Death Becomes Him

In Paris meanwhile, Suhah Arafat sacked the PLO ambassador Leila Shahid, the Palestinian spokesperson who issued almost daily bulletins after Arafat arrived in Paris.

 

What happened next was that Christian Estripeau, spokesman of the French military health services, informed Mrs. Arafat that he would issue no more bulletins on Arafat’s condition; neither would Percy hospital. She was given to understand that the hospital had kept her husband artificially alive as long as it intended to. The conversation followed a decision by a top-level conference of French officials, attended also by the president, to disengage from the pretence that Arafat was still alive. They realized it was no longer tenable without compromising the military hospital’s ethical position and medical credibility.

According to that most excellent of Israeli daily publications, Yediot Aharonot, Suha and Muhammad Rashid, Arafat’s financial advisor, are the only ones who know the numbers of the bank accounts where the dying ra’is keeps his fortune, at least three hundred million dollars, according to Forbes, much of it purloined from the Palestinian people.

 

That’s why Suha rushed over to Ramallah, like a bat out of hell, to take over the handling of the dying husband she hasn’t bothered visiting for three years, and swiftly had him moved to her territory, Paris. She wasn’t taking any chances of him mumbling the account numbers to anyone else.

 

According to Yediot, Rashid and Suha each know about different bank accounts. Suha and Rashid don’t like each other very much.

 

It’s like American daytime TV, without the good-looking actors.