Jenin official repeats the debunked conspiracy theory that says Israel killed Arafat

Jenin District Popular Refugee Committee Deputy Chairman Fida Turkeman: “We came here today  to mark the 16th anniversary of the death as a Martyr of Palestinian  President Yasser Arafat, and to mark the [Palestinian] declaration of independence (see note below –Ed.) [that was issued] in [our] sister [state] Algeria. From here we hold the occupation state (i.e., Israel) fully responsible for the death as a Martyr of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat (sic., the PA libel that Israel assassinated Arafat has been debunked by international medical teams).” 

Yasser Arafat – Founder of the PLO and Fatah, former chairman of the PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign - the second Intifada (2000-2005) – in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004. However, following his death, the PA created the libel that Israel murdered Arafat, and it has been spreading it since. In 2012, samples were taken from Arafat’s remains and tested for poisoning by Swiss, Russian, and French teams of scientists. The Swiss team concluded that the tests were "coherent with a hypothesis of poisoning" - but a member of the team also stated that "our study did not permit us to demonstrate categorically the hypothesis of poisoning by polonium." The Russian scientists concluded that "there was insufficient evidence to support the theory that Yasser Arafat died in 2004 by polonium poisoning." [Reuters, Nov. 8, 2013] In March 2015, three French judges ruled that "it has not been demonstrated that Mr. Yasser Arafat was murdered by polonium-210 poisoning." The French prosecutor stated that there was "not sufficient evidence of an intervention by a third party who could have attempted to take his life." [France 24, Sept. 2, 2015] The French prosecutor also explained that the polonium and lead found in Arafat’s grave were “of an environmental nature.” [Jerusalem Post, March 17, 2015]. Despite these results, the PA continues to blame Israel for Arafat’s death without any proof or backing for this claim. Links to the libel on PMW website: https://palwatch.org/database/10 https://palwatch.org/page/12313 https://palwatch.org/page/5505

Palestinian declaration of independence - On Nov. 15, 1988, before the Palestine National Council (PNC), the Palestinian parliament in exile in Algeria, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Yasser Arafat declared the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Although the borders were not specified in the declaration, it recognized the UN partition plan of 1947, which called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the former British Mandate for Palestine.