ELDER OF ZIYON: Bolonium

Over the weekend, the Lancet published an article called "Improving forensic investigation for polonium poisoning" which is being misrepresented by the media, especially Arab media.

AFP reports:

Swiss radiation experts have confirmed they found traces of polonium on clothing used by Yasser Arafat which "support the possibility" the veteran Palestinian leader was poisoned.

In a report published by The Lancet at the weekend, the team provide scientific details to media statements made in 2012 that they had found polonium on Arafat's belongings.

This is not the results of the tests done on exhumed samples from Arafat. This is simply a regurgitation of what the Swiss researchers said last year, just published in a new place.

The very end of the AFP report confirms this:

Beatrice Schaad, head of communications at the Vaudois University Hospital Center which is in charge of the institute, said the case report was the "scientific version" of what was given to the media.

"There is nothing new compared with what was said" in 2012, she told AFP. "There is still no conclusion that he was poisoned."

For those who cared, the specific results were published last year as well. And the numbers still don't add up.

The current Lancet article says:

According to biokinetic modelling (see appendix), the measured activities of ²¹⁰Po of several mBq per sample are compatible with a lethal ingestion of several GBq in 2004.

As I noted last year, Arafat's underwear urine stains were measured to have an astounding 180 mBq, over one hundred times the expected amount one would have expected to see in 2012, based on radioactive decay, of a dosage of polonium that would kill a man in a month.

Again, not that I am a fan of conspiracy theories, but these results would make sense only if the polonium was planted afterwards.

And, as I have noted, there were major irregularities when Arafat's body was exhumed, in that the PLO insisted that Russians be involved in the exhumation, and that only a Palestinian Arab pathologist was allowed to physically take the samples, with no one else observing him. If someone wanted to get advice on how to plant polonium on the samples - as well as polonium itself - Russia would the first choice.

Maybe this is why the investigation has been taking so long. If the polonium was planted, the researchers would probably be seeing results that are inconsistent or that otherwise don't make sense.

Suha Arafat: I wish I’d never married himPalestinian leader’s widow denies she has millions in the bank, claims to have turned down dozens of suitors

Nine years after the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his widow said she regrets the marriage and given the choice again, would not have wed him.

“The marriage to Arafat was a big mistake and I regret it,” said Suha Arafat in an interview published last week in the Turkish-language Sabah newspaper. “We were married for 22 years and it felt like 50.”

Arafat added that she had repeatedly tried to leave her husband but was denied her freedom.

“I tried to divorce Arafat more than 100 times and he didn’t let me,” she said. “Everyone knows about this story, especially those who were in his inner circle.”

According to the report, the two first met in 1986 when she was a student in Paris and engaged to a local lawyer. At the time, Suha recalled, the Palestinian leader, 33 years her senior, was a much sought after man.

“There were many women who wanted to marry him but he only wanted me, despite the objections of my family,” she said.

Suha said that although her relatives, a well-established Ramallah family, were opposed to the union, the pair married in secret on her birthday four years later. Her mother was furious at the development and flew to Tunis where she angrily berated Arafat for entering into a marriage with her daughter, which she deemed inappropriate.

“Fate chose me and it wasn’t easy right from the start,” she said.

As soon as she became Mrs. Arafat she was locked away behind walls for security reasons, Suha said.

“I had to be careful in my phone conversations because of bugging, and we were always moving from one location to another.”

Suha recalled that after her husband initiated the first intifada in 1987 — it actually began as a spontaneous uprising — the world’s media attention was focused on him, “and it is no secret that it [the media] is controlled by Jews” she noted.

As the wife of man who spent so much time in the international media spotlight, Suha said she felt like the weakest link in the chain.

“My identity was completely destroyed,” she said.

Suha Arafat. (photo credit: Sharon Perry/Flash90)

Since Arafat’s death in a Paris hospital in 2004 — she has claimed that he was poisoned — Suha said she has had dozens of marriage proposals, but rejected all hopeful suitors with the same answer: “Arafat was my hero.”

Suha lives on a stipend she gets from the Palestinian Authority, which she said is barely sufficient to support her and her daughter, and is a far distance fromreports on millions of dollars that went to her through secret bank accounts.

“All the stories about Arafat putting millions in my bank account are nonsense and lies,” she said. The money is with those who were close to Arafat and anyone who is determined can find it.”

She also denied a rumor that the apartment she now shares with her teenager daughter Zawa in Malta was purchased as a gift by the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The apartment, she said, is rented.

