Israel assassinated Arafat - Fatah official repeats libel

Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi: “If you ask me who is behind the assassination of [former PA President] Yasser Arafat, I will tell you: Israel and [former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon. They are behind the assassination… We learned this from the Israeli statements and through proof and evidence we succeeded in obtaining from Sharon’s meetings with the Americans".

[Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi, Facebook page,
Nov. 15, 2022]

The interview with Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq Tirawi was originally broadcast on Al-Mayadeen TV (Lebanon) on Nov. 14, 2022.

Tawfiq Tirawi also serves as Fatah Commissioner of Popular Organizations.

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.