Gone to Paris to be near his dearest - the stolen billions in aid money.

er- no I mean his loving wife Suha
 

"Terror Smurf" - awesome. Must get that into the national lexicon.
 

Those sweats are hugging Yasser a little tight. Definitely more information than I needed on the erstwhile terrorist leader.
 

HIV ? Ebola ?
Better be safe and fill his casket with quick-lime and everyone who kissed him should visit the doc as soon as possible.

Meanwhile the IDF are preparing for a fury of seething rioters when his death is announced. Who will take his place? Hizbollah? Hamas ? Watch out for lots of inter-necine assassinations as they squabble over the joy of leading Palestine deeper into trouble.
 

So now they want to bury Arafish in the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem ? Wouldnt it be better to plant him in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris where Chirac can visit him as often as he likes? Or maybe choose that liitle graveyard off Boulevard des Italiens for Yasser so he can be close to the Banque Nationale De Paris where lots of his money resides. Better still a nautical burial in the Valley of the Kings, though that might spoil the Nile drinking water (sic?) for centuries.
 

Anon: your guess of his disease is as good as mine. The weirdest thing out of this story which has already been very strange and self-contradictory has been the suggestion that he went into a coma when he was being given anesthesia in anticipation for three procedures: upper endoscopy, colonoscopy and spinal cord biopsy. Spinal cord biopsy? What? That's almost never done. What the heck could he have that would require that? Do they mean spinal tap (lumbar puncture)? If so, then he could have anything that alters mental status because an LP might be needed to rule out meningitis. But an actual spinal cord biopsy suggests something weird like a CNS lymphoma or a paraspinal abscess or vertebral tuberculosis or...
 

Wuz I right or what re: the squabbles?

DebkaFile reports:
In Ramallah, the power vacuum is widening.

Prime minister Ahmed Qureia and his predecessor Mahmoud Abbas are losing ground in their attempts to assume the interim reins of government.

1. Saturday, Qureia went to Gaza City to try and negotiate a temporary halt in terrorist attacks with the heads of 13 Palestinian factions – at least until after the funeral. They turned him down. Hamas demanded that first a unified Palestinian leadership be established with a place for itself.

2. The Gaza-based Palestinian Authority secretary Tayeb Abu Rahim Qureia humiliated Qureia at Saturday’s session of the Palestinian national security council by declaring angrily that nothing in the Palestinian constitution provided for the prime minister to step in as acting PA Chairman in Arafat’s absence. That prerogative, he said, belongs to another Gazan, the Palestinian legislature’s speaker, Fathi Rouh.

3. Then, the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s politburo chief, Farouk Kaddumi, who turned up in Paris Thursday, questioned Abbas’s constitutional credentials to stand in for Arafat as chairman of the PLO central committee. Kaddumi claimed that he was the rightful chairman and Abbas, who is listed as one of two deputies, must report on his every action to Kaddumi as his subordinate.
 

You could not make this up.

First of all, the rest of the world was probably as bemused as me by the antics of the Egyptian air traffic control and the mishandling of the dignitaries who tried to attend the official ceremonies. What a fiasco, to say nothing of the rude mistreatment of the Germans and the general insecurity of the whole show.

Then there was the riotous comedy interment at Ramallah where security guards dumped bags of dirt fresh from Al Aqsa mosque into the concrete chamber onto Arafishes casket like latterday Transylvanian body snatchers keeping the undead ready for his triumphant rise-again.

Lets hope future elections close the polls before sundown else we might see the spectacle of Count Von Dracufat casting his bony hand over the voters.
Of course thats always assuming that Prof. Ariel Van Helsing does not sneak over from the Knesset and impale the Fish with an olive-wood stake.
 

STOP PRESS NEWS

Ramallah (Reuters) 45 Minutes ago

Arafat is still dead.

End of report