“Even if I have regrets I accept the reality. Arafat was a great leader and I was very lonely in my marriage. I was always on the defensive because of the rumors that they spread about me. But life without him is even harder.”

“If I could turn back time I wouldn’t marry Arafat,” she added.

Arafat was a strong supporter of the decision to exhume her husband in November 2012 amid claims he was poisoned.

Who killed Arafat? Possibly his closest colleagues‘The Murder of Yasser Arafat’ offers a new perspective on the last days of a ruthless leader and his broken society

Yasser Arafat waved goodbye to his supporters on a cold October morning in 2004. Clad in a thick overcoat and an old-fashioned fur hat, the Palestinian leader looked awful. Thin, feeble and pallid, Arafat released a quivering smile before entering the French jet that carried him to the Percy military hospital near Paris, where he would expire 12 days later.

Abu-Ammar’s body was barely cold when theories about the mysterious cause of his death began to proliferate. Many Israelis preferred the AIDS hypothesis, citing his reputed sexual habits. But on the Palestinian street, conventional wisdom rarely veered from the accusation that Israel had poisoned him.

A 2012 Al-Jazeera documentary seemed to add credence to the Palestinian theory. The Qatari news channel sent Arafat’s hospital clothes and personal belongings to a sophisticated laboratory in Switzerland, which found high levels of polonium, a toxic radioactive element, in his bodily fluids. The dramatic findings led the Palestinian Authority to exhume Arafat’s body in November 2012 and take biopsies for further examination, all the while blaming Israel for political murder.

The investigations continue as these lines are being written.

Much ink has been spilled on the Palestinian leader and the circumstances of his demise. But few accounts are more racy and provocative than “The Murder of Yasser Arafat,” a short new e-book by veteran journalist duo Matthew Kalman and Matt Rees.

“The Murder of Yasser Arafat” is quite the page-turner, or rather page-scroller, since it only exists digitally. In their collaboration, Kalman (who also blogs at the Times of Israel)and Rees call themselves DeltaFourth, a portmanteau reference to the American special forces unit and the profession of journalism — the fourth estate.

The Murder of Yasser Arafat by Kalman and Rees (photo credit: courtesy)

Despite its super-realistic theme, the book reads like a crime novel (unsurprising, since award-winning Rees authored six of those). It depicts life in Arafat’s Palestinian Authority as rather similar to Thomas Hobbes’s state of nature: solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

To understand the death of Arafat, argue Kalman and Reese, one must first understand the machinations of the Palestinian Authority, which he created and dominated for 10 years. And those machinations were ruthless.

Take the story of Adnan Shahine, for example. Summarily executed on a Bethlehem street by Arafat’s men in December 2000 — in order to intimidate potential collaborators with Israel, though he himself was innocent — Shahine’s untimely death epitomizes the zeitgeist of the Arafat years.

Infighting, conspiracies and the habit of pitting friends and colleagues against one another were Arafat’s game, and he was quite good at it. The two “operatives” of DeltaFourth (as they perhaps slightly exaggeratedly call themselves) were eyewitnesses to many of these incredible and chilling tales, and they rarely spare us the details.

Matthew Kalman (photo credit: Courtesy)

Arafat was indeed assassinated, likely by polonium, they assert. But it was Arafat’s close circle of companions who are the prime suspects in his death and its cover-up, not Israel.

“The Israelis said ‘That’s our enemy,’ but Palestinians had a greater imperative to remove him,” Rees told The Times of Israel.

Kalman and Rees fall short of naming the ultimate culprit — for legal reasons and because they cannot entirely prove it, Rees said — but they do name a few PA bigwigs as having a vested interest in his death.

The men closest to Arafat, such as his loyal bodyguard and his personal physician, were suspiciously removed from his side in the years and months leading to his death, they write.

And Fathi Shabaneh, chief of internal security in the PA and head of the first investigation into Arafat’s death, told DeltaFourth that he would love to speak to three current PA officials and ask them “tough questions.”

Mohammad Dahlan (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

High on any such list is Mohammed Dahlan, the former rising star of Arafat’s Preventive Security Force in Gaza. Dahlan, once an Arafat confidante, was seen clearing out Arafat’s medicine cabinet upon his death, they report.

Seven months earlier, Dahlan had told the authors that “the Palestinian people are looking for a way out… a Palestinian leadership to take them to the exit.” DeltaFourth see Dahlan’s wish for “a basic change in the Authority and Fatah” as a clear indication that the Gaza pretty-boy wanted Arafat removed.

