Arafat 'in a coma'

[ze_dscherman]

Yasser Arafat has lost consciousness repeatedly in recent hours and there are reports that he has lapsed into a coma.
Citing a senior Palestinian official, Reuters said that the frail Palestinian leader had gone into a coma and was in a critical condition.

The Associated Press quoted other Palestinian officials as unable to say whether Mr Arafat was in a coma, but confirming that he had been losing consciousness.

It emerged earlier that he was rushed into intensive care yesterday at the military hospital on the outskirts of Paris where he has been receiving treatment since last week.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1343098,00.html

[Birthmark]

1. Now there's a guy I won't miss.

[smurfygirl]

2. i think he was poisoned.

that would explain his rapid sickness that's gonna kill him.

[Fire Bush]

5. Huh?

They guy's been going down hill for a long time.

[JI7]

6. he is old and has been sick for a long time

[drdon326]

9. I'm sure you have some proof of that statement.

.

[Lexingtonian]

12. actually, his illness is pretty reasonable

It was reported to be some kind of blood disorder. Well, people of that age in that part of the world have a pretty high rate of blood disorders where some of the different kinds of blood cells needed aren't made.

Leukemia is the most well known- white blood cells are made and red ones almost completely stop being made, being hijacked into forming the white kind (it seems), The initial symptoms of leukemia mostly resemble those of anemias, and include infections.

But there's a less well known kind of blood disorder called 'cytopenias' or bone marrow failure. It's rare but seems to occur more with old age. The bone marrow just stops making some kind of blood cell, or several of them, and the effect is of strong anemias- most of them make the person incredibly prone to infection after while.

I haven't been able to follow Arafat's medical story well- not that they're trying to keep us up to date- but it sounds like he was diagnosed with something like pneumonia and anemia in Ramallah, which often indicates leukemia. In Paris they probably stablized/treated the pneumonia immediately (it poses a cardiac risk) and did the tests for leukemia, which were negative. But if it's actually cytopenia then they can't do much more than give him typed blood, which has no white blood cells, at this point. And he'll succumb to some infection because there isn't enough immune system left to fight it. I'd guess he has hours left, maybe days.

Even if there were a radical emergency intervention of some kind, like a bone marrow transplant, it probably couldn't get done in time to work. And he's over eighty, which makes surgery and extraordinary measures of similar magnitude an ordeal far beyond the additional life gained, sad to say.

Well, politically he/Sheikh Yassin and Sharon/Begin have existed to represent their generations in struggle for what kind of society(ies) to have in I/P. They've fought like the Semitic kings of three millenia ago, became each others' raison d'etre. Neither Arafat nor Sharon have heirs they approve of. But with their passing (and that of their age cohort) they leave their power to people raised after the war and division of '48, people who can bear some larger measure of compromise.

[M155Y_A1CH]

14. Officially denied but........

I don't blame you for saying that
because of the way he fell ill.
It began as a stomach ailment right after Ramadan
feasting had begun and continued as such for two weeks
before the blood symptoms showed up.

It doesn't prove poisoning but
it sure makes it a possibility.

Missy

[JI7]

3. without Arafat in the picture

i wonder how things will be.

[davepc]

4. civil war

then hopefully moderates in power and a real peace deal

[4dsc]

7. Not with the terrorist Sharon in power

Sharon and Arafat are of the same cloth!!

[ET Awful]

8. Bingo. Sharon is nothing more than a war criminal. n/t

[molly]

11. Better we hope

[Dukakis88]

10. Morrissey issues press release...

Arafat in a coma, I know
I know - it's serious
Arafat in a coma, I know
I know - it's really serious

There were times when I could
Have "murdered" him
(But you know, I would hate
Anything to happen to him)

NO, I DON'T WANT TO SEE HIM

Do you really think
He'll pull through ?
Do you really think
He'll pull through ?
Do ...

Arafat in a coma, I know
I know - it's serious
My, my, my, my, my, my rebel, goodbye

There were times when I could
Have "strangled" him
(But you know, I would hate
Anything to happen to him)
WOULD YOU PLEASE
LET ME SEE HIM!

Do you really think
He'll pull through ?
Do you really think
He'll pull through ?
Do ...
Let me whisper my last goodbyes

I know - IT'S SERIOUS

[NashVegas]

15. I Think "Yasser In a Coma"

would work better.

[Dukakis88]

16. Yes, sir!

[BiggJawn]

13. When he goes, who will be the Likudnik's next Bogeyman?

They've been blaming Arafat for YEARS.

It's Arafat's fault bulldozers knock down shacks with people still inside them, Arafat's fault helicopters fire rockets into markets, Arafat orders the suicide bombers, etc.

Who they gonna use as an easy excuse to continue stepping on people now?

[carolinalady]

17. Rumor on Trackin terrorism.com--he has died.--unconfirmed

[MADem]

18. MSNBC just reported that rumor, as a rumor

...on a possibly unrelated note, the idiot boyking weecowboy will be conducting his 16th press conference of his reign shortly. Wonder if he will be wearing his "bullet proof vest?"

YEP, they are NOW saying the BULGE was a VEST. Can't have a chickenshit LOOKING like a chickenshit during the debates, can we? Or maybe that is the excuse so that he can be safely fed his lines while claiming that he is wearing the protection denied to our soldiers in Iraq?

Read all about it in the Hill, if you can stomach the bullshit!
http://www.hillnews.com/under_dome/110404.aspx

[hippiechick]

19. Just heard on DeutscheWelle radio that he's dead. n/t