Mideast Media Sampler 11/8/13: Polonium, Balonium

by David Gerstman, contributing blogger at Legal Insurrection

 — Yasser, that’s a conspiracy theory.

Nobel prize winning terrorist Yasir Arafat, carried by his admirers.
 Photo: MOXNEWSd0tC0M / YouTube 

The New York Times reports Swiss Report Supports Theory Arafat Was Poisoned. Now, of course, the New York Times isn’t the only news outlet to be reporting this. But is it news?

When someone makes an incredible claim, it is the job of the news media to investigate it and challenge it if necessary. The claim Arafat was poisoned with polonium ignores a very important detail, as Brian Thomas writes:

The Middle East Media Sampler 11/28/2012: The Media Still Digs Arafat

From DG:

Ambulance chasing as journalism

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Dirty Laundry - Don Henley 

The Washington Post reports Samples taken from Yasser Arafat’s remains to see if he was poisoned:

Tissue samples were taken Tuesday from the remains of Yasser Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader who died in 2004, as part of an inquiry into whether he might have been poisoned, Palestinian officials said.

Does The Arab World Actually Care How Arafat Died?

There was a time when such a question would have been answered in the affirmative, but does the same hold true today?

Guy Bechor suggests that the today, there really is not that much interest in whether Arafat died from Polonium poisoning. Instead, the most interested party appears to be Al Jazeera--which is not to say that Palestinians don't believe Israel did it.

Indeed, the way Bechor describes it, this is a battle by Al Jazeera to control the anti-Israel Palestinian agenda, which has been sitting on the back burner in light of the more pressing issues facing the Arab world in general.

Arafat's Death: Polonium Conspiracy Vs. Polonium Fact

We have never said there was Polonium poisoning. Yes, we found Polonium 210 in more elevated levels than what one might have expected, but the clinical description of Chairman Arafat's symptoms prior to his death is not compatible with Polonium poisoning.
Darcy Christen, spokesman for the Swiss laboratory that examined Arafat's personal effects at the request of Suha Arafat and Al Jazeera

In Those Stupid Arafat Conspiracy Theories, Omri Ceren writes about the blatant contradictions between the latest conspiracy theories about the death of Arafat and the facts about Polonium.

The Middle East Media Sampler 7/6/2012: Media Fixated On Arafat And Polonium

From DG:

1) Phony PoLOnium

The efforts to explain the "news" that Israel killed Yasser Arafat continues.

The Washington Post helps out with As Arafat polonium mystery swirls, a look at the radioactive element’s deadly properties by the AP. This is a disgraceful piece of work filled with innuendo. 

While it informs the reader of what Polonium is and how it kills, it never ties Israel to killing Arafat, except by implication:

Barry Rubin: Yasir Arafat Is Still Dead and We Know Who Really Did Him In

Yasir Arafat Is Still Dead
and We Know Who Really Did Him In

by Barry Rubin

Yasir Arafat is still dead. True, he was once alive. I sat across from him in his Gaza office, for example. And he even had a copy of my history of the PLO on his book shelf so he must have been of sound mind at the time. It's not my fault. I told him to start jogging and cut down on sweets.But he didn't listen. On November 4, 2004, he died, a fate he previously delivered to thousands of far more innocent people.

The effort now by various Palestinian factions to imply Israel killed him is the funniest thing in the Middle East since the CIA director’s congressional briefing when he said the Muslim Brotherhood was a secular democratic organization. What’s dismaying is how much play Western media are giving this charge as if it should be taken seriously. When the West behaves in this way it signals at the least a dangerously naive credulousness and amnesia; at worst, it signals a profound anti-Jewish and anti-Israel complex on their part.

Analyst Finds The Polonium That Supposedly Killed Arafat Was Planted

The Jerusalem Post is reporting about an analyst who concludes that Polonium found on Arafat's clothing was planted

Dr. Ely Karmon, of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center's Institute for Counter-Terrorism, is a specialist in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism.

Responding to an Al Jazeera report publishedWednesday, which said that specialists at the Institut de Radiophysique in Lausanne, Switzerland, discovered abnormally high levels of polonium on Arafat's belongings, Karmon said that the half life of the substance would make it impossible for polonium to have been discovered at such high levels if it had been used to kill Arafat eight years ago.

According to the Al-Jazeera report, polonium has a half-life of 138 days, "meaning that half of the substance decays roughly every four-and-a-half months."

And yet, eight years after Arafat's death, the Swiss scientists reported finding polonium levels of 54mBq and 180mBq on his belonging, considered to be high levels.
"If it had been used to for poisoning, minimal levels should be seen now. Yet much higher levels were found. Someone planted the polonium much later," Karmon said.
"Because of the half life of the substance, the conclusion is that the polonium is much more fresh," he added.

Another issue related to the strength of the Polonium is fairly matter-of-fact: if indeed Suha Arafat is telling the truth and has been holding onto these contaminated articles all this time, why isn't she sick?

After all, didn't she come into contact with Arafat himself when he was in the hospital?

We will just have to wait for the rest of the media to catch up.

Technorati Tag: Arafat and Polonium.

Stuck On Stupid: The Media Jumps Into The Arafat Poisoning "Story"

Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight. And if you don't understand, maybe you'll confuse it to the people.
Lieutenant General Honore addressing reporters about New Orleans evac plan for Hurricane Rita

With Al Jazeera reporting on an investigation that Arafat's death may have been due to polonium poisoning, the media has jumped on the bandwagon.

Video: In 2007, French Medical Investigators Concluded Arafat Died Of AIDS

Al-Jazeera has reported that a Swiss lab found high levels of radioactive polonium in the clothes of Yasser Arafat--eight years after he died. Al-Jazeera is claiming that though the findings are not conclusive, these findings may prove Arafat could have been poisoned.

However, as Palestinian Media Watch reports, in 2007, Ahmad Jibril, head of the PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command) told Al-Manar TV (Hezbollah) that at a meeting with PA Chairman Abbas, he was told by one of the Palestinian delegation that the French medical report concluded that Arafat died of AIDS: