Terror Groups: Israel Poisoned Arafat
Back to Yasser's PageReprinted from NewsMax.com
Friday, Nov. 12, 2004 12:02 p.m. EST
Global terrorism's founding father, Yasser Arafat, was poisoned by the Jews, two terrorist groups he helped spawn claimed on Thursday.
"I say, and do not hesitate, that I hold Israel responsible for the crime of the death of Arafat," Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal told Al-Jazeera television by telephone. "All reports by doctors in the last two weeks indicate he was poisoned." Meshaal complained that by murdering Arafat, Israel "has killed the peace settlement and is sending a clear message to Palestinians and Arabs that this will be the fate of whoever rejects a settlement according to Israeli conditions."
Islamic Jihad is also claiming that Israel poisoned Arafat.
On Tuesday, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath told reporters that although the doctors' diagnosis had been inconclusive, "it rules out poisoning totally."
But that isn't good enough for terror leaders looking for new reasons to attack Israel.
"French and Arab doctors may not be able to find evidence, as they could not find proof in my blood when I was poisoned, but Israel was forced then to bring an antidote after two of its agents were held in Jordan," Meshaal said.
In 1997, two Israeli Mossad agents were arrested in Jordan after trying to poison Meshaal. Israel provided an antidote and freed Hamas prisoners to get its men released, according to Britain's Independent newspaper.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told the Associated Press that murder allegations by Hamas and Islamic Jihad are "scandalous and false."
Israel had allowed medical teams from Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia to examine Arafat before he was taken to France, he noted.
Demonstrators outside Arafat's headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah have shouted their demands for disclosure of the cause of Arafat's death, but French medical officials have shrouded the medical details of the terror chief's demise in secrecy.
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