{"id":12958,"date":"2012-07-05T12:54:54","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T16:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=12958"},"modified":"2012-07-05T12:54:54","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T16:54:54","slug":"who-killed-yasser-arafat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2012\/07\/who-killed-yasser-arafat\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Killed Yasser Arafat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now we know he was poisoned \u2013 but by whom?<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

by Justin Raimondo<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Yasser Arafat died on November 11, 2004, of a mysterious ailment. His enemies spread the rumor he had AIDS: David Frum, with typical classiness,<\/span> claimed<\/span><\/a><\/span> he had contracted AIDS as a consequence of<\/span> having sex<\/span><\/a><\/span> with his bodyguards. Now, however, it has been revealed<\/span> Arafat was poisoned<\/span><\/a><\/span>: the cause of his death was exposure to very high levels of polonium-210<\/span> [pdf<\/span><\/a>], a rare radioactive substance. An investigation conducted by Al Jazeera showed Arafat\u2019s personal items, released to the media organization by his widow, contained several times the normal level of polonium that would normally be detected on such items. The Palestinian leader\u2019s terminal symptoms were similar to those experienced by victims of polonium poisoning: the substance targets the gastrointestinal tract and the subject wastes away.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Arafat\u2019s Ramallah<\/span> compound<\/span><\/a><\/span> had been<\/span> bombed<\/span><\/a><\/span> several<\/span> times<\/span><\/a><\/span> by the Israelis, and they had the place surrounded \u2013 yet still he persisted. They<\/span> couldn\u2019t<\/span><\/a><\/span> get him out. Worse, his plight was becoming a metaphor for the condition of his people, who were \u2013 and still are \u2013 prisoners in their own land. A former adviser<\/span> claimed he was<\/span><\/a><\/span> poisoned by the Israelis, who detained the Palestinian ambulance used to deliver Arafat\u2019s medications to the Ramallah compound. At the time, one tended to write this off as a purely polemical exercise: in light of the new evidence, however, the question has to be asked.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simply by continuing to exist in the face of such a sustained assault, Arafat was defeating the Israelis every day. They had to get rid of him. Did they? We\u2019ll never know for sure, but it is worth noting that Israeli<\/span> threats<\/span><\/a><\/span> to<\/span> kill<\/span><\/a><\/span> him preceded his untimely death by less than a year. As is<\/span> well-known<\/span><\/a><\/span>, Israeli intelligence has<\/span> carried out<\/span><\/a><\/span> numerous<\/span> assassinations<\/span><\/a><\/span>: it is simply another tool in their international operations, one they have never hesitated to utilize. A passport-falsification<\/span> scheme<\/span><\/a><\/span> involving<\/span> New Zealand<\/span><\/a><\/span>, Britain, France, Spain, and a number of other countries was widely believed to have been meant to equip the Mossad\u2019s crack team of assassins, who could slip into \u2013 and out of \u2013 target areas at will.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Israelis hated Arafat with a particular passion, for two reasons:<\/span><\/p>\n

1) His longevity \u2013 The Palestinian movement is thick [<\/span>pdf<\/span><\/a><\/span>] with factions, but thin when it comes to recognizable leaders. Arafat was the principal leader, and no one since his death has achieved his stature. He was a political survivor, having lived through numerous assassination attempts, and deflected the schemes of internal enemies to displace him. Simply by sticking around for so long, he became a living symbol of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination \u2013 and that is one big reason why the Israelis got rid of him.<\/span><\/p>\n

2) His secularism \u2013 The Israelis<\/span> encouraged<\/span><\/a><\/span> the growth of groups such as Hamas in the beginning, in order to split away the more religious elements from the decidedly secular Palestine Liberation Organization\/Fatah, which Arafat headed. It is easy to sell the Palestinians as crazed jihadists when a group like Hamas or Islamic Jihad is the most visible champion of their cause: the secular PLO presented the Israelis with a public relations problem. There\u2019s another reason for the Israelis to have knocked him off.<\/span><\/p>\n

One aspect of this case is extremely odd: polonium-210 is the same poison<\/span> Alexander Litvinenko<\/span><\/a><\/span> was<\/span> dosed with<\/span><\/a><\/span>. Litvinenko, a former KGB official, converted to Islam, joined the Chechen rebels, and became an associate of<\/span> Boris Berezovsky<\/span><\/a>, the notorious Russian oligarch wanted on charges of<\/span><\/span> embezzlement<\/span><\/a><\/span> in his home country. Litvinenko and Berezovsky are the<\/span> Russian version<\/span><\/a><\/span> of 9\/11 Truthers: they believe practically every terrorist attack on Russian cities has been \u201cstaged\u201d by Vladimir Putin in order to keep him in power. When he became ill, Litvinenko charged the Russian spy agency with poisoning him \u2013<\/span> although<\/span><\/a><\/span> that<\/span> seems<\/span><\/a><\/span> highly<\/span> unlikely<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Polonium-210<\/span> isn\u2019t<\/span><\/a> <\/span>something you can buy off the shelf at your local Walmart. It isn\u2019t even something a mad scientist might cook up in his home lab. About<\/span> 100 grams<\/span><\/a><\/span> are produced each year for specialized technical uses. The only entities with access to this sort of thing are state actors, or, at least, a private organization with very substantial resources at its disposal.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting is that<\/span> a diplomatic cable<\/span><\/a><\/span>, dated Dec. 26, 2006 and published by WikiLeaks, details the conversation of a US diplomat with Russian spook<\/span> Anatoly Safonov<\/span><\/a><\/span> in which Safonov claims the Russians told the British about the importation of \u201cnuclear materials\u201d into London during the Litvinenko affair \u2013 and were told that the whole thing was \u201cunder control before the poisoning took place.\u201d In the course of the same conversation, Safonov \u2013 Putin\u2019s chief representative on terrorism-related matters \u2013 went on to describe a number of threats and their possible sources:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSafonov noted the daunting number of countries that posed particular terrorism threats, mentioning North Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, Libya, Iran, India, and Israel (sic?). He described a range of dangers, stressing the more immediate threats posed by nuclear and biological terrorism, but also acknowledging the risks of chemical terrorism.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While the use of \u201csic\u201d is meant to indicate our diplomat\u2019s incredulity at the inclusion of Israel in this list, what we now know about how Arafat died should tear away the blinders from several sets of eyes \u2013 yes, even at the US State Department.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now we know he was poisoned \u2013 but by whom? by Justin Raimondo Yasser Arafat died on November 11, 2004, of a mysterious ailment. His..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,84],"tags":[197,200,204,227,211],"class_list":["post-12958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-statements","tag-imperialism","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-racist-oppression","tag-zionism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ALeqM5h8BCwh4SpEgyLedouHtRFjP5u4Sw_12958_9ae4c.jpg?fit=512%2C343&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}