Comatose Arafat clings to life

Yasser Arafat clung on to life today and is not brain dead, his spokeswoman said.

But she acknowledged the ailing Palestinian leader was “between life and death” in a French hospital.

Doctors still had no diagnosis, but anxious Palestinian officials were already looking for ways to prevent unrest if their 75-year-old leader dies.

Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, strongly denied persistent reports in French and Israeli media that Arafat was being kept alive on life support.

“I can assure you that there is no brain death,” she said. “He is in a coma. We don’t know the type but it’s a reversible coma. Today we can say that, given his condition and age, he is at a critical point between life and death.”

At the Percy Military Training Hospital outside Paris, a dozen supporters continued to hold a vigil for the man who many Palestinians revere but Israel and the United States have shunned as a terrorist.

“You are always in our hearts,” said one sign. Another evoked the ultimately failed 1990s peace process: “The man of peace who reached out to Yitzhak Rabin.” Small candles flickered and a bouquet of roses lay on a portrait of Arafat on the ground.

In Gaza City, Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath denied that Arafat was clinically dead or on a life support system, but voiced concern that there had been no notable improvement.

“He’s in a critical condition, he’s not improving and that’s what is really causing our anxiety,” he said.

“We don’t have a proper diagnosis yet. We don’t know why this situation is, but it is not deteriorating either.”

Since Arafat was airlifted a week ago to a French military hospital from the West Bank, his condition has largely remained a mystery.

French doctors said yesterday that he had been rushed to intensive care after his condition became “more complex,” and that he had been moved to a specialist unit there “adapted to his pathology.” They did not say what that pathology was.

Shahid suggested the coma occurred after he was put under anaesthesia to have additional medical tests, including an endoscopy, colonoscopy and a biopsy of the spinal cord.

Endoscopy and colonoscopy, where a camera is threaded down the throat and up the colon to inspect the intestine, do not involve anaesthesia – but a spinal cord biopsy might.

Experts say it is highly unlikely that Arafat’s coma was caused by a reaction to a general anaesthetic and that it is far more probable that deterioration in his underlying illness led to the coma.

“He may or may not wake up,” Shahid said, adding that ”all vital organs are functioning.”

Shahid’s comments echoed those of a Palestinian official in Gaza who is close to Arafat’s wife, Suha. He said Suha Arafat told him her husband became unconscious after receiving a strong anaesthetic for a biopsy.

Doctors have determined Arafat is not suffering from stomach cancer, Shahid said. Earlier this week, a medical statement drafted by the hospital said that initial tests had also ruled out leukaemia.

Adding to the uncertainty, Israel’s Justice Minister Yosef Lapid said today that the Palestinian leader was being kept alive artificially, but the source of his information was not clear.

“We all know that clinically he is dead but we won’t interfere with internal Palestinian affairs. They’ll announce his death when they find it proper,” he said.

A prolonged Arafat incapacitation – or death – could have profound impact on the Middle East.

There are fears of unrest among Palestinian factions, which Arafat, viewed as a national symbol by even some who opposed him, was largely able to prevent. Furthermore, chaos in the West Bank and Gaza could make any cooperation with Israel even more difficult.

On the other hand, Israel and the United States have in recent years shunned Arafat as a terrorist and an obstacle to peace, and his replacement by a new leadership could open the door to renewed peace talks. Such a scenario could affect Israel’s current plans to pull soldiers and settlers out of the Gaza Strip in a unilateral move not coordinated with the Palestinians.

Palestinian leaders held an emergency meeting in the West Bank on how to prevent unrest if Arafat dies.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia assumed some of Arafat’s financial powers, and was to head to the Gaza Strip today to order security chiefs to show solidarity and not fight during this difficult time, a Palestinian official said.

The Israeli army, meanwhile, is on high alert and has a plan to deal with the fallout from Arafat’s death, including possible Palestinian riots. The Israeli military had not yet moved forces to anticipated problem areas, but commanders were told to be on standby.

If Arafat died, an immediate dilemma would be where to bury him. He has expressed a wish to be buried in Jerusalem – which both sides claim as their capital – but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has ruled this out.

“They (the Palestinians) will choose where to bury him, but he will not be buried in Jerusalem because Jerusalem is the city where Jewish kings are buried and not Arab terrorists,” Lapid said today.

Army chiefs say they are opposed to Arafat’s burial in Jerusalem or the nearby suburb of Abu Dis in the West Bank. Arafat’s family has a plot in the Gaza Strip.