A week after the Al-Jazeera’s sensational scoop on Yasser Arafat’s death, it seems as if the network’s investigation leaves more questions than answers. While Al-Jazeera succeeded in returning the late terrorist to the headlines, and with it, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its new conspiracy theory – that Arafat was poisoned in 2004 with radioactive polonium (with heavy hints that Israel was responsible) – is very unconvincing.

Traces of the material were ostensibly found on the chairman’s clothing and hat by a Swiss lab. But the investigative reporters don’t say where those clothes had been held for the past seven-and-half years.

The logical conclusion is that they were held by Arafat’s wife, Suha. Obtaining small amounts of polonium on the black market is not mission impossible, and Suha has all the reason in the world to revive the poisoning claim, especially now.

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It’s no secret that the merry widow is in trouble. France has been asking her for explanations about money that has disappeared, while in Tunisia, which hosted her for years, she’s now a persona non grata, ever since that country got rid of her friend, the wife of deposed president Zine bin Ali, who has also been linked to corruption and the disappearance of large sums of money.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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