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Subscribe to RSSThe remains of the legendary Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have been exhumed. Specimens will be taken to a lab to test for polonium, the same poison used to assassinate spy-turned-dissident Alexander Litvinenko.
Investigators who exhumed the body of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Tuesday will be testing samples of tissue, possibly bone, and hair, a forensic specialist says. But they’ll be up against the clock in trying to detect the radioactive substance, polonium, that many Palestinians suspect may have been used to poison him.
It’s tricky looking for evidence of poisoning after a body has been buried, says Bruce Goldberger, director of forensic toxicology at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
“The investigators are likely taking small samples from various regions of the body for polonium testing,” Goldberger told NBC News. “Very small pieces of tissue are needed. You don’t need the whole body.”
Investigators sampled Arafat’s remains without fully removing his body from the grave in the West Bank city Ramallah, Palestinian officials said. The Palestinian medical team gave samples to Swiss, French and Russian experts who will examine them in their home countries.
They’ll also need to test the soil. Arafat was buried according to Muslim tradition – wrapped in a cloth and placed directly into the ground. “They are going to certainly sample the soil immediately proximate to the body as well as further away from the body,” Goldberger said.
“The evidence should be there,” said Dr. William Bass of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, who founded the original “body farm,” known officially as the Anthropology Research Facility, where students study real, decomposing human bodies.
Any chemicals would be in the remaining bone, tissue, hair and nails, Bass told NBC News.
They will be looking first and foremost for polonium. Arafat, 75, died in a French military hospital near Paris on Nov. 11, 2004, after his already-poor health took a sudden turn for the worse during an Israeli military siege of his Ramallah headquarters.
Arafat’s wife, Suha, ruled out an autopsy but she later filed a lawsuit, which prompted a French investigation. French and Palestinian investigations found no evidence of poisoning or other foul play.
But then the Swiss-based Institute of Radiation Physics discovered traces of polonium-210, the same radioactive compound that killed former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, on samples of Arafat’s clothing.
French experts have said it will be difficult to detect polonium eight years after Arafat’s death. Polonium-210 has a very short half-life, meaning it decays very quickly. Eight years is about the outside limit.
If it’s a radioactive substance that caused Arafat’s death, it would be detectable even if the body is decomposed, Goldberg said. It wouldn’t be like looking for an illegal drug such as cocaine, which would require testing of blood, urine and organ tissue.
And after eight years, the body is certainly decomposed, even if the soil is dry. Palestinian officials are not giving morbid details.
"The state of the body was exactly what you would expect to find for someone who has been buried for eight years. There was nothing out of the ordinary," Health Minister Dr. Hani Abdeen told a news conference.
“The only thing you can do is dig it up and look at it," Bass said.
That means checking the entire grave, Goldberger said.
“No doubt they are going to collect samples from the sheet he was buried in,” he said. “They are going to collect his hair for sure. Hair samples provide a long-term measure of drug and chemical exposure.”
Hair, which can last for thousands of years, is a great way to check for poisoning, said Goldberger, who examined the remains of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony, who was killed in 2008. Caylee’s mother Casey was cleared of her murder in 2011 in a highly publicized case. He found no evidence about how she died.
“Once the drug and/or chemical is integrated into the hair, it stays there forever,” Goldberger said. Napoleon’s hair was tested for arsenic -- investigators found it but said it was likely from hair ointment.
“I worked on hair from Jesse James many years ago,” Goldberger added. He did not find hoped-for traces of morphine, which would have confirmed legends about the outlaw’s purported addiction to the painkiller laudanum in the months before he was shot to death in 1882.
What’s clear is that the tests on Arafat’s body will take time to produce results.
"In order to do these analyses, to check, cross-check and double cross-check, it will take several months and I don't think we'll have anything tangible available before March or April next year," said Darcy Christen, spokesman for Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report
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They should also test for AZT and HIV
That can be easily done with a hair sample...there's plenty on his ass.
ok,medically speaking.
AZT is a drug used to treat HIV.
