The ‘murder’ that didn’t ignite the West Bank
The Palestinians demand an investigation into Arafat’s death, but the report of a poisoning is far from causing the storm it could have just a few years ago
Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel's Middle East analyst, fills the same role for Walla, the leading portal in Israel. He is also a guest commentator on many different radio shows and current affairs programs on television. Until 2012, he was a reporter and commentator on Arab affairs for the Haaretz newspaper. He also lectures on modern Palestinian history at Tel Aviv University, and is currently writing a script for an action-drama series for the Israeli satellite Television "YES." Born in Jerusalem, he graduated cum laude from Ben Gurion University with a B.A. in Middle Eastern studies and then earned his M.A. from Tel Aviv University on the same subject, also cum laude. A fluent Arabic speaker, Avi was the Middle East Affairs correspondent for Israeli Public Radio covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq and the Arab countries between the years 2003-2006. Avi directed and edited short documentary films on Israeli television programs dealing with the Middle East. In 2002 he won the "best reporter" award for the "Israel Radio” for his coverage of the second intifada. In 2004, together with Amos Harel, he wrote "The Seventh War - How we won and why we lost the war with the Palestinians." A year later the book won an award from the Institute for Strategic Studies for containing the best research on security affairs in Israel. In 2008, Issacharoff and Harel published their second book, entitled "34 Days - The Story of the Second Lebanon War," which won the same prize.
Nine years have passed since the death of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat. A report by the University Center of Legal Medicine of Lausanne, Switzerland, on the cause of his demise has been published just a few days before the anniversary of the death of Abu Amar next Monday.
The timing is questionable.
According to the 108-page report, there is a reasonable suspicion (83 percent) that Arafat’s death, on November 11, 2004, was the result of poisoning by a radioactive substance known as polonium 210.
According to the report’s findings, the concentration in samples taken from his grave was 18 times normal. So the report, which has been signed by six scientists, is proof to the Palestinians that what they have suspected all along is true: Yasser Arafat was murdered.
Three teams were involved in examining Arafat’s remains: a French team, which has not yet publicized its conclusions; a Russian team, which a month ago claimed that there was no evidence of gastroenteritis and then backtracked; and the Swiss team. The Al Jazeera English station, which began the whole testing process, broadcast pictures on Wednesday of three members of the institute which submitted the report to Suha Arafat, the late chairman’s wife, and determined decisively that “the smoking gun has been identified” — Arafat was assassinated.
This report caused a storm in the Palestinian media, and now the latest statement on the issue has come from an active PLO member, Wasil Abu Yosef, who called on the international community to create a special commission to investigate Arafat’s death. Abu Yosef explained that just as the International Court of Justice in the Hague examined the murder of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri — who was assassinated in 2005 — it must now take the same step.
For now, the Palestinian Authority is being very careful. Its team, headed by Tawfik Tirwai, received the report and is expected to publish it over the next few days, although it is already available on the al-Jazeera website.
Arafat’s widow, who was interviewed along with her daughter immediately after the report came out, says she doesn’t know who was behind the alleged murder, and the report itself does attempt to address this. But for the Palestinians, there has never been a question about Arafat’s death: he was murdered and the act was perpetrated by Israel, even though there has never been the slightest hint that Israel was interested in the elimination of Arafat. Many times, Dov Weisglass, then head of prime minister Ariel Sharon’s office, said that Arafat was isolated and irrelevant, and that Israel had no real need to harm him.
These things are not enough to undermine the prevailing belief among the Palestinian public that a murder occurred and that the identity of those who carried it out is known.
Still, it is doubtful that the masses in the West Bank will take to the streets to protest the “murder.”
Yes, this damages Palestinian nationalism and the man who was its symbol. But the earthquake that such a report could have produced a few years ago is unlikely. The West Bank prefers peace and quiet, and the opening of graves produces only new protests and demonstrations.
