With toxic Arafat revelations, the PA is looking to embarrass Israel

[Mosby]

The Al-Jazeera documentary claiming this week that Yasser Arafat was poisoned by a radioactive substance was helpfully timed for the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Gradually losing legitimacy on the street and with limited political prospects, the PA is already moving to use the allegations to embarrass Israel and isolate it internationally. But Palestinian and Israeli experts doubt that the revived controversy will have any long-lasting impact.

-snip-

In the climate of the Arab Spring, the Palestinian Authority has been under increasing pressure to deliver a political breakthrough. Previous attempts to achieve state status at the UN have gone nowhere, and that seems unlikely to change despite talk of another attempt to push for international endorsement of statehood at the General Assembly this fall.

A rare series of anti-PA demonstrations took place in Ramallah this week, condemning Abbas’ leadership for its security coordination with Israel and its helplessness on releasing prisoners held by Israel. The prisoner issue was, and remains, the top concern of many ordinary Palestinians.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pa-seeks-to-embarrass-israel-with-toxic-arafat-revelations/

[MADem]

1. Why would this necessarily embarrass Israel? Arafat was not intractable. This does not make sense

to me at all. Arafat was slow to move, but carrot-and-stick worked on him.

In the world that draws all relations in the region as "Jews v. Everyone Else Who is Arab and Mostly Muslim" that conspiracy theory might fly, but I see things very differently, indeed.

When Arafat died, al Fatah, an organization that had finally come to understand the utility of diplomacy, was in the fight of its life...against HAMAS.

Ask yourself the question, cui bono? Who's running the show these days, again...?