When all the testing is over, the most conclusive finding will be that, "yes, indeed, He is one hundred percent dead. "
WHO CARES? This man was a terrorist and responsible for the deaths of countless innocent people, most of whom were Palestinian! Arafat could have had a much, much worse fate than the one he lived. If this test comes back positive then what? Are the Palestinians going to start a war they cannot win? THIS IS A @!$%#ING JOKE!!!
Arafats wife wanted no part of it till she figured the money angle. FDR, Abraham Lincoln were both killed by their wives. Stalin was killed just like FDR with cyanide. The money people killed them both along with that pope that only lasted a short time. Cyanide seems was the poison of choice till this latest rash of radiation types.
As far as the comment below by Mabel-4101886, Id say Have you ever heard of the USS LIberty? Or the hundreds of Egyptian P.O.W.s that were murdered by the Israeli Army just before the attack on the USS liberty? Dont tell me that Jews arent fond of killing people.
Really Mabel? Pretty inappropriate comment, frankly.
Really DM? a comment about hair on his ass is an inappropriate comment about a terrorist and murderer?
Nothing matters, it will be blamed on someone , no one knows where to put the blame so blame who ever you want, should have left it alone, with the world as screwed up as it is the last thing we need to do is dig up old skeletons to add to the mess, especially that pos. its possible however that all they will find is dry dung. allot of people of all nationalities died because of that person. correction POS.
Medical Examiner: In my opinon, cause of death is being a terrorist and a pedophile.
Why is this front page news? This man stole from my country too. I am talking about Iran.
Right after the revolution, he was invited to Iran and he received millions of dollars.
Seriously, I am sick and tired of these articles. Sick!!!!!!!! He is a thief and his wife BEEEGGGGEEED that no autopsy to be done and now out of the sudden, he is front page news again?! Why?
Who cares how he died, dead people are better there.
if it turns out he was poisoned... gaza/westbank/israel will turn into a mushroom cloud quick....
everybody better keep their fingers crossed that he didn't get poisioned or Hillary is on a plane and the stock market will take a whacking....
Wow. To all of you, "under the mushroom cloud", sad sack, doom and gloom prognosticators I'm glad that j burk commented at #1.3. I am still laughing about your comment j burk.
What is an appropriate comment is that I heard they are keeping the body and its joining Jeff Dunhams show as Arafat the dead terrorist, Achmeds Commander.
If anyone poisoned Arafat it was his own people...most likely Hamas, Hezbollah or another Palestinian faction who thought he wasn't enough of a hardliner or an Evil Religion Fundamentalist. Jews aren't remotely as fond of killing people as Muslims are.
Come on people. In the middle east all these people are starving and trying to kill each other.
Spend the money on food and some attempt at peace!
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD...... ARAFAT was nothing more than a terrorist! Leave him to rot in
the sand!
He did nothing for the Palestinines only for himself....
So 163 Palestine dead to 3 Israel dead over the course of the last 2 weeks I guess proves your point?
If you think only muslims can be terrorists, you should google "King David Hotel."
It is VERY WELL KNOWN by most 'Palestinians' so to speak, that Arafat kept for himself a few 'Billion Dollars' as some sort of Commission & or Fees, for heading the P.L.O (Palestinian Liberation Organization)
This was the vast Majority of Funds sent for the P.L.O., BUT they have 'Skeleton' literally 'Playing-with', while Mrs. Arafat lives in a 'Parisian Penthouse' entertaining Lavishly!!!!!!
There must be some appropriate expression for this 'Exhumation' to have been 'Sanctioned', but I doubt that Arafat's Riches were entombed with him, so what will be Immensely Intriguing, & perhaps for 'Sheer Gothic-like' Grave-Robbing will turn-up nothing other than 'A Bag of Bones'. & will once AGAIN require 'Internment', where the Good, is so often interred itself.
But then again, they may have SIMPLY wanted only to Bury Arafat. (Again) & not to Praise him.
@Bishop35 - Gee, I can't express how sorry I am not enough Jews died for you in this latest round of pest control by Israel.
Yeah, I mean what motivation would the Israelis have in the murder of one of their worst enemies? lol
@freecascadian - *YAWN* Why not some USS Liberty references next, isn't that always the follow-up in the anti-semite playbook?
