Posted on 11/08/2004 3:32:55 PM PST by Libloather
Arafat's Top Lieutenants Head to Paris
18 minutes ago Middle East - AP
By LARA SUKHTIAN, Associated Press Writer
CLAMART, France - Palestinian leaders rushed to Paris on Monday to check on the critically ill Yasser Arafat, but hospital officials said visiting rights were restricted — setting the stage for a dramatic showdown between the delegation and Arafat's wife.
Early Monday, Suha Arafat accused the leadership — including top lieutenants Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas — of coming to the French capital with the sole intention of usurping her husband's role as head of the Palestinian Authority.
"I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she shouted, using Arafat's nom de guerre, in a furious telephone call with Al-Jazeera television from the 75-year-old Arafat's bedside in a hospital southwest of Paris.
"He is all right, and he is going home," she insisted.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a senior Arafat aide, called a news conference in the West Bank to dispute the claims. "What came from Mrs. Arafat doesn't represent our people," he said, accusing her of wanting "to be the lone decision maker."
And Palestinian Cabinet minister Salah Taamri said, "We are Yasser Arafat's family. We knew Yasser Arafat even before Mrs. Suha Arafat was born. We care for Yasser Arafat and no one has the right to deny the truth from the Palestinian people."
The Palestinian leadership abruptly called off the Paris trip, then reversed its decision. Qureia, the Palestinian prime minister, and Abbas, a former prime minister and the current PLO deputy chairman, landed in France late Monday on a private jet.
The prospect of their being barred from Arafat's hospital bedside was bound to inflame an increasingly tense power struggle.
Suha Arafat, his wife of 13 years and mother of his daughter, seems to have aligned herself with hard-liners who apparently seek to take over the Palestinian leadership in a post-Arafat era, though some Palestinian officials said her motives are more financial. According to a senior official in Arafat's office, she has received monthly payments of $100,000 from Palestinian coffers and is widely believed to have control of vast funds collected by the PLO.
This year, French prosecutors launched a money-laundering probe into transfers of $11.4 million into her accounts. She has refused to talk to reporters about Palestinian finances. Suha Arafat, 41, lives in Paris and has not been to the West Bank or seen her husband since the latest round of Palestinian violence began in 2000.
Some Palestinians have complained Suha Arafat has gained too much power, as she controls the flow of information about her husband's condition and has taken charge of access to the ailing leader.
"She is not part of the Palestinian leadership," Arafat security adviser Jibril Rajoub told Israel's Channel Two TV.
On their trip to Paris, Qureia and Abbas, who is considered a likely successor to Arafat, were accompanied by Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath and Parliament Speaker Rauhi Fattouh. They drove straight from the airport in a nine-car convoy to a hotel a few miles from the hospital.
"Tomorrow they will see the French officials and visit President Arafat in his hospital," said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, one of Arafat's senior aides. They were also to meet French President Jacques Chirac.
Arafat was in intensive care Monday and his condition had not changed, a hospital spokesman said.
"He remains there and his condition is stable," spokesman Gen. Christian Estripeau told reporters at the Percy Military Training Hospital. However, "the medical situation of President Arafat compels us to restrict visitors," he added.
Estripeau said Arafat had "blood anomalies" when he was hospitalized Oct. 29 and that, under treatment, his condition initially improved.
But, "after a phase of five days ... the state of health of President Yasser Arafat became worrisome and necessitated his transfer into intensive care," he added.
Palestinians have been making contingency plans in the event of Arafat's death.
Qureia has assumed some emergency financial and administrative powers. Abbas has chaired a series of meetings of the PLO executive committee. But neither politician has much grass-roots support among Palestinians or important militant groups.
Associated Press writers Mohammed Daraghmen in Ramallah, West Bank, and Emma Ross in Clamart contributed to this report.
"I wonder what this daughter Yassar and Suha had together looks like.....????"
Ron Kuby
She was hysterical.
This is about:
1. Money
2. Arafat has AIDS.
correct. Follow the money.
100K/month? Greedy bitch!!
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out...
[rewr!]
...your dead!
[rewr!]
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
CUSTOMER:
Here's one.
CART MASTER:
Ninepence.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm not dead!
CART MASTER:
What?
CUSTOMER:
Nothing. Here's your ninepence.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm not dead!
CART MASTER:
'Ere. He says he's not dead!
CUSTOMER:
Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm not!
CART MASTER:
He isn't?
CUSTOMER:
Well, he will be soon. He's very ill.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm getting better!
CUSTOMER:
No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment.
CART MASTER:
Oh, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
DEAD PERSON:
I don't want to go on the cart!
CUSTOMER:
Oh, don't be such a baby.
CART MASTER:
I can't take him.
DEAD PERSON:
I feel fine!
CUSTOMER:
Well, do us a favour.
CART MASTER:
I can't.
CUSTOMER:
Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
CART MASTER:
No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
CUSTOMER:
Well, when's your next round?
CART MASTER:
Thursday.
DEAD PERSON:
I think I'll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER:
You're not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn't there something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: [singing]
I feel happy. I feel happy.
[whop]
CUSTOMER:
Ah, thanks very much.
CART MASTER:
Not at all. See you on Thursday.
I would say she earned it. Plus the more she gets the less the PA gets. As she is unlikely to buy bomb belts with it that is a good thing.
He's dead, Jim.
OMG!!!! LOL!! Hmmmm....I think they purchased that poor little girl....
The only reason she is upset with them wanting to visit the old guy is because he is dead and she doesn't want anyone to know it yet...
Many years ago, my husband had a cartoon that he cut out of a newspaper.
He kept it for years. It was a drawing of a nursery in a hospital.
The first baby had a caption that said, "Not Yasser Arafat's baby".
The next baby had machine guns and grenades in his diapers and under blankets. That one of course said "Yasser Arafat's baby."
That stupid cartoon amused the heck out of him. I'll bet he had that thing on his office wall for 10 years!
LOL! Good cartoons are hard to find these days!!! Definately sounds like a classic!!!! ;)
She looks like she wants to be anywhere but next to that nasty man.
I need to say a prayer for this child right now.... ;)
he's going home all right - in a ziploc bag.
The poor kid needs a lot of prayers. Sad to be her.
"We care for Yasser Arafat and no one has the right to deny the truth from the Palestinian people."
Like the truth that you announced that you are going to hide for 72 hours when he's dead ?
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