Arafat seriously ill ... near death?

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A cause for worry: Things could become very chaotic in the middle east should he die.

Last Update: Thursday, October 28, 2004. 12:25pm (AEST)/ABC online

Arafat 'very, very sick'

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is "very, very sick" and is slipping in and out of consciousness, according to officials and medics.

The 75-year-old ex-guerrilla has for decades symbolised the struggle for Palestinian statehood.

He has suffered stomach pains since last week but took a dramatic turn for the worse on Wednesday. A team of foreign doctors is due to carry out tests on him.

Mr Arafat's slide into illness has raised fears of chaos among his people, whose struggle for a state in the West Bank and Gaza is stalled after a four-year-old uprising.

The short, stubble-bearded Palestinian icon, usually seen in his trademark black and white Arab headdress, has named no successor in the decade since leaving exile under interim peace accords for which he shared a Nobel peace prize.

Palestinian leaders rushed with medics to the battered compound where Mr Arafat has been effectively penned in by Israeli forces for more than two years.

Israel accuses him of fomenting violence after peace talks collapsed. Mr Arafat denies the charge.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1229742.htm

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Wife rushes to Arafat's bedside
October 28, 2004 - 8:06AM

Yasser Arafat collapsed overnight, was unconscious for about 10 minutes and remained in a "very difficult situation", Palestinian officials said.

..Scores of top Palestinian officials came to Arafat's Ramallah compound last night, and Israeli security officials said his wife, Suha, who lives in France, was expected to arrive later today.

..A senior Palestinian official told The Associated Press that Arafat was in a "very difficult situation".

..Soon after Arafat collapsed, Palestinian officials formed a three-man committee to run the Palestinian Authority until Arafat recovers, an official in Arafat's office said on condition of anonymity.

The committee includes Qurie, Abbas and Salim Zaanoun, head of the Palestinian National Council, the 512-member Palestinian parliament.

..Late yesterday, many Palestinian officials arrived at Arafat's compound, the muqata, and were seen milling about the courtyard outside. Palestinian security forces in Ramallah went on high alert, all vacations were cancelled and those who were already on vacation were recalled.

..The 75-year-old Arafat has refused to groom a successor, for fear of nurturing a rival who could threaten his rule, and no clear challenger has emerged.

In the past two years, he has worn out two Palestinian prime ministers, Abbas and Qurie, with political manoeuvres and has blocked their attempt to limit his powers. ....

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/28/1098667867131.html?oneclick=true

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Quote:

Reuters: Arafat in Serious Condition, Foreign Medics Summoned

Thu Oct 28, 2004 02:37 AM ET

By Mohammed Assadi
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is in a very serious condition but was able to take part in Muslim morning prayers on Thursday, officials said, as a team of foreign doctors rushed to his headquarters ...

Quote:

Knight-Ridder/Salt Lake Tribune: Chaos likely without Arafat
Knight Ridder News Service

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - The sudden decline in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's health Wednesday night has widened a power vacuum that has already grown into a chasm in the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, and opens the real possibility of chaos and civil war in one of the world's most dangerous regions ...

This is gonna get a whole bunch more involved here real quick.

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Latest BBC:

Concern grows over ailing Arafat

Doctors are considering whether to move Arafat to hospital
Doctors, family and senior officials have been gathering at Yasser Arafat's West Bank compound as fears grow for the Palestinian leader's health.
A Jordanian medical team led by his personal doctor rushed to Ramallah amid reports that his condition had deteriorated significantly.

Mr Arafat's wife Suha, who lives apart from him in Paris, is also expected soon at the compound.

Security forces were put on high alert across the Palestinian territories.

The Israeli army is also preparing contingency plans for Mr Arafat's death, fearing an outbreak of unrest across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But officials said Mr Arafat had attended morning prayer.

Suha Arafat is expected at her husband's bedside

"He looked tired and weak, but he managed to pray," an official told Reuters news agency.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Ramallah says current reports on his health say anything from "critical" to "stable" to "feeling better".

Doctors are currently discussing whether he should be sent to hospital.

