Monday, November 11, 2013

The Arafat's death investigation- a snowball that may end in the collapse of the PLO?

After the Swiss institute published its report on the death of Arafat in which it "moderately" suggested that he died out of the radiant poison Polonium 210, after couple of days the Palestinian Authority demanded international investigation into the matter.
However, there are three points of view how to proceed- Fatah senior, Tawfiq Tirawi, the head of the Palestinian Authority team of investigation said last weekend that that the Palestinian Authority would take action only after the report would be concluded, but Nasser al-Qidwa, Arafat's cousin said today that there is no reason for the Palestinians to wait and they must apply to UN General Assembly now in order to issue a resolution that Israel is the culprit, but the head of the PLO, Abu Mazen applied to the Arab League in order that they will invite an international investigation into the matter.
All Palestinian figures agreed that Israel is to blame because the radiant agent can be produced in nuclear countries, such as Israel is believed to be, and Israel has already a long history of assassinating Palestinian leaders.
Nevertheless, the PLO leadership has also much to worry because in the first place they are the target- not Israel.
The party that started the entire project is the Qatari influential TV satellite Al-Jazeera. Their motto is not: who killed Arafat? This is clear—Israel, but they ask it differently: who put the poison into Arafat? This can't be Israel, because the poisoning – if really Arafat was poisned that I suspect – because Arafat was besieged in the Muqata'a those days surrounded by his Fatah loyal colleagues and one – or more – conspired to put the poison in his body. No Israeli was there in the Muqata'a those days of the second intifada.
The main difference between Tirawi's press conference and Qidwa's press conference is the suspicion that also a Palestinian "traitor" participated in the murder. Tirawi ignored this suspicion altogether while Qidwa asked the Palestinian intelligence to investigate into the matter and find the "local hand".
Al-Jazeera is giving high profile to the issue http://www.aljazeera.net/killingarafat and we can understand why- Qatar launched a campaign to topple all old regimes and promote Moslem Brotherhood. In this case Abu Mazen is just another Mubarak that must go.
But Qatar is employing the adversaries of Abu Mazen and here we have to shortly describe the internal camps that compete inside Fatah and we have to begin 9 years ago when Arafat was dying. Those days the main adversaries were Suha Arafat, Faruq Qaddumi and Nasser Qidwa on the one hand versus Abu Mazen and Dahlan on the other hand. You may define it as the "Arafat Group" against those who wanted to inherit him. Suha Arafat shut the doors of Arafat's dying room in Paris hospital on the faces of Abu Mazen and Dahlan and already then shouted at them that they came to kill him.
Few years later, Qaddumi, who was during Arafat's time the head of the PLO foreign affairs department accused Abu Mazen and Dahlan by names to be those who participated in the plot to kill Arafat and he claimed to have documents provided to him by Arafat himself to prove the accusation. He hinted that they did it in order to overtake the PLO- and actually Abu Mazen who was angry with Arafat those stormy days succeeded him in due time. http://www.aljazeera.net/news/pages/70e48270-e0bb-4aae-ae01-55a7b595b72f . Qaddumi claimed that both Abu Mazen and Dahlan participated in a meeting that took place in Israel with then Prime Minister Sharon and Defense Minister Mofaz together with the USA diplomat, Nick Burns that decided to do the killing but never presented the alleged proofs he pretended to have.
Having a quick glance at Qaddumi's facebook page reveal to us that he still keep tight contact with Suha – Arafat's widow that participated fully with Al-Jazeera project and has raised a legal case in France to proceed with international investigation.
But the political alliances that prevailed during Arafat's ailing days changed and new alliances are now shaping the Palestinian political arena.
To the surprise of many, Nasser Qidwa is now on Dahlan's side- the same as Tirawi. So, Tirawi in his part tried to delay the investigation team in order to protect Dahlan—and himself actually as he was in the Muqata'a during those crucial days and once an international investigation team will be sent to Ramallah- he himself might well be questioned as possible suspect.
Nasser Qidwa admitted that he opposed taking out Arafat's specimens for autopsy, which means– unlike Suha – that he did not want to proceed with the case and preferred to leave the mystery deep inside Arafat's grave. But now his position not to invite international inquiry team but to suffice with politically issuing a UN decision that blames Israel carries the same meaning—protecting Dahlan from being questioned on the case.
Abu Mazen's call to the Arab League to carry on with the invitation to international inquiry team is to block the way to Suha's initiative hoping the Arab League will delay the issue.
We would like to stress that we do not believe that Arafat was poisoned and we do not believe that Abu Mazen and Dahlan were involved in any of those alleged conspiracies but in the hysterical Palestinian mood any rumor becomes political "fact" with dire consequences. It might well trigger a snowball that may drift the entire Authority which is the target of Al-Jazeera actually.
In order to evaluate what will come next we have to evaluate Qatar persistence to carry on with the project- as for now – they continue full speed and opened special page on the matter in addition to two additional programs that were already broadcast on TV.
The Gulf and Saudi Arabia are not happy with this ongoing initiative much like other troubling Qatari initiatives. They support Dahlan against Abu Mazen and will try to convince Qatar to slow down—but as for now we can see no evidence that this is happening.