@Jack Dulouz - saying Israelis "murder[ed]" Arafat is like saying the Sioux "murdered" Custer.
And now a pretty ignorant comment. You are obviously a troll, so hitting the ignore button.
Horrible analogy Mila! You are comparing Israel to the Sioux! I don't know if anyone murdered Arafat, but I certainly think the Israelis are possible suspects if so.
Bishop35
So 163 Palestine dead to 3 Israel dead over the course of the last 2 weeks I guess proves your point?
My point would be that the Palestinians are just bad shots...
Arafat was worth more to Israel alive then dead, Financially he was sucking the PLO dry. its all about the money. the PLO was not getting the money Arafat was.
The men killed on the USS liberty where AMERICANS. of course you don't care about them. I hope you each take a copy of your post, show it to your parents, your kids and then your creator.
Bishop35: Your argument vis-a-vis "proportionality" is laughable and proves nothing
Gaza 2012:Proportionality and
Collective Punishment
Eli E. Hertz | November 19, 2012
It would be a denial of reality to assume that only a small group of terrorists could be involved in the thousands of documented acts of terror in the past 10 years by Palestinian Arabs. In the seven years
since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets directly at civilian populations in Israel. It would be reckless to assume that these acts of terror are isolated, undertaken independently,without the direct involvement of the Palestinian populace and the leadership they opt to elect.
Israel often is portrayed in the media, by Western leaders, human rights activists and the many different organs of the United Nations as inflicting disproportionate and collective punishment on many
Palestinians for the deeds of a few terrorists. Ironically, the prohibition of imposing "collective penalties [punishment] ... intimidation and terrorism" that Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention [1] talks about, should be applied in this case to the millions of innocent men, women, and children of Israel that are collectively being punished day-in and day-out by Arab terrorists for "offenses" they never "personally committed." As to the "terrorism" Article 33 speaks about; it is the Israelis that fight to prevent Palestinian terrorism, and not the other way around.
Interestingly, the British in 1929 thought that collective punishment was a perfectly legitimate measure when inhabitants of Arab villages attacked the Jews. This collective punishment was not merely a
single necessary step, but actually an existing ordinance of the British Mandate supported by the League of Nations, in dealing with Arab terrorism: „Collective Punishments. The Collective Punishments Ordinances were applied to the [Arab] towns and villages whose inhabitants were guilty of participation in the concerted attacks on Jews at Hebron, Safad, Motza, Artuf, Beer-Tuvia, and heavy fines were inflicted." [2]
Throughout history, Jews were law-abiding, peaceful people defending themselves against Arab aggression. In a 1946 Report, the Anglo-American Committee described its observation regarding Jews living in the land of Palestine:
"The Jew had to train himself for self-defence, and to accustom himself to the life of a pioneer in an armed stockade. Throughout the Arab rising, the Jews in the National Home, despite every provocation, obeyed the orders of their leaders and exercised a remarkable self-discipline. They shot, but only in self-defence; they rarely took reprisals on the Arab." [3]
Israel's reaction to Arab aggression is nothing more than a measured, fair response designed "to effectively terminate the attack [s]" by a conglomerate of Palestinian Arab terrorists, supported by
Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, in order to prevent its recurrence. [4]
Palestinian Arabs, by their first use of armed force against Israeli civilians and non-combatant Jews in contravention of the United Nations Charter, constituted prima facie [Latin: on its face]
evidence of an act of aggression - aggression being defined by international law as "the most serious and dangerous form of illegal use of force." [5]
Therefore, the rule of proportionality in this case of continuous aggression needs to be met by Israeli acts that will induce the aggressors to comply with its international obligations. Israel countermeasures need not be the exact equivalent of the breaching act. [6] Judge Schwebel, the former president of the International Court of Justice is quoted saying:
"In the case of action taken for the specific purpose of halting and repelling an armed attack, this does not mean that the action should be more or less commensurate with the attack." [7]
The perception among Palestinians that politically motivated violence is legitimate and effective is nothing new. From a broader perspective, if the Palestinians are rewarded with political gains following their acts of aggression, it can be expected that other radical groups will also make use of their tactics. Israel will no longer be the main target.
