Israeli authorities made the wife of the Palestinian ambassador in London interrupt a course of chemotherapy in order to return to Jerusalem or risk losing her residency rights, a trip that hastened her death from cancer, her family claim.
Samira Hassassian was infected by a virus on her plane journey back to London in May and died three months later, aged 57. Her husband, Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian envoy to the UK since 2005, said the Israeli government had extended her Jerusalem identity papers in 2010 for a year after she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in late 2009, but refused to grant a second extension this year, although the disease had by then metastasised to her bones and she was several weeks into intensive chemotherapy.
"They forced her to go back," Hassassian said. "The doctors had told me she had maybe until the end of the year, so this trip just expedited the process, but it also caused her pain and suffering."
These are the first three paragraphs of the article, which means that they are the only parts that people are likely to read. But if you dig deep in the remaining paragraphs you discover that the Israeli embassy adamantly denies that they had forced her to go to Israel, saying that her extension was not in doubt and that they would never force a sick patient to travel.
In fact, as CiF Watch reports, Samira Hassassian chose to go to Israel to seek a second opinion from Hadassah Hospital on her medical condition.
Furthermore, as CiF Watch notes, there is no way to know that she caught a virus on a 5 hour airplane trip and not before or after the flight. The fact that the Guardian states that as a fact and not as an allegation is scurrilous.
Much more on this slander at CiF Watch.
