When Yasser Arafat was on his deathbed, his wife Suha read him passages from the Koran and urged him to trounce the prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon.

“When he lost consciousness for 15 days, the doctors told me to talk to him about things he liked to hear or things he hated to hear,” she told a Saudi women’s weekly ahead of the fifth anniversary this week of the Palestinian leader’s death.

“And so, when I was with him in his room in the intensive care unit, I read him passages from the Koran and prayers.”

Using his nom de guerre, Suha Arafat said in a rare interview: “I would say to him, ‘Get up Abu Amar, don’t you want to see your [daughter] Zahwa? Get up so you can defeat your enemy [Ariel] Sharon.”

Suha was honored to be Yasser Arafat’s second love, after Palestine, she said.

“When I married him, I knew what I was in for,” she said. “I knew that his first love was always Palestine and its capital, Jerusalem. But it was an honor for me to be the second love, after Palestine.”

When Suha first met Yasser, she was frightened, she told the paper.

“At the beginning I was attracted to the leader of the revolution, then to the courage and masculinity and intelligence, and then also to the romance there was in him,” she said.

“I hope he went to paradise.”

Which brings me to…

The Top 5 Things Suha Arafat Did Not Say to A Comatose Yasser Arafat

5. “The young boys send their regards.”

4. “If you wake up, I promise to cut down on my spending.”

3. “I miss your soft skin.”

2. “This must be the longest you have gone without washing.”

1. “How I wish we could play “tiger” again.”

Relations between Israel and the United States are in crisis. This is the conclusion that stems from the difficulty in arranging a meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama.

The White House wanted Netanyahu to sweat before being granted an audience with the president, and wanted everyone to see him perspire.

The delays in finding a time to meet, and pushing it to a late hour – after the news programs on Israeli television – make Netanyahu look as if Obama threw him a bone. In such circumstances, it is no longer important what will be said at the meeting, and the extent to which there will be an attempt to present it as an achievement. The prime minister of Israel was humiliated before all.

Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)

10:52PM: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was heckled by some schmekels during his address to the 2009 General Assembly of the The Jewish Federations of North America in Washington.

Props to Bibi for remaining composed and coming back with a zinger.

8:08PM: International “activists” have helped palestinians remove part of the security barrier for the second time in a week, making it easier for terrorists to enter Israel.

5:06PM: Syrian Dorktator Bashar Assad has clearly expressed his support for terrorism.

Syrian President Bashar Assad  warned on Monday that if the Golan Heights are not returned peacefully – Syria will turn to resistance. Speaking at an economic forum of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Istanbul, Assad said, “The failure of negotiations towards the full restoration of rights automatically means resistance is the alternative solution.”

According to Assad, “Resisting the occupation is a national duty. It is our legitimate and moral obligation to support it, and it is an honor that we take pride in. This does not contradict the constant desire to achieve a just and inclusive peace on the basis of the restoration of the occupied lands, starting with the occupied Syrian Golan.”

He has also repeated an old blood libel against Israel.

He also slammed Israel for the situation at the Temple Mount  in Jerusalem: “We felt this danger 40 years ago, when the Israelis tried to set fire to the al-Aqsa Mosque.

He is referring to the al-Aqsa Mosque fire in 1969, which was started by an (insane) Australian Christian by the name of Dennis Michael Rohan. In fact, it was Israeli firemen who worked hard to extinguish the fire, while being attacked by Muslim onlookers.

2:04PM: Disturbing quote of the day:

“At the beginning I was attracted to the leader of the revolution, then to the courage and masculinity and intelligence, and then also to the romance there was in him”

- Suha Arafat speaking about her former husband Yasser

5:42AM: Palestinians fired a Qassam into Israel just before midnight.

No injuries, no damage…and no response.

Suha Arafat, the widow of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, says she wants to return to Palestine because life in the Diaspora has become unbearable.

“I will be back to Palestine, to Ramallah. My life and my daughter’s life in Diaspora has become intolerable. We lost security and safety as Abu Ammar left us. Every day since he passed I feel boredom and deadly sadness,” Suha told the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat.

Palestinians marked the fourth Anniversary of the death of their iconic leader on Tuesday. Arafat died of a mysterious medical condition in a Paris hospital in 2004. He spent his last days under besieged by the Israeli military in the presidential compound in Ramallah.

Suha is currently living in Malta after moving there from Tunisia.

I’m thinking either she ran out of designer shoes to buy, or the Maltese kicked her out as well.

“He used to care for every Palestinian family and take care of their small and large concerns ranging from the establishment of a Palestinian state to the simple daily life requirements. He also cared for his small family, me and my daughter, Zahwa.

You can say that again.

Look at what happened to our homeland and our cause and the political heritage. I miss him today and all Palestine misses him. All misfortunes can be simplified and forgotten, except death as its pain keeps deepening and increasing,” Suha added.

“When Abu Ammar [Arafat] was alive, he asked me and Zahwa to stay in Gaza and never leave after Israel bombarded our home. He refused our return to Ramallah because he considered himself a brave soldier who refused to use his wife and daughter as human shields for his protection.

Correct. He just used other people’s wives and children as human shields for his protection.

I have not felt homesick like I do today. I was sure about the dream of a Palestinian state and about Palestinian unity. Nowadays, I watch the news of unity and pray for the future of the Palestinian cause,” Suha said.

Thirteen-year-old Zahwa Arafat spoke briefly via telephone to Al-Hayat as she was heading to school, “I have exams, and it is tough stuff. I wish my father was alive, so he could have prayed for me to pass exams. I remember him as a leader and a struggler. I still remember how he used to telephone us every day asking me to focus on Arabic language and read the holy Quran. I went along with my mother to hajj [pilgrimage] in Saudi Arabia, and that could have thrilled my father.”

But not as much as some tiger-hyena same-sex action.

(Pappa Smurf idea inspired by Imshin. Who am I kidding? It was totally her idea. But I will take credit for the Miss Pigg