Dahlan felt that Arafat had brought about Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield at the height of the Second Intifada in 2002, wreaking havoc on Palestinian society. The devastation was preventable if Arafat had only heeded his advice, Dahlan told the writers.

The authors also reference current PA President Mahmoud Abbas, appointed as Arafat’s prime minister under US pressure in 2003 to curb the leader’s unmitigated power, only to resign 100 days later claiming that Arafat sabotaged his every move.

The book emerges in an intellectual environment accustomed to painstakingly tedious accounts of the Oslo years, focusing primarily on the Israeli-Palestinian trajectory. But Rees and Kalman say that the internal dynamics of both societies provide a much better explanation for the failure of peace.

Despite its diminutive size, the “Murder of Yasser Arafat” is an important book because — rather than focusing solely on the Palestinian leader — it provides a new perspective for evaluating the Second Intifada.

Matt Rees, in crime writer pose (photo credit: Courtesy)

“The Intifada, at its heart, was a way of waging politics among Palestinian leaders. It wasn’t really about killing Israelis,” the writers go so far as to assert. “Certain Palestinian chiefs wanted to shake up the power balance, to grab more of the clout and cash for themselves. The ones that lacked power destroyed the peace process –– which had delivered jobs and aid money to their rivals –– so that Arafat would need them instead.”

Reading “The Murder of Yasser Arafat” means being left with more questions than answers, but these are questions certainly worth asking.

“In Palestine, a group of powerful men, assisted by trusted confidants with access to Arafat’s private chambers, perfected the art of polonium politics,” the book concludes. If so, one wonders whether the current investigations into Arafat’s alleged poisoning will bring us any close to his killers.

PARIS — A leading French doctor who teaches at the Paris hospital where Yasser Arafat died in 2004 has broken the official French medical silence surrounding the case to tell The Times of Israel, based on Arafat’s medical report, that there is “absolutely no way” the Palestinian leader was poisoned.

Roland Masse (photo credit: Courtesy)

Dr. Roland Masse, a member of the prestigious Académie de Médecine who currently teaches radiopathology at Percy Military Training Hospital in the Paris suburb of Clamart, where Arafat was hospitalized two weeks before his death on November 11 eight years ago, spoke to The Times of Israel to scotch the allegations of polonium poisoning two weeks before a group of scientists are set to take samples for testing from Arafat’s body.

Masse said the symptoms of polonium poisoning would have been “impossible to miss,” noted that Percy had tested Arafat for radiation poisoning, and revealed that the hospital specializes in the related field of radiation detection. “A lethal level of polonium simply cannot go unnoticed,” he said, speaking as workers in Ramallah on Tuesday began the process of preparing Arafat’s grave for exhumation.

Dr. Thierry Revel, the head of the Hematology Department at Percy who signed the medical report on November 14, 2004, has refused to comment on the case. Indeed, medical confidentiality laws prevent doctors in France from divulging any information on their current or past patients. It was Arafat’s family that chose to make public the late Palestinian leader’s medical report; Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based news outlet, said in July that it had received the report from Arafat’s widow Suha.

In a telephone interview with The Times of Israel, Masse said flatly that “there is absolutely no way the symptoms described in Yasser Arafat’s medical report match those of poisoning by polonium.”

Masse elaborated: “When in contact with high levels of polonium, the body suffers from acute radiation which translates into a state of anemia and a severe decrease in white blood cells. And yet Arafat did not present any of those symptoms. What did decrease was his platelets, not his white blood cells,” said Masse, who may have been prepared to discuss the case because he does not treat patients at Percy, only teaching there. (He said the medical team at Percy would have had no need to consult with him, given their high level of expertise.)

Noting that radiation detection happens to be one of the areas in which Percy military hospital excels, Masse said that while Arafat’s medical report contains no specific reference to a test for polonium, it does specify that a number of tests were conducted to check if the patient had been subjected to radioactive substances.

Polonium-210, which Yasser Arafat’s widow Suha believes may have caused her husband’s death, is a rare chemical that became more familiar to the public a few years ago when it was used to murder Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, in London in 2006.

If “abnormal levels of radioactive polonium” were found on Arafat’s clothing by scientists in Switzerland in July, eight years after his death, Masse said, the Palestinian leader would have had to be in contact with an extremely high level of the chemical before his death. This would have been impossible to miss for any doctor at the time, Masse said, not to mention dangerous for other people surrounding Arafat. “Remember the Litvinenko case,” Masse continued. “We discovered after his death that hundreds of people had been subjected to various levels of contamination, in the UK and other countries.”

