Israel: “Yeah, Maybe Arafat was Poisoned, But We Didn’t Do It”

Ha’aratz
November 7, 2013

Israeli Energy Minister Silvan Shalom said Thursday that Israel did not poison Yasser Arafat, making the denial after the Palestinian leader’s widow said Swiss forensic tests had proven he died from radioactive polonium poisoning in 2004.

“We never made a decision to harm him physically,” Energy Minister Silvan Shalom, who in 2004 served as foreign minister and as a member of Israel’s security cabinet, told Israel Radio.

“In my opinion, this is a tempest in a tea cup. But even if it was (poisoning), it certainly was not Israel. Maybe someone else inside had thoughts or an interest to do it.”

Arafat’s widow Suha has long insisted foul play was behind her husband’s death and after the publication of the forensic tests said she thought somebody from within the Palestinian leader’s own circle was to blame.

In the West Bank, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization issued a new call for an international investigation into Arafat’s death.

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