The MSM are reporting that Arafat was declared dead Wednesday night (in France before dawn on Thursday). According to Debka, it was earlier agreed that Arafat would be declared dead on Tuesday night or Wednesday, but there was a last-minute snag in the plans when a Muslim cleric (Sheikh Taissir Tamimi) declared that Arafat was still alive. It wasn’t clear whether the cleric was telling the truth or was simply being obstructionist or if he was confused by the fact that Arafat’s heart and lungs were kept working by the ventilator. In any event, the latest flap seems to have pushed the declaration of death to after midnight Wednesday night.
According to the uncanny but not always reliable Debka, here are some of the details (to be taken with a grain of salt). Here was part of Debka’s Tuesday story:
The confusion surrounding Arafat’s condition for eleven days – officially alive, unofficially dead – was to be sustained a little longer – mainly to save Mrs Arafat’s face.
The settlement allowed a funeral to be arranged on “Orphan Friday” of Ramadan, November 12 (as DEBKAfile reported earlier) – unless a new crisis pops up. Our sources have seen some of the principle terms of the Palestinian accord with Suha Arafat.
1. This clause has already taken place. Before the Palestinian delegation which visited the hospital left Paris, foreign minister Nabil Shaath again assured the media that Arafat is still alive and “his brain, heart and lungs are still functioning.” This was necessary to prove Suha Arafat had not lied when she appeared that morning live on Arabic TV Al Jazeera to accuse those same officials of conspiring to bury her husband alive. The deal provided for the announcement of Arafat’s death to be held back for late Tuesday night or Wednesday, November 10.
2. The widow will attend the funeral. Abu Mazen insisted on her following the Palestinian leader’s bier for the sake of appearances.
3. Last July, Arafat sent his wife $11 million to cover her living expenses and those of their daughter for six months – $1.8 million per month. The new accord guarantees her the same allowance from the Palestinian Authority as a regular annual remittance, i.e. $22 million per annum, for the rest of her life. Abu Mazen and prime minister Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) signed on the dotted line, although they have no notion how the penniless Palestinian Authority faced with a people in dire poverty can possibly stump up this kind of money.
DEBKAfile’s Paris sources offer an exclusive peek at Suha Arafat’s lifestyle in the French capital. She owns a smart villa on one of the most elegantly affluent streets in the world, Rue Fauborg St. Honore, while also maintaining a lavish private suite at the five-star Hotel Le Bristol, which after a multimillion dollar refurbishment claims to outclass the Paris Ritz, the Four Seasons and even George V. The upkeep of the Bristol suite she maintains for “business” was included in her widow’s “pension.”
After the Palestinian officials settled with Arafat’s wife, Shaat went before the media to admit that Arafat had been in a deep coma since last Wednesday, November 3, meaning that all the Palestinian communiqués since then, describing him laughing with doctors, reading the Koran etc., were arrant falsehoods. He ruled out poisoning and cancer as the causes of Arafat’s illness and laid the blame for his “digestive disorders” on – who else? Israel, whose army had besieged Arafat’s quarters and forced the 75-year old leader to subsist on too little oxygen and in poor sanitary conditions.
Wednesday’s Debka story:
Wednesday night [Israeli time], November 10, Yasser Arafat’s grotesquely protracted demise had just about reached breaking point when two things happened.
The Fatah-Tanzim stirred up anti-Israeli riots in Jerusalem and West Bank under the slogan: “Arafat’s heritage is the gun” and “the Jews Poisoned Mohammed, they killed Arafat.”
Then followed an announcement by Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath: Arafat’s brain is functioning only partially. All his organs but for his heart and lungs have failed.
These events capped a day which saw another twist in the drawn-out cliffhanger of Yasser Arafat’s demise which started 13 days ago. The senior Palestinian Muslim cleric Sheikh Taissir Tamimi who was dispatched to the Percy hospital in Paris to perform the last rites, took one look at Arafat in his hospital bed, and came out to tell the world media that he was alive. Shutting down life support system to which the Palestinian leader had been connected for 12 days is absolutely forbidden by Islam, he declared, and promised to stay by his side and pray for his recovery.
Adding to the disarray, Palestinian Paris envoy Leila Shahid announced Arafat was in the final stage of his life. …
All the arrangements went forward Wednesday at a brisk pace – funeral invitations, procession route, burial ceremony, tomb, new leadership. The only thing missing as the tense hours ticked by in Ramallah was the death announcement and a body. …
Until Tuesday, Mrs. Arafat was the obstacle to her husband’s demise. Then, two senior Palestinian officials, Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas, negotiated an outrageously exorbitant settlement for her future in return for her permission to disconnect the machines. Wednesday, the white-turbaned Palestinian sheikh turned the wheel back to the starting point.
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