Al-Jazeera now has the dubious distinction of being banned by both the Israeli and Palestinian governments for being biased against them.

I don’t believe that Mahmoud Abbas conspired with Israel to kill Yasser Arafat—neither does Qadoumi—here’s the transcript from an interesting video clip made after Arafat died…

“Following is an excerpt from an interview with Ahmad Jibril, Secretary-General of the PFLP General Command, which aired on Al-Manar TV on July 5, 2007:
Ahmad Jibril:

‘When Abu Mazen came to Damascus with his team, I asked them: ”What happened to the investigation into the death of Abu Ammar [Arafat]? The Israelis killed him. He was my colleague ever since 1965 and used to sleep at my home. He and I followed the same path.” Is it conceivable that when Rafiq Al-Hariri was killed, all hell broke loose, even though he was just a merchant in Saudi Arabia, who later entered politics, whereas the death of Yasser Arafat, who for 40 years had been carrying his gun from one place to another, is not investigated? Is this conceivable? They were silent, and then one of them said to me: ‘To be honest, the French gave us the medical report that stated that the cause of Abu Ammar’s death was AIDS.’ I am not saying this, they did. Now they pretend that they miss Yasser Arafat and complain that [Hamas] entered his house in [Gaza] and so on... I say to every honorable member of the Fatah movement that he should be happy that we got rid of the plague, which had been imposed upon them and upon the Palestinian people. The Fatah movement now has an opportunity to renew itself.”

http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1507.htm

This explanation seems much more likely, although the PA will never admit it publicly—just the thought of Arafat dying of AIDS would destroy his reputation as a freedom fighter among the Palestinians. It does explain a lot of other things, though—such as why Souha Arafat went to live in Paris (where their daughter, who may be HIV-positive, can be treated with more anonymity than would have been possible otherwise) and why the PA gave her such a generous “widow’s settlement”.

It would also explain why the PA refused to conduct an autopsy.