To read this article online, please Click Here.
[1] See: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/c525816bde96b7fd41256739003e636a/72728b6de56c7a68c12563cd0051bc40?OpenDocument
[2] From the report by His Majesty‚s Government in the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Nations
on the Administration of Palestine and Transjordan for the year 1929.
[3] Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry regarding
the problem of European Jewry and Palestine. Lausanne, 20th April, 1946.
[4] See Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy; 3/22/2002;
Beard, Jack M.
[5] See UN GA Resolution 3314.
[6] United States Department of State, Draft Articles on State
Responsibility, Comments of the Government of the United States of America,
March 1, 2001. See: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization
[7] Ibid
GeorgePaulJohn:
Grasping at straws? It’s amazing that Jew haters consistently turn to the Liberty whenever they have little or nothing to say to further their misguided arguments. The reason that the Liberty was an accident rather
than a deliberate attack was motive. What would the Israelis have gained by purposely attacking an ally that was instrumental in liberating the Jews during WWII and relatively soon after the war ended? The Liberty, though decidedly tragic, pales in comparison, and is a drop in the ocean relative to the number of American lives and the lives of other nationals that the Muslim/islamist murderers have taken since then. So what's your point? Blind hatred has taken over reason.
DBuck: I agree. And the people who are controlling the Gaza smuggling tunnels are doing the same.
The half-life of Po-210 is 138.4 days. It decays directly into Pb-206 (Lead).
Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004. That's slightly over 8 years ago. To be precise, it was 2938 days ago that he died.
Dividing 2938 by 138.4 yields 21.23. 1->2->4->8->16->32->64->128->256->512->1024->2048->4096->8192->16384->32768->65536->131072->262144->524288->1048576
For every 1 million polonium-210 atoms that may have been in Arafat's body at his death, only 1 will remain today. The rest will have already decayed into Lead-206. And while I agree, that is a very VERY trace amount to attempt to find, I also think that the presence of 1 million LEAD-206 atoms for every atom of polonium-210 will certainly be indicative of polonium poisoning.
Polonium 210 decays into Lead 206. For every 1 million atoms of polonium that MAY have been in Arafat's body at his time of death, only 1 atom of radioactive polonium 210 will exist today. Or, put another way, for each atom of radioactive polonium 210 STILL in Arafat's body today, there would have had to have been 1 million such atoms in his body at the time of his death. The Polonium doesn't decay into thin air. It decays into Lead. So even finding just a few atoms of radioactive polonium 210 along with a few million atoms of lead 206 will be quite indicative of polonium poisoning. It would not, of course, say who did the poisoning.
No Epinnoia "finding just a few atoms of radioactive polonium 210 along with a few million atoms of lead 206" will NOT be quite indicative of polonium poisoning. As both Pb-206 and Po-210 occur naturally. So finding Pb-206 would be expected and finding a minute trace of Po-210 would also not be completely unexpected.
The amount of Po-210 would be an indication of poisoning. But after 8 years the difference between a natural level of Po-210 residue and a level indicating poisoning would be virtually impossible to detect. It would be within the error of the anaylsis and thus would not prove or disprove anything.
Epinnoia.... Thank you for the math. Now to the question of " the MANY " who suspect Arafat was poisoned in the first place. There is a decay rate in that population as well. There are those who care that he was poisoned to begin with, who's opinions decay into, " There's nothing to be done, let's move on with our lives ". So assuming that initially there were millions who cared about the poisoning, the population of Palestinians who may have cared, have assimilated into a population who have other concerns, died off, or have forgotten Arafat all together. This means the population of MANY has been reduced significantly to an inconsequential number. Since MANY is an amorphous term to begin with for any purpose of statistical analysis, the term approaches or is equal to ZERO. You can't divide by zero, nor divide by many, you have to use some other numerical denominator. So if Arafat was poisoned, and you can't figure out if he was or he wasn't, nor use that to determine his would be murderer... this investigation is as dead as Arafat himself.
ddpalmer,
You are simply wrong on the science. Arafat did not die of lead poisoning. If we find high levels of lead in his body along with polonium 210 in a ratio of 1 million to 1, we can deduce from that concentration that the lead was polonium 21 'half lives' ago. The key here is the ratio and the presence of the BYPRODUCT of the decay of polonium 210. This is normal within the field of science. We find byproducts in peoples systems all the time and DEDUCE from that fact that they had some product in their system prior. Metabolites come to mind immediately.
