Naturally Dead

Death -- of natural causes. His time had come. And some might add; none too soon. He had outlived his opportunities to make a meaningful difference to the people he claimed to have represented, in any event. Whenever the chance came, with great fanfare, to sign onto peace and relinquish his love affair with victimhood and vengeance, he chose, in the end, to reject that and clung instead to the refugee status that became so beloved of Palestinians.

Refugee status earned them something unique, something no other group of refugees in the world had ever achieved. The world, through the United Nations, felt obligated to respect their wish to be refugees forever. Other Arab nations were complacent with their decision not to embrace their fellow Arabs, inviting them to settle in parts of the Middle East where they might have made a new life for themselves. Their 'cause' was to be celebrated and pursued, but their absorption to be avoided.

But it wasn't a new life they wanted, they yearned for the old life they had left behind. Most leaving with the assurances given them by the very Arab states that now withheld citizenship from them, that they could leave briefly, allowing the combined armies of Israel's Arab enemies to wipe out the nascent state, returning the land sacred to Islam to those who worshipped the Prophet and treasured their Muslim status.

On the very cusp of a peace that earned Yasser Arafat one-third of a Nobel Peace Prize, he chose instead to instigate a return to violence and the Intifada was his designated choice to show the world that Palestinian anguish could not be bought off so easily as to surrender their animus to the intruders they claimed Jews to be, foreigners in a country never their own.

When Suha Arafat, living off the rich fat of draining off funding meant to support Palestinians by her corrupt husband and his corrupt colleagues, reinvested herself in the ongoing search for the "truth" of her husband's death, she no doubt was pleased no end that the French, the Swiss and the Russians were tasked with conducting scientific searches for the answer that would implicate demonic Israel in her husband's death.

The Swiss were obliging enough; the French less so, and the Russians, whose support for the Palestinian cause could not be questioned, announced their finding: "It was a natural death; there was no impact of radiation", according to Vladimir Uiba, head of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency. Yasser Arafat died of natural causes; no further investigation required.

The French probe found that traces of radioactive isotope polonium was present but their expert opinion was that it was "of natural environmental origin". As for the Swiss; the time frame of his illness and death, as far as they were concerned, appeared consistent with the causative of polonium poisoning.

So take your pick, one in the affirmative, two in the negative. Life killed Yasser Arafat.