family members were apologetic for troubling me on this day of mourning.

I was overwhelmed by their decency, and embarrassed. I knew what a bitter enemy Rabin had been to the Palestinian people. He was the one, after all, who issued the order to "break the hands and legs of every stone-thrower" during the first intifada, which led Israeli soldiers to break the limbs of every young man in the villages of Beita and Hawara, leaving only one with his legs intact, so that he could run and break the news.

Many of the visitors who offered their sympathy had lost sons, husbands and brothers to Rabin's "iron fist" policies. Thousands were still, despite the Oslo accords, locked in Israeli administrative detention for "security offences". The permanent closure policy on the West Bank and Gaza was taking its economic toll on the people. And yet my neighbours' kind behaviour was not unique. One by one the leaders of the Palestinian Authority were interviewed by the Israeli media, talking of their grief. Arafat got special permission to visit the bereaved widow, Lea Rabin, in Tel Aviv, and sat with her, tears in his eyes.

All these memories came back to me as Yasser Arafat lay on his deathbed, unaware of the glee expressed by most Israelis. The Israeli government announced, as soon as he was flown to Paris, that he would not be allowed to be buried in Jerusalem. Inbal Gavrieli, member of the Knesset, shouted at Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Knesset, that Arafat was "a dog". Many Israeli politicians followed suit with insults directed at the dying Palestinian leader. Israeli comedians, who nowadays shy away from political satire directed at their own leaders, have been mocking Arafat with the most degrading impersonations. A festive atmosphere has taken over the country.

"Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth," says the Old Testament, but too many Israelis are blinded by hatred and self-righteousness to remember these beautiful words. The consequences of Arafat's death festival will haunt us for years. And for this cruel folly Israelis and Palestinians are likely to pay in the currency of innocent blood.

· Daphna Baram is author of Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel

daphnun@yahoo.co.uk

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

[Texas Carnie Roadshow]

Why can't the other news stations be more like FOX and CBS? Or better yet, the World Weekly News!

Because next week they'd all be arguing if Arafat came back to life with Jesus or Bat-boy.

[Venturi]

Actually Dim, the first thing I thought when I heard of his symptoms were exactly that.

There's been of a very trusted rumour circulating for years among certain ex-Bloc higher-ups about his homosexual proclivities. Suffice it to say that Arafat had certain friends in high places that knew exactly what was going on when he would vacation there. It also sounded like he had, perhaps, an "overhealthy" admiration for younger boys.

I do think it's unfair to immediately equate his death to AIDS just because he may have been bisexual, but with those sort of suspect symptoms, it's difficult to overlook.