Masse was in charge of “national radioactivity supervision” in France in the 1990s — as head of the Office de Protection des Rayonnements Ionisants (OPRI — the Bureau for Protection against Ionizing Radiation), which worked under the authority of the French Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Labour to protect French citizens and the environment from the effects of ionizing radiation. In the job, he said, he received daily alerts about the presence of far lower levels of radioactive elements than would have been necessary to kill a man; these alerts came from waste collection sites, for example, and from people who had recently undergone medical treatments involving the application of radioactive substances.

Arafat was reported by his doctors in Ramallah to be suffering from flu in late October, 2004, and was treated by a team of Palestinian, Egyptian, Jordanian and Tunisian doctors for what were then described as symptoms of “anorexia, nausea and nasal congestion.” His condition deteriorated, and he was helicoptered to Jordan and then taken by French government jet to France and admitted to Percy.

Members of the Palestinian Presidential Guard stand at the grave of Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah. (AP/Bernat Armangue,)

On arrival, Arafat was diagnosed with “thrombocytopenia and persistent digestive problems,” according to his medical report. After a series of tests, the doctors specified that Arafat suffered from Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation (DIC), a blood disorder which leads to the formation of small blood clots throughout the body and can be the result of a number of diseases. Arafat’s health then rapidly deteriorated. He fell into a coma on November 3 and died eight days later.

In July, Al Jazeera claimed that tests carried out by the Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne had found traces of polonium on Arafat’s belongings in quantities much higher than could occur naturally. A spokesman for the institute, however, said “conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned or not.”

A team from the Swiss institute visited Arafat’s grave last week, with a view to an exhumation on November 26. A French expert team is conducting a parallel probe of his death, and Russian investigators are said to be involved too.

On Tuesday, Palestinian sources said, two weeks of work to open Arafat’s grave began, with the removal of “concrete and stones from Arafat’s mausoleum,” according to AFP. “There are several phases,” the news agency quoted a Palestinian source saying. “It starts with the removal of stone and concrete and cutting the iron (framework) until they reach the soil that covers the body, which will not be removed until the arrival of the French prosecutors, Swiss experts and Russian investigators.”

Arab conspiracy theories have posited that Israel killed Arafat, an allegation Israel has denied.

The French Ministry of Defense, which is responsible for the Percy hospital, told The Times of Israel that, given the formal complaint submitted by the Arafat family over the case, the ministry “cannot comment on the case due to confidentiality of investigation laws.”

Palestinian kids say the Jews killed Arafat on official PA TV

"The Jews poisoned him [Arafat] and I hate them very much. Allah will repay them what they deserve." 

Every year, this statement is repeated by a young Palestinian girl during PA TV's annual rebroadcast of a program commemorating the anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death.

Other young children also repeat the libel that Israel/the Jews killed Arafat. One boy admits that he does not really know how Arafat died, but he knows who did it:

"He [Arafat] died from poisoning by the Jews. Well, I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews."

Click to view

Palestinian Media Watch has documented PA TV's rebroadcast of these statements since it first aired on the fifth anniversary of Arafat's death in 2009. At the time, the children's statements appeared as part of a televised memorial ceremony.

The fact that children repeat that "the Jews" poisoned and killed Arafat shows the success of the continuous demonization of Jews and Israelis by the PA. The fact that the government-controlled PA TV chooses to rebroadcast these statements every year suggests that this is a message that the PA wishes to emphasize and continue to transmit to children.

The following is the transcript of the children's messages on the annual PA TV program:

Ceremony host: "Blessings to Yasser Arafat, and here are messages from the children of Palestine." [From 2009 PA ceremony, not part of PA TV 2010, 2011, 2012 broadcast, - Ed.]

Boy: "I was very, very sad when Arafat died as a Shahid (Martyr), because he was a good man and he was a fighter. He did things through struggle, he participated in the struggle and did not make peace and so on. He wanted to fight."

Boy 2: "Yasser Arafat was a very, very important president. He stood up to all the enemies and was not afraid of anyone. And anyone who approached - he managed to stop him. All the Jews and the Israelis and the people who are against us, were afraid of him. When he died, he died of poisoning."

Girl: "I say that he died from poisoning by the Jews. That's what I say."

