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Ensuing contradictions about Yasser Arafat’s death and the rupture of memory

March 17, 2015 at 4:46 pm

In November 2013, Swiss scientists determined the presence of polonium in the exhumed remains of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, prompting Palestinian factions to react in unison and condemn Arafat’s death as a crime perpetrated by Israel. The results validated Al-Jazeera’s earlier investigations which revealed high levels of polonium in Arafat’s personal belongings.

Statements by Hamas and Tawfiq Tirawi from the Fatah Central Committee following the Swiss report were countered by Israel, despite its record of premeditated assassinations and Ehud Olmert stating in 2003 that killing Arafat was “one of the options”. Similar opinions was expressed by Ariel Sharon in April 2004, who claimed to have been “released from that pledge” with reference to an agreement with the US to refrain from physically harming Arafat.

Last month, Tirawi declared that investigations into the suspicious circumstances of Arafat’s death have yielded information pertaining to the identity of those responsible for his murder but which, so far, has not been publicly revealed.

Recent reports by French experts have taken a contradictory approach to the previous findings by Al-Jazeera and the Swiss forensic experts. According to recent reports, the French “maintain that the polonium 210 and lead 210 found in Arafat’s grave and in the samples are of an environmental nature,” echoing a previous report made by the Russian forensic team.

Rather than focus on the discrepancies between the conflicting results that have added to the impasse, a further investigation determining Israeli involvement and Palestinian collaboration. The emphasis on Arafat’s death should expound upon the intentional rupture of memory enforced by the Palestinian Authority’s refusal to conduct an autopsy immediately after the Palestinian leader’s demise. The ensuing contradiction is, in a way, similar to the suspicious circumstances which led to the deaths of Chile’s Salvador Allende and Pablo Neruda. Late exhumation of their remains have led to inconclusive results and a defined split in memory narrative that pits the dictatorship’s version of events against a certainty of state complicity in murder that is backed with plausible evidence, testimony and documents.

In the case of Palestine, however, rupture of memory plays a strong role in consolidating Israel’s colonial process. Reticence by the PA to launch an immediate investigation into Arafat’s death implies, at the very least, complicity in ensuring the dominance of Israel’s narrative and, in turn, forcing historical narrations formed through complicity upon the Palestinian population. Palestinians, therefore, face the contradiction between their own struggle for memory and the coercion by the PA in its attempts to incarcerate memory within the realm of hypothesis, adding to the restrictions already faced by the population in particular through the colonial imposition and interpretation of Palestinian history.

The manipulation of memory on behalf of the PA, together with the inconclusive results carried out by different forensic teams, constitute a threat to the preservation of memory with regard to the validity of Palestinian resistance. In this scenario, the political dynamic embraced by the PA exhibits subjugation to Israel which, in turn, allows it to benefit from international recognition in return for complicity in restricting resistance and memory.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.