Yassir Arafat: Is he or isn't he, Part 2

Is he or isn't he, that is still the question. It appears that he is lying in some kind of in-between life and death state with only a life support system keeping him alive and Suha does not want to pull the plug on the old nefarious one which is perfectly understandable to me - if I was Suha.

Suha Arafat has no power base among Palestinian terrorists, but what she does have is access to Arafat's billions. She is one of the few, the very few that know where the money is. Once Arafat is dead she has no protection. If I was the "official" new leader of the Palestinian Authority I would be busy plotting the path I would take to get those billions back. If I was a Hamas or Islamic Jihad or anyone of the other 11 rival fractions jocking for the mantle of Top Thug over the West Bank and Gaza I would be thinking that billions would buy a lot of weapons, men and loyalty. Let's face facts; Palestinian terrorists never every quibble about harming women/children or operating on foreign soil. If Suha and daughter go missing or turn up dead; you can always blame it on the Mossad.

Arafat has yet to be pronounced dead but already the rumors are flying that the Jews did it. The one thing you have to hand to Arab Street, they sure are consistent. The sun shines when you wanted rain - the Jews did it. Bush wins re-election, the Jews did it. You live in a G-d-forsaken hovel in a refugee camp with a million and one children you cannot afford because there is no work in the West Bank or Gaza - it is the Jew's fault.

You have to hand it to Arafat, even in the act of dying he has managed to cause as almost as many problems as an Arafat up and about running around the compound. Firstly, there is the exact matter of what caused the deterioration in his health. I admit that the possibility that he is in the last stage of Aids is highly appealing though one of my first choices was liver cancer with long bouts of chemo thrown in. It would have been poetic for the one who wrecked havoc and destruction with the lives of the young, old and the innocent to be rotting from within. But Aids will work.


Then where do you bury the body? Allegedly, Arafat spoke four months ago to Ikrema Sabri, a top Muslim cleric at the mosque on the Temple Mount. Ikrema Sabri says he wanted to be buried at Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. I admit that request does appeal to my sense of irony; an Arab terrorist wants to be buried where Jewish Kings are laid to rest. Personally, I would opt for the old family plot in Gaza that apparently is now a busy vegetable market in Khan Younis.