Boy 3: "Arafat used to say: "They want me dead, they want me prisoner, but I say to them: Martyr! Martyr! Martyr!"

Girl 2: "He [Arafat] was our former president. He was under siege in Ramallah, and when he was under siege we were very upset. The Jews poisoned him and I hate them very much. Allah will repay them what they deserve."

Boy 4: "He [Arafat] died from poisoning by the Jews. Well, I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews."

Boy 5: "They destroyed his whole house and he was left in one room and in the end the Jews poisoned him and blamed someone else."

[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 10, 2009 and 2010, Nov. 11, 2011 and 2012]

Arafat's Corpse for PA President!

On November 26, the bones of Palestinian Arab terrorist leader Yasir Arafat are being dug up.

Given the withering disapproval that Mahmoud Abbas has been getting for declaring that he would no longer want to live in Safed, this is an opportunity for another set of elections in the territories - and Arafat's bones should run.

Why not elect the skeleton of the only leader they ever had and who they romantically pine for? The bag of bones would win in a landslide!

There are other advantages to keeping Arafat's bones above ground.

He can be counted on not to make the same mistakes on TV that Abbas made. And his speeches will be less boring than Abbas'.

He is not in danger of being assassinated by Israel.

His political positions will never change, showing the strength of conviction that Arabs admire so much.

World leaders can invite Dead Arafat to their state dinners and UN events, just like the old days. He'll be praised as a moderate by New York Times columnists and "Middle East experts," just like the old days.

And Suha will get just as much love and affection as she did from him when he was alive.

No one will dare protest against such a revered figure, and Hamas would be rendered ineffective against the charisma of Arafat's corpse.

The new dead Arafat can no longer steal hundreds of millions of dollars from his beloved people.

There is a decent chance that he would win another Nobel Peace Prize.

From Israel's perspective, Arafat's corpse won't negotiate - but then again, neither did Abbas, so there is no change there. And new dead Arafat will not lie as much as either Abbas or the old Arafat. He also can't secretly mastermind terror sprees.

I think this is an idea whose time has come.

PLOnium

Yesterday there was a kerfuffle as Al Jazeera released a report suggesting that Yasir Arafat was killed by Polonium-210, a highly radioactive substance:

Eight years after his death, it remains a mystery exactly what killed the longtime Palestinian leader. Tests conducted in Paris found no obvious traces of poison in Arafat’s system. Rumors abound about what might have killed him – cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, even allegations that he was infected with HIV.

A nine-month investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed that none of those rumors were true: Arafat was in good health until he suddenly fell ill on October 12, 2004.

More importantly, tests reveal that Arafat’s final personal belongings – his clothes, his toothbrush, even his iconic kaffiyeh – contained abnormal levels of polonium, a rare, highly radioactive element. Those personal effects, which were analyzed at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, were variously stained with Arafat’s blood, sweat, saliva and urine. The tests carried out on those samples suggested that there was a high level of polonium inside his body when he died.

“I can confirm to you that we measured an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210 in the belongings of Mr. Arafat that contained stains of biological fluids,” said Dr. Francois Bochud, the director of the institute.

The anti-Israel crowd is loving this, saying it "proves" that Israel assassinated Arafat.

Reuters throws some cold water on the claim:

Darcy Christen, spokesman for the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, told Reuters on Tuesday it had found "surprisingly" high levels of polonium-210 in Arafat's belongings.

But he stressed that clinical symptoms described in Arafat's medical reports were not consistent with polonium-210 and that conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned or not.

Also not mentioned is that Al Jazeera itself once aired accusations that Mahmoud Abbas was part of a conspiracy to assassinate Arafat - and Abbas responded by shutting down the Al Jazeera offices in the West Bank!

Anyway, I had some fun on Twitter about this, because of all the hue and cry over polonium, people seem to have forgotten about a much deadlier element. My tweets:

A rare and dangerous element, that has killed thousands of people, mostly in the Middle East#PLOnium

Outbreaks of #PLOnium almost destroyed both Jordan and Lebanon a while back, but no one seems to remember that

A very unstable element, #PLOnium has been known to blow up airplanes and buses

#PLOnium has been known to even attack athletes, but only those from a single country exactly 40 years ago. Not worth remembering, though.

Despite similarities, #PLOnium does not mix well with its sister element, #Hamasium.

Even with its known dangers, some people like to be close with #PLOnium, thinking that it won't hurt them.

