Beyond the speculation of Arafat's death

It is essential to step back from the excitement created by the recent speculation about the circumstances which led to the death of the historic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the man who returned his homeland to the political map of the Middle East from obscurity. The revived stories about the reasons behind Arafat's death, including the prospect of him being poisoned by someone and something, have emerged from recent investigations which point for the first time, to a specific radioactive material believed to have been used in what is being described as "Arafat's assassination". Obviously, the talk of Arafat being poisoned could be true, as Israel had a long-standing desire to get rid of him, but there are other entities which had a similar desire. We can't ignore the intensive hostility of the Syrian regime towards everything Arafat has ever represented, this applies for the eras of both Assad the father and  Assad the son. Isn't Hafez al-Assad the man who in directing his speech towards Arafat said that an independent Palestine was a "myth", and that Palestine is actually "south Syria"? It is certain that the late Palestinian leader spent most of his life challenging an unmerciful enemy which is Israel, the state that was always well aware of Arafat's significance. However, Arafat had another enemy which he faced for the last 15 years of his life, which was his deteriorating health, which made him unable to endure the Israeli blockade imposed on him since 2001, which made him a virtual prisoner in al-Muqata, the Palestinian presidency headquarters in Ramallah. This blockade was not decided without reason; it was  aimed at killing the Palestinian leader and was a coordinated exercise between Ariel Sharon's government in Israel, the George W  Bush administration in the United States, the Syrian regime and the Iranian regime. All parties to this plot had information that fresh air and sunlight were a must for Arafat's health. It is not inaccurate to say that Arafat was actually assassinated in 2004 when he was transferred to a hospital near Paris to be treated from an unidentified illness. Arafat's assassination was a long, drawn-out process, which may have been decided directly following the failure of the Camp David summit, in which President Bill Clinton brought Arafat and former Israeli Prime minister Ehud Barak together in the summer of 2000. After this summit, it was time for Israel to target the tired and aged leader, first by ruining the close relations that tied Arafat to the White House. One of Israel's main targets, which still stands to this day, is preventing any direct relations from taking place between the Palestinian leadership and the United States, so that any communications between the Palestinians and Washington must pass through Israel. Regardless of his mistakes committed in Jordan and Lebanon, Arafat's main achievement is that he succeeded in establishing a direct relationship with the United States without Israel's mediation. Arafat visited the White House more times than any other foreign official in the year 2000. However, all things changed in 2001 after George W Bush took over as the United States president, and particularly after the terrorist attacks of September 11 in the same year. The US war against terrorism since then, gave Ariel Sharon the perfect opportunity to besiege Arafat in al-Muqata. The assassination operation directed towards Arafat started gradually by depriving him of fresh air after Israeli tanks besieged him at his residency. This siege reached its peak when Arafat was even prevented from speaking through video conferencing technology to the Arab League summit held in Beirut in 2002, and the man who prevented Arafat then was Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud who was directly controlled by the Syrian regime! The debate about Arafat's death is unlikely to reach a conclusion. However, we must always remember that this man not only restored Palestine on the political map of the Middle East, but he also succeeded in foiling Israel's hopes of establishing a "Greater Israel". He achieved this after years of effective political activity, which he began after his departure from Beirut in 1982, and continued until he signed the Oslo agreement in 1993. This dream of a "Greater Israel" was believed by some of the oddball Israeli politicians, like the former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who died a few days ago. Maybe it is not too important now to know who killed Arafat or how he was killed, especially as the man was treated very harshly in the last stages of his life, when he was "imprisoned" in al-Muqata. Few men would struggle as long as Arafat did. The dream he created of an independent Palestinian state is still alive, while Shamir's dream of a "Greater Israel" lies buried. From his tomb, Arafat is still knocking on the gates of Jerusalem, and these gates will be opened one day, probably when the international community realises the importance of reaching peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Restoring the Palestinians' rights to  live in their independent state is a main tenet of the "Middle East Spring", as this spring must overthrow the Israeli occupation, as well as overthrowing the injustice imposed on the Arab nations, and the Syrian nation on top of them. --- The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arabstoday.