DEBKAfile - Paris Tells Palestinians to Remove Arafat

Friends, DEBKAfile sometimes gets ahead of itself--but what they're now saying about Yasser Arafat makes more sense than the official pronouncements that have come out of Paris, now followed by two days of absolute silence. It would now appear that Yasser Arafat is in what is known in the medical trade as "a persistent vegetative state" and it's all over but the pulling of the plug on the ventilator. Accordingly, Jacques Chirac called our President and asked him to do something about it--again, unconfirmed outside of Debka, but all of a piece with Jacques Chirac's personality, attitude, and past behavior. Neither France nor Egypt nor Jordan want anything to do with his funeral, and the power struggle in Ramallah has just begun.

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