PLOnium is much, much deadlier than polonium, but for some reason people think that it is inert - or even beneficial. And those who note how dangerous it is are outshouted by PLOnium's many supporters, who know it is deadly but think that it only has one target that they want to see killed as well.

PLOnium is especially popular at the UN.

See also Challah Hu Akbar.

ROTFL: Arafat's family to release report on how he died

Nasser al-Kidwa, the nephew of Yasser Arafat and the 'Palestinian' ambassador to the United Nations, is going to release a report in Arabic that will tell 'Palestinians' how Arafat died.

Al-Qudwa says the report will answer "many questions," as it is the Palestinian people's right to get a clear answer about how Arafat died. The document has not previously been seen in Arabic.

The report by French doctors describes a platelet disorder and speculates on its cause, al-Qudwa says. The doctors ruled out cancer and an acute infection, he told Ma'an.

A third possibility was poisoning, al-Qudwa says, but the records show that doctors were unable to conclusively determine what poison, if any, was in Arafat's system.

"We have said that it is poisoning," he hinted.

Poisoning. What a load of bull dung.

People with HIV often have problems with their levels of platelets, cells in the blood that help with clotting.

When the body slows its production of platelets, and/or when platelets are destroyed at a higher-than-normal rate, a condition called thrombocytopenia occurs. People with this condition bleed and bruise easily.

Do I think Arafat had AIDS? I KNOW Arafat had AIDS. Arafat's doctor told us in an interview on Israeli television! And I can even tell you how he got it.

PMW: "The Jews" killed Arafat - Kids' hate speech rebroadcast on PA TV Young boy: "I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews." [Palestinian boy at Arafat memorial, PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 10, 2009 and rebroadcast on PA TV Nov. 10. 2010]

For this year's annual commemoration of Yasser Arafat's death, PA TV chose to rebroadcast video clips of Palestinian children's messages in honor of Arafat, which included hate speech against Jews.

Several of the selected messages feature children repeating the ongoing Palestinian Authority libel that the Jews killed Arafat by poisoning. One boy first states that Arafat was poisoned by the Jews, but then corrects himself, saying: "Well, I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews."

The teaching that evil originates with the Jews was the basis for much of the Antisemitism throughout history. It should be stressed that these were prerecorded interviews with the children, yet PA TV chose to include the hate speech in the compilation.

None of the children in the film speaks about peace; in fact, they do the opposite. One boy praises Arafat because he was a "fighter" who "did things through [violent] struggle," and who "did not make peace." The Martyrdom (Shahada) ideal is also chosen as a message in the film, with one boy quoting Arafat: "They want me dead, they want me prisoner, but I say: Martyr, Martyr, Martyr!"

As Palestinian Media Watch reported at the time, this film was first broadcast in 2009 on the fifth anniversary of Arafat's death as part of a televised memorial ceremony.

The boy's comment quoted above, "I know it was by the Jews," and the other children's beliefs that "the Jews" killed Arafat, indicate the PA's success in teaching Palestinian children hate libels and demonization of Jews. The decision by PA TV to rebroadcast this is a further indicator that the PA continues to promote the values of hatred, violence and Martyrdom that the children have adopted.

The following is the transcript of excerpts of the children's messages:

Ceremony host: "Blessings to Yasser Arafat, and here are messages from the children of Palestine." [From 2009 PA ceremony, not part of PA TV 2010 broadcast, - Ed.]
Boy: "I was very, very sad when Arafat died as a Shahid (Martyr), because he was a good man and he was a fighter. He did things through struggle, he participated in the struggle and did not make peace and so on. He wanted to fight."
Boy 2: "Yasser Arafat was a very, very important president. He stood up to all the enemies and was not afraid of anyone. And anyone who approached - he managed to stop him. All the Jews and the Israelis and the people who are against us, were afraid of him. When he died, he died of poisoning."
Girl: "I say that he died from poisoning by the Jews. That's what I say."
Boy 3: "Arafat used to say: "They want me dead, they want me prisoner, but I say to them: Martyr! Martyr! Martyr!"
Girl 2: "He [Arafat] was our former president. He was under siege in Ramallah, and when he was under siege we were very upset. The Jews poisoned him and I hate them very much. Allah will repay them what they deserve."
Boy 4: "He [Arafat] died from poisoning by the Jews. Well, I don't know what he died from, but I know it was by the Jews."
Boy 5: "They destroyed his whole house and he was left in one room and in the end the Jews poisoned him and blamed someone else."
[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 10, 2009 and 2010]