Based on some Swiss doctor’s report that they found elevated levels of polonium on Arafat’s clothing, they have exhumed the mass-murderer’s body and will be testing it. Of course, the rumors that were made up by Israel’s foes are swirling again–the evil Zionists must have poisoned Arafat! And yet, here’s what it comes down to:
A Swiss doctor said Wednesday they found high levels of toxic polonium-210 on some of Arafat’s belongings, though it does not mean he suffered radiation poisoning.
“We have evidence there is too much polonium, but we also have hints from the medical records that this may not be the case,” said Francois Bochud, director of the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland. “The only way to resolve this anomaly would be by testing the body.”
That is not, of course, the story the media are running with. OMG ISRAEL MUST HAVE POISONED ARAFAT!!1!1 is the story that’s running through most outlets. Look for the accusations to get stronger and the Palestinians to call for a UN investigation into Arafat’s death. Oh. Wait. Here it is.
Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat called for a probe into Arafat’s death.
“We call for the formation of an international investigation committee, modeled on the international investigation committee set up to look into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri,” he told AFP.
The fact of the matter is that Arafat, who was a homosexual, died of AIDS. But homosexuality is forbidden in Islam, and the narrative that their great “revolutionary” hero was gay and died of AIDS would utterly ruin the terrorist narrative. Here’s the most pertinent part of the Ynet op-ed that reminds us how Arafat really died:
And now, al-Jazeera comes out with an investigative report about a radioactive substance that killed Arafat. The report does not explain where exactly all these articles of clothing, tainted with this radioactive substance, were being held for the past seven years, ever since they were taken from their owner.
Uh-huh. But don’t worry, the anti-Israel narrative has been set. The New York Times runs with the story even as you read this, buried in the middle of it:
Though the hospital records were never made public, fueling speculation and rumors about the cause of death, they were obtained by The New York Times in 2005. The records showed that he had died of a stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an underlying infection. The infection was never identified. The hospital found no traces of poisons.
Funny how that paragraph doesn’t go after this one, which is the lead:
A potentially explosive re-examination of the circumstances behind the death of Yasir Arafat, the symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, has galvanized Palestinian suspicions that he was poisoned and led the Palestinian Authority to agree in principle on Wednesday to an exhumation of his remains, possibly within days.
You would think, based on journalistic best practices, that if the Times could provide evidence that Arafat wasn’t poisoned, they would be bound to present that evidence right after the accusation. You would think. But then, the media isn’t about the truth. The media is all about selling papers and setting the narrative. So the Times buries the fact that poison was ruled out at the time of his death, and continues the “Palestinians are going to go ballistic about poison reports!” narrative.
Same story, different time. Lather, rinse, repeat. And all the time, Arafat is still dead, I am still glad about that, as he was the worst mass-murderer of Jews since Hitler, and this is a stupid, stupid story. But it will go on until they manufacture evidence that “proves” Israel did it.
The Jerusalem Post pointed out that given the half-life of Polonium and the levels “found” on his clothes, it’s highly unlikely that the Polonium dates from 2004. And Suha would probably be dead too, if that were the case.
Israeli intelligence isn’t quite as failure-proof as some think, but my guess is that if the Israelis had wanted him dead he would have been dead well before 2004.
But that leads me to wonder: Do the Israelis have some hard information that Arafat was in fact gay? And if they do, gosh, it would be ungentlemanly to leak it but you know, stuff happens. The Arabs, of course, would denounce this as a Zionist fabrication, but it would still be fun to watch.