Again, we don't know whether there even will be such a ratio of polonium 210 to lead even found. And furthermore, we would not know who it was who poisoned him IF we determine that he was poisoned. It may well have been rival Palestinians who wanted him out of power to take his place. And, of course, it could also have been Israel behind it. But it's simply silly to suggest that such HIGH concentrations of lead, mixed in with polonium 210 in concentrations EXACTLY as we would expect them to be after 21 'half lives', is irrelevant or somehow not indicative of his having been poisoned. It most certainly would be indicative.
Steve,
I agree with most all of what you say. However, I think everyone deserves to know how a family member died, regardless if a murderer might never actually stand trial.
Epinnoia... Though it is nice to know how a family member died, for memorial services, closure, grieving, and such, the harsh reality is many die, or have died, without others knowing what ever became of them. Drownings at sea are a good example. Young people leave home and put to sea, and are never heard from again. Are these not our fellows in the adventure of being human? They most certainly are. Maybe the entire ship went down, Maybe they fell over the side. Maybe they were pushed over the side. Maybe they said they were going to put to sea, didn't, and joined an army and were lost somewhere else. Maybe they left because they were a burden to their family, or their family was a burden to them. We all know Arafat is deceased, we all know William the Conqueror is deceased. This doesn't mean that time stops and England is stuck forever at 1066.
Epinnoia
You are simply wrong.
Did I say or even imply that Arafat died of lead poisoning?
Every person on the planet has low levels of both lead and polonium in there bodies. EVERYONE. So finding lead or polonium doesn't prove anything. And the levels of polonium needed to cause death are extremely small. The additional polonium (if it ever existed), which would have almost all decayed to lead by now, would not give a level of lead significantly above normal.
It is just silly to suggest that there would be HIGH levels of lead from the decay of polonium. The levels of lead would be close to what is detectable in EVERYBODY. They would be close enough that anyone in the field of science would understand that they wouldn't be able to differentiate between a normal level (which already varies widely between people) and a level cause by polonium poisoning followed by decay to lead.
Your inability to understand that shows you aren't in the field of science, or at least not a relevant field of science.
Since Muslims don't embalm their dead, what kind of condition would his body be in and how would excessive deterioration affect testing?
He'd been looting the coffers for years. If he was murdered, it was probably for his Swiss bank Accounts.
Test it and then do what with it?
What a waste of time and money!
Elderly and sick, he dies, and someone actually think he's been poisoned?
Who gives a rat's rump, let the guy rest in peace since he wouldn't enjoy any while he lived.
It's France, all they're good at is wasting time and money.
If an average American died under strange circumstances he or she's body would be exhumed for an autopsy. How are you going to suggest that it is a waste of money for the Palestinian people to seek answers in the death of their own leader?
@Jack Dulouz - I personally hope the Palestinians continue to waste money on worthless efforts like this, and buying weapons, and digging tunnels. But you would think, if they had a collective brain in their collective heads, that they wouldn't waste yet more money on (let alone venerate) a worthless murdering thief who never worked a day in his life yet somehow left $70M in foreign bank accounts to his widowed shrew. I'm not even going to ask how the circumstances of his death were "strange", because a) I don't care what you have to say about it, and b) they weren't "strange" enough regardless.
The Palestinians don't share your view on Arafat, Mila. They don't feel that he was a worthless murdering thief...he was their hero. He was a freedom fighter and the first President of a free Palestine. I'm not saying I necessary agree with that, but this is how they see him.
Once they go through the gyrations of "testing" it will come back proof positive that he was poised by Israel. That will get the Muslims all riled up and ready to fight and die for Allah and country, oh and virgins.
Palestinians often honor Muslim Murderers, here's just one example....
and here's another.....
and let's not forget that the Palestinian murderers Hakim Awad and his cousin Amjad Awad who slipped into Israel and slaughtered the Fogel family,,,,,Father Udi, mother Ruth, and children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and 3-month-old Hadas. The baby's throat was slashed while she was in her crib,
The two Palestinian murderers were called heroes by the Palestinians and by the Palestinian TV....
