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Contradiction Dominates Reporting on Arafat

Major news outlets continue to report mixed messages from sources concerning the fate of Yasser Arafat. Apparently he is in a "reversible coma" but not brain dead, his spokeswoman said Friday. "I can assure you that there is no brain death," Leila Shahid, the Palestinian envoy to France, told French RTL radio. "He is in a coma. We don't know the type but it's a reversible coma." [CBS News, Friday]. In fact, Yasser Arafat's condition has not deteriorated in the last 24 hours, a hospital spokesman said Friday, but there was still no word on his diagnosis. [Lebanon Daily Star, Saturday]. However, sources now say that "he is clinically dead". [ABC News]

Update: He has now regained consciousness and communicated with physicians. Doctors expect a diagnosis within three days.

Why the controversy and deception over Arafat's death? Power and a struggle for it. The question is will those who fill the vacuum left by his death be worse than their predecessor?

If a ruler pays attention to falsehood, All his ministers {become} wicked. Prov. 29:12

Arafat embraced a strategy of guerilla warfare and terrorism and lived a life of personal debauchery. His decisions were based on the information from his advisors and those who surrounded him naturally catered to his depravity and became partakers in it. Consequently, I do not expect his successors to be an improvement unless they were previously independent of him.

Posted by tim at November 5, 2004 5:14 PM

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