How Deep Is Arafat’s Coma? And how can doctors tell?

asks Slate, a reasonable question considering the contraictory news of the past few days. According to this France2 news report, “the news of Arafat’s death will be announced after a meeting of the central committee of Fatah and executive committee of the PLO”. Meanwhile In the West Bank, “preparations began Tuesday for Yasser Arafat’s funeral, even though Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath told a Paris press conference that the Palestinian leader was “very much alive” and discussion of his death was “indecent” ” and adding to the confusion, “Sheikh Tayseer al-Tamimi, a leading West Bank cleric, told reporters after seeing Arafat at the hospital in a Paris suburb: “He is sick and his condition is very difficult but he remains alive””

Suha, however, appears to have reached a satisfactory settlement

Suha Arafat’s French lawyers and former Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), struck a deal. It fixed the Palestinian Authority’s financial obligations to Yasser Arafat’s widow and let him finally die unambiguously and in peace at the end of a morbid tug of war between his wife and Palestinian Authority leaders.

But this did not happen immediately. The confusion surrounding Arafat’s condition for eleven days – officially alive, unofficially dead – was to be sustained a little longer – mainly to save Mrs Arafat’s face.

The settlement allowed a funeral to be arranged on “Orphan Friday” of Ramadan, November 12 (as DEBKAfile reported earlier) – unless a new crisis pops up. Our sources have seen some of the principle terms of the Palestinian accord with Suha Arafat

The settlement “guarantees her the same allowance from the Palestinian Authority as a regular annual remittance, i.e. $22 million per annum, for the rest of her life,” while the Palestinian people continue to live in misery. Out of all the money the USA and the EU sent Arafat, estimated to be $1billion, Arafat never built one school, one hospital, one clinic. Suha, however, lives in a house on the Rue Fauborg St Honore and keeps a private suite at the Hotel Bristol, one of the most luxurious hotels in the world. Roger L. Simon asks,

I wonder how many of those starving Palestinians are aware of this settlement and, if they are, why they put up with this? It is a Stockholm Syndrome larger than Sweden itself. Instead of following the rais’ funeral bier down the streets of Ramallah, they should be tearing him limb from limb, pissing down his mouth and tossing the remains in one of those HazMat recycling bins.

I also wonder for how long will the PA’s going to allow Suha to remain on the payroll. After all, you know what dealing with the Mob is like.