There are many other examples...
If Arafat was poisoned and we can figure out who did it, that person should get the Nobel Peace Prize! Arafat was a lying sack of palestinian s**t who did everything possible to stir up trouble and thwart any peace that could ever come to be. He was pure evil!
Nobel Peace Prize is worthless. Some recipients have been Carter and Obama and even Arafat!
i sense some sour grapes, rofl. how does it feel to be in the minority of voters?
Arafat mellowed after the 70's and 80's.. He was a true diplomat for a period. I'm just sad that his presence didn't already mend the wounds of Palestine and Israel.
He was a thug in the early days... That's war and that's what it was back then! He was also brilliant in his own way when he mellowed and sought peace.. It's true and factual, he sought peace in his time.
I'm sorry he's gone now.. I watched him grow from a radical to a statesmen, then to a diplomat for peace. He wasn't that bad... He needed to be heard!
The Nobel Peace Prize is only worthless if you're IGNORANT! Anytime you try to knock down a Nobel Leauriate, you're an ass!!
Brilliance comes from an open mind, not a racist, bigoted or ignorant mind that hates people with slightly more skin pigment than theirself!
Education is the key! If you disagree, you're the ignorance the USA is passing by!
If skin pigment is your problem, "You're a bigot and a bigger idiot than anyone else your age!"
good riddance to bad rubbish. True then, true now.
Will they ask him questions about the underworld? The man had been dead for a long time, what is the point exhuming a rotten dead body? Guaranteed the face looks grose and scary. Nice job, but it is not worth it.
The face looked pretty disgusting while he was still alive.
They should urinate on the corpse, at least then this exercise won't be a total waste.
it would have been better if his head was blown off by an exploding mobile phone ( an old Mossad trick ! ) but poisoning is an acceptable way for this pig to die !!!
If it was the polonium that had killed him it would have been evident in the symptoms of his illness, but it wasn't.
He showed no signs of having been "poisoned", and, to be more precise, he showed absolutely no signs of any of the symptoms that would certainly of appeared if he had been lethally poisoned with a radioactive substance of any kind.
So, what, exactly, is this "investigation" about? His death? Or how it is that polonium came to be found in the clothing that his "wife" had provided to "investigators"??
Clearly, if his death was not due to polonium poisoning, and yet the clothing his wife provided after his death contained polonium, it begs the question as to how that polonium got there. And, if polonium is found in his remains, it still, given the fact that he didn't die from polonium poisoning, begs the question as to how it got there.
Polonium, for poisoning, isn't something that can be carried around casually by just anyone. And I seriously doubt that it was Israel who was responsible for it's appearance in this incidence. If I had to venture a guess, I'd guess that Iran was involved in this. And, I tend to think that if it was meant to kill Arafat it was a failure, and that it was some other toxic agent that had been employed alone or in concert with the polonium that had succeeded.
It's all very intriguing, but, in the end I'm glad the S.O.B. is dead. And it saddens me that it wasn't a case of polonium poisoning that had been perpetrated by Israel. It would have been heartening to know that he had received justice at the hands of his victims.
Vizzini lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2y40U2LvKY
And when did you preform the examination? oh yeah, your the guy who argued that polonium has a half life of 138 days and didn't know it decayed into polonium 209 which has a half life of 103 years. Your the guy who tried to sound like such a nuclear expert but know nothing, so tell me again, WHEN did you examine him mr Coroner , ahh doctor? mr. proud know it all? rofl
210Po is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.4 days; it decays directly to its stable daughter isotope, 206Pb (lead)
Polonium 210 doesn't decay into Polonium 209.
The web page has the headline
"CSI Ramallah: Investigators up against clock"
What clock? Nothing about a clock in the article. Even says it will take months.
NBC loves to write false headlines. What hacks.
The clock of polonium-210's half-life. Reading comprehension is SO important, sports fans.....
Any guy that would wear a rag on his head, must like fruit cake,etc.
