France: Arafat Not Poisoned, Franco Still Dead, Earth Still Orbits Sun

Paris, France (Reuters) – A government-commissioned analysis of the late Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat’s remains has concluded that he did not die of poisoning, as some Palestinians had charged, but by natural causes. Arafat died in 2004 and no autopsy was conducted at the time. The report also noted that Francisco Franco, who took power in Spain in the 1930’s and held office for four decades, is still deceased, and that the Earth continues to make its way around the sun each year.

A resurgence of the poisoning allegations led to Arafat’s exhumation and testing of his remains and personal effects. A Swiss team found evidence consistent with poisoning by polonium-210, a radioactive substance, while a Russian report, soon retracted, found no such evidence. Arafat died in a French military hospital after suffering bouts of intestinal distress. Franco has not come back to life in the meantime, and, perhaps more surprisingly, the sun continues to function as the star around which the Earth moves.

The cluster of revelations in the report is likely to make some political waves, says Middle East analyst Saimold Saimold. “This report comes right on the heels of the Swiss one, which didn’t come to the same conclusion, and which pointedly did not discuss Franco or the Earth’s movement relative to the sun,” he noted, explaining that a man in his seventies with a less-than-stellar diet and personal fitness regimen would simply not die of natural causes unless that same man inhabited a world with actual laws of physics. In the case of the deceased Spanish dictator, who was laid to rest in 1975, objects at rest remain at rest; in the case of Earth, objects in motion remain so – both unless acted upon by an outside force, which has not been demonstrated.

“We are willing to accept the latter two conclusions of the report, as radical as they may be,” said a spokesman for Suha Arafat, the leader’s widow, “but categorically reject the first, as it denies Mrs. Arafat a rhetorical cudgel to aim at enemies” real and perceived, such as Israel and rival PLO figures.

“That the Earth orbits the sun, we will not openly contest, despite its obvious conflict with the Koran,” said Palestine Liberation Organization representative Nabil Shaath, a former confidant of Mr. Arafat. “And the Palestinian people have no objections to the Generalissimo remaining at eternal rest. But the Palestinian people will find it hard to swallow that Israel – or at least some shadowy international conspiracy of Jews – was not behind Abu Amar’s death,” he said, using Mr. Arafat’s nom de guerre.

Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, acknowledged Israel’s role in Arafat’s dying at age 75, saying that if Israel had wanted him dead he would have been killed years earlier.