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:

"When [PA Chairman] Mahmoud Abbas came to Damascus, I asked: "What was found in the [medical] inquiry of the death of brother Arafat?" One [of the delegation] said: "Frankly, the French gave us the medical report, and the cause of Arafat's death was AIDS."
[Al-Manar (Hezbollah TV), July 5, 2007]

So what is going on?

• Why is this being brought up now--is Al Jazeera trying to embarrass Abbas and the Palestinian Authority?
• Since the Palestinian Arabs have not released the medical report nor let the French doctors speak, could there be something in the medical report that is embarrassing to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority?
• Why is Abbas stalling on exhuming Arafat's body? (hat tip: Challah Hu Akbar)

Technorati Tag: Arafat.