It is clear there is an unusual level of concern, our correspondent says - the Palestinian leader has had a number of reported health crises during the past four years of conflict with Israel, but none have triggered such apprehension among his senior officials and attention from his doctors.

For over a week there have been reports that he was suffering stomach pains, but he took a dramatic turn for the worse on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told his Palestinian counterpart Ahmed Qurei in a phone call that Mr Arafat could leave Ramallah for treatment, Mr Sharon's aide Raanan Gissin told the BBC.

But Mr Gissin did not clarify whether he would be allowed to return.

A top official told Reuters that if he leaves the West Bank, the question of whether he could return was "a separate issue after he recuperates".

Condition 'unknown'

Tunisian and Palestinian doctors examined Mr Arafat overnight.

Profile: Yasser Arafat
Mr Arafat's long-time personal doctor, Jordanian neurologist Ashraf Kurdi, said he had been summoned urgently.

"I am taking a team to assess his condition and do whatever is possible that can be done. They refused to tell me what his condition was."

Mr Arafat's wife Suha is also on her way to her husband's bedside after he apparently asked to see her.

Our correspondent says her visit is yet another sign that his health has deteriorated badly. They have not seen each other for several years because of restrictions on Mr Arafat's movement.

Communications Minister Azzam Ahmed told the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera that all members of Mr Arafat's Fatah party living abroad had been asked to come to Ramallah.

There were reports that Mr Arafat had appointed a three-man committee of Mr Qurei, former premier Mahmoud Abbas and Parliament Speaker Salim al-Zaanoun, to take over while he recovered.

But these were denied by a senior Arafat aide.......

Full story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3960755.stm

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BBC's profile:

Profile: Yasser Arafat

For decades Yasser Arafat has been the leader of the Palestinian people's struggle for statehood.

Arafat: Both asset and liability for the Palestinian cause
He has carried on his shoulders the burden of that struggle. But, his refusal to share power or delegate responsibility, however, has taken a toll on his health and often damaged his popular support.

His latest health problems began around 20 October with stomach pains, and one of his ministers has described him as "very, very sick".

The illness has raised serious questions about the succession to his rule - his power is so personal that other Palestinian leaders have tended to be in his shadow.

When the Oslo peace process failed to live up to expectations, more and more Palestinians lost patience with his mercurial and dictatorial style of leadership.

However, in an ironic twist of fate, Mr Arafat has won back a lot of Palestinian support thanks to Israel's attempts to sideline him.

He has been confined by Israeli forces to his battered headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah since December 2001. The siege has come to be regarded as a potent symbol of the draconian measures exacted by the Israeli Government.

Personal war

From his earliest days, Mr Arafat has indulged in the weaving of myths about his life, insisting, for example, that he was born in Jerusalem even though his birth, in 1929, is clearly recorded in Egypt.

As a young man he was, according to one biographer, "a natural publicist" and a workaholic. At the same time, he developed an obsessive desire to be leader of the pack and to get his way.

As early as 1959, as Palestinian exiles in Kuwait were forming Fatah, later to be the biggest group within the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), Mr Arafat was only paying lip service to the idea of collective leadership.

Two years later his contemporaries noticed how he "exercised total control over the Fatah war chest and how he bribed people to join him".

Led by Arafat, the PLO forced their way onto the world stage through violence

But he also did more than anyone else to put the Palestinians' cause on the world agenda.

Arab regimes were clearly not prepared to act to help the Palestinians so, led by Mr Arafat, the PLO took up arms themselves, hijacking airliners and committing other acts of violence.

As a military leader, Mr Arafat often led the way into action against the Israelis. When backs were against the wall, when he took on Israel at Karameh in 1968, or Jordan in September 1970 or under siege in Beirut in 1982, Mr Arafat never lacked personal courage.

His goal has always been independence for the Palestinians, with himself as president.

Power struggle

The most recent challenge to Mr Arafat's total control over the Palestinians came in the form of Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, a fellow PLO member.

Following US-led pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority from within, Abu Mazen was appointed prime minister in May 2003.

Abu Mazen locked horns with the Palestinian leader and lost
As both prime minister and also the PLO's secretary general, Abu Mazen was the most senior Palestinian leader after Mr Arafat himself, and as such of great symbolic importance for most Palestinians.

Crucially he was backed by the Bush administration, which resolutely refuse to deal with Mr Arafat, saying he was "tainted by terrorism". Abu Mazen also seemed to be someone Israel was willing to negotiate with.

But Mr Arafat had not supported Abu Mazen's elevation to the rank of prime minister, and the two clashed over security issues as the Palestinian president failed to give Abu Mazen his full support to take on militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In the ensuing power struggle Mr Arafat won out, using his influence to sideline Abu Mazen until the prime minister resigned early in September.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3102112.stm

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BBC analysis of possible successors:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1362216.stm

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Quote:

Yahoo UK: Ailing Arafat 'Being Taken To Paris'

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is to be taken to Paris for treatment as concern grows over his health, his doctors have said.Fifteen doctors, including local physicians and specialists from Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt, examined Arafat and decided he would be able to get the best treatment in Paris, one of the doctors said.

It will be the first time that Mr Arafat will have left his compound in Ramallah in nearly three years.

Israeli officials had already confirmed that Mr Arafat would be allowed to travel overseas to receive treatment.

Mr Arafat, 75, has suffered stomach pains since last week, but his health deteriorated on Wednesday and there have been claims that he lost consciousness.

Doctors have spent a long time examining him, and initial reports suggest that he has a blood disorder.

Mr Arafat has reportedly spent most of the day sleeping, and has been having trouble keeping food down.

Meanwhile, his wife Suha has arrived in the West Bank, having travelled from France.She has not seen her husband since a Palestinian revolt against Israel broke out in 2000.

Mr Arafat had earlier said there was no cause for concern over his health.

Munib al-Masri, a businessman close to Arafat, saw the Palestinian leader and said: "The president wants to tell the Palestinian people and the whole world that he is OK and there is no need to worry about him."

Mr Arafat had an exploratory operation earlier this week after suffering stomach pains and vomiting.

Doctors carried out an endoscopy, an investigative procedure in which a small scope is inserted into the body.

Questions about Mr Arafat's health have raised Palestinian fears of a bloody power struggle after his death. He has never picked a successor.

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Quote:

Yasser Arafat is to be taken to Paris for treatment

unapparent :

CNN's Breaking News wrote:

Ailing Yasser Arafat refusing doctors' recommendation that he go to Paris for treatment, Palestinian sources say

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in contrast:

BBC Latest Ticker wrote:

France agrees to accept Yasser Arafat for hospital treatment - official.

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The government of Israel must be very tempted to ship him to a hospital in Chad or Haiti.

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BBC has right, he will go to France for treatment. CNN reports,too.

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Thok wrote:

BBC has right, he will go to France for treatment. CNN reports,too.

Somebody on this thread reported that hours ago Mr. Green

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And Israel say they will let him out, but not back in.

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My newspaper gave these links:

France sending plane to take Arafat to Paris
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, MATTHEW GUTMAN AND MARGOT DUDKEVITCH
Israel has allowed Arafat to be moved "anywhere" for medical treatment, and to return to Ramallah.

www.JPost.com

France sending plane for Arafat; Israel to let him back to West Bank
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/

The Israeli government said Thursday it would not bar Arafat from returning to his compound after receiving medical treatment.

"If ... the doctors say that he needs to be transferred to a certain hospital and then be returned back, Israel will not impose any conditions, Israel will not impose any restrictions," said Raanan Gissin, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/28/arafat.health/index.html

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Ah - new - thanks Ul.

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dlowan wrote:

And Israel say they will let him out, but not back in.

So there'll be strife whether he survives or dies? How enlightened!

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I would imagine Israels' stated lack of objection to Arafat's return is due to advice from their own medical experts that when he returns he'll not be consuming air.

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But aren't they refusing to let him back in?

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Last I heard, they said he could return.

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Oh, they've agreed. Thanks for that! Imagine the trouble & strife if the refused!

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Arafat seriously ill ... near death?

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