I wonder if smoking tobacco, eating an unhealthy diet for years and being close to nuclear material that he was smuggling had anything to do with his death. That would only make too much sense.
There's only three things to hope for coming out of this "investigation" -
1) They find that Israel did in fact kill this #%$*bag.
2) They find a way to bring him back to life.
3) Israel kills him again.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
It is very normal for the Palestinian people to learn whether or not their former leader was murdered or died of natural causes. Americans would do the same if it was our President...or even if it was an average citizen. Regardless of how you feel about Arafat, the man is dead and his people want to know why...easy as that.
CSI Ramallah: Investigators up against clock
It's all right. They started work in the year 1433. It gives them extra time.
So what if he WAS poisoned? Nobody's going to admit doing it.
If they want to believe the Israelis did it, what are they gonna do, sue Israel?
He's dead - get over it & move on.
Putin thinks it's all a bunch of poloni. Um, there's always polonium in Palestine.
Is it the Jihad version of CLUE? In that case, Sheik Mohammed did it with a camel at the oasis.
Because of its extremely short half-life Polonium 210 does not occur in Nature. In order to obtain it you need access to a nuclear reactor, or to be very cozy with and deeply trusted by someone who does. To assert that Hamas, or elements withing the Palestinian Authority killed him the to assert that they have a nuclear reactor! Really, not a pretty thought, nor an especially realistic one.
So, who in the Middle East would have liked to see the man dead, and has a nuclear reactors. I'd say the list is quite short, the answer pretty obvious.
Yeah BearZZZ, classic anti-semetic, anti American hooey from a progressive genius that wouldn't know which way to run if his house was on fire.
Well, let's see... Iran?
Maybe India?
Who else in that region is there... OH.... let me guess, it's Isreal's fault, right?
Critics have accused Arafat of mass corruption, secretly amassing a personal wealth estimated to be USD $1.3 billion by 2002 despite the degrading economic conditions of the Palestinians. A lot of people wanted him dead, and blaming the Israelis is the only thing Jihadis have in common.
If our President BO dies how do we bury a muslim do we have a rider less horse or a donkey. I like the fast and quick(furious) burial don't want to miss my Y&R soape.
We would want to embalm Barry Hussein in pig's blood, wrap him in bacon, and THEN bury the body.
@Ward - Why would we be burying a muslim if the President died?
Ward --
Go back to watching your soap opera. It's more real than your views on the President.
The old bastard probably looks better now after being buried for 8 years than he ever did while he was alive.
Regardless of whatever else can be said about him, he was one ugly dude...
"Polonium-210 has a very short half-life, meaning it decays very quickly. Eight years is about the outside limit."
Unless I am mistaken, Polonium-210 has a half-life of about half a year.
But regardless of that, anything "left over" is going to be suspect, because it is a naturally occurring. Finding the most minute evidence still will not lead to any clear indication of poisoning, or even if it was the cause of his death.
Polonium-210 decays to Lead-206 which is a stable lead isotope that does not occur in significant quantities naturally. If there is an unusual amount of Lead-206 it could indicate that Polonium-210 was present in Arafat at the time of his death.
HeyMikey is right. If he was poisoned by Po-210, daughter elements might be detectable.
Po-210 has a half life of about 5 months. The lethal dose consumed internally is in the nano grams (billionths of a gram).
There could also be traces of Po-208 and Po-209, which have much longer half lives.
Very difficult to detect in the quantities they are looking at, but not impossible.
Why would there be Po-208 and Po-209? Po-210 is produced by bombardment of Bi-209 which would not result in any Po-208 or Po-209, the result is relatively pure Po-210.
And sorry but Pb-206 does occur in significant quantities in nature. It is the end product from the decay of U-238 which makes up over 99% of all uranium. Consequently Pb-206 makes up about 24% of all naturally occurring lead. Meaning the very minute increase in Pb-206 concentration due to Po-210 poisoning would probably be smaller than the error in teh analysis.
The comments about hair analysis would be relatively useless for Po-210 because it would have killed him so quickly that there would have been minimal hair growth before death and thus minimal Po-210 in the hair. Plus the same detection problems and decay problems would still apply.