Was Arafat poisoned?

If you believe the claims of levels of Polonium 210 as per the suspect Al Jazeera documentary; suspect not necessarily for it's forensic accuracy as determined by the science but it's editing and agendas as  a pro-Palestinian mouthpiece.....then one might be fine with the concept. Would it surprised me? No. Intelligence agencies have been doing this routinely for centuries to rid themselves of the oppositions leadership. Nothing new.

Edited by Centrix Vigilis - 26-Dec-2012 at 21:23

Originally posted by Nick1986 Two of the most likely suspects: Israelis seeking to eliminate Palestine's leader, and Hamas trying to take over the PLO. Either group could have got their hands on Polonium supplied by Iran, Russia or America

I would ask, who gains the most from a poisoning like this? Yes Israel could have had a hand in it, but would there really have been any advantage to Israel of poisoning Arafat given the political climate within his people? OK, the argument could be put forward that with Hamas being in total control Israel could go in harder against the Palestinians, but the Israelis wouldn't have needed to poison Arafat to do that anyway. My question is this, if the idea of poisoning is put out there, and it is suggested that either Hamas, or someone in Israel is to blame, who gains, and who loses from the concept alone?

Originally posted by Nick1986 It sounds too sophisticated for Hamas. If they wanted Arafat dead they would either shoot him, or blow him up and make it look like an accident. Israel, by contrast, has access to radioactive material and a highly trained secret service. They also have the most to gain from a split within the PLO

If memory serves, Nick, Hamas held much of the power in the Palestinian territories, with Arafat being their only obstacle for taking the rest. What I would ask is this, how come with such a figure as Arafat, with the possibility of underhand methods being used to dispatch him, that tests weren't carried out post mortem?