Welcome to HARDtalk here in Malta, the current home of Suha Arafat, the
widow of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. It is ten years since
he died and to mark the anniversary, she gives us a rare broadcast
interview about what it was like being married to him, why she
believes he was assassinated and why she has chosen to live here in Malta
and not amongst the Palestinian people who so greatly revered her
husband. Suha Arafat, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. It is ten years
since Yasser Arafat died and he was very much seen as the father of the
Palestinian people. Do you see yourself as their mother? I cannot
consider myself their mother. I am his partner and he was a great
leader. He was the founder of Palestine. The father of all the
Palestinian people and children. I lived this life with him and lived
20 years with him, it was a great honour for me to accompany him, this
great leader, during the most important steps in his life. During
all the suffering and everything he has gone through. Yasser Arafat is
the father of every single Palestinian child and individual in
Palestine. You say that you were with your husband for 20 years and
that he was very protective towards you and your daughter who was born
in 1995. What kind of husband was he, because the foreign editor of
the Arabic language newspaper that is published in London, says that
Yasser Arafat was married to the cause and that he loved the cause
more than he did his wife and daughter? Yes, he is a friend of
mine and he came and witnessed our house, and it was an office at the
same time. I used to see him for five minutes and you go to work. So
it was a part of the cause. I was part of what was going on in his
office. It is not easy but as a Palestinian, I felt, of course, the
responsibility of the suffering of our people so I was sharing with
him, everything he was doing, his daily life and I was accompanying
him in his very difficult life. But since you moved out of Gaza and have
lived in Paris and are now in Malta and living in relative comfort, when
you see the suffering of the Palestinian people as you yourself
have described, those in Gaza who struggle to meet their basic daily
needs, how does that make you feel? Terrible. I feel that I try to do
things for them but it is not easy because I'm not on the ground. I
have words with leaders and people who are humanitarian workers. We try
to help a little bit but it is so difficult. I feel frustrated because
I want to be on the ground and I cannot. Why? It is so difficult. I
don't know how to please everybody, it is not easy. To be the centre
there, if I go with my daughter, everyone would be around us, and
maybe some people I don't want around, but they would not
appreciate my going there with my daughter. There is a lot of a push
to get rid of symbols in the Arab world and we don't have any symbols
anymore. Yasser Arafat was a great symbol and he gathered people all
over the Palestinian places. If he was alive, Hamas would never have
been there. I will ask you about the split between Fatah and Hamas but
you say that the name you have would not please everybody and I would
like to go back to his death in 2004. He was airlifted to a French
military hospital where he died. There are suspicions that you have
voiced, and you have said quite categorically that you believe he
was poisoned, assassinated. And you asked for his body to be exhumed in
2012 to have an examination done. But the fact of the matter is that
there have been three investigations, Swiss, French and
Russian and the latter set he died of natural causes. The Swiss one
said their findings are moderately supportive of the proposition that
his death was the consequence of poisoning and the French
investigation is still ongoing. Why do you believe he was poisoned? I am
most convinced by the Swiss examination. It is at the University
in their radioactive department who are investigating crimes all over
the world. They exhumed the body and said that he had a moderate level of
poison in his body. Polonium, and this is the same thing that killed
the dissident from Russia in 2006 in London. And I'm totally convinced
because we have done all the exams, all the exams possible, he 50
doctors coming from all over France to investigate and they have done
everything. From all over Africa and Asia, you can't imagine, a full body
checkup. What do you believe happened? It is believed he fell ill
after eating a meal? Yes. Let me tell you what a member of the
Palestinian commission of investigation said in June, 2013. If
someone put any sort of poison in his food, it must've been a
Palestinian and maybe there was inside collaboration. Of course. It
would have to have been a Palestinian who could be near him.
Professor David Berkeley who is an international expert in forensic
medicine and who works with Scotland Yard said that it is enough to have
a small dose, like the pen of a needle and it is easy to put it. It
can break down the cells in his body. Was the absolutely fine? He
was fine and healthy. Then all of a sudden he lost all of his senses. He
was very frail and weak and he was only 75 when he died. Yes, and my
husband had never smoked or drank, he was healthy, he was doing
sports, he was eating very healthy, soup and chicken, he was always on a
diet and taking care of himself. I want to ask you this because a
member of the PLO's executive committee on the West Bank said in
November, 2013 that it is now confirmed, according to him, that he
was poisoned and that they need to know who planned it and to
implemented the alleged killing. Do you think we will ever know? I
cannot accuse anybody. It is a murder case as it was expected to be
in France. You say you cannot point the finger... But we all remember
that when he was in hospital in Paris and you went on the media and
you said on television that they are trying to bury him alive, what did
you mean by that? I was in a terrible situation. He was dying and
every person around him wanted to be sure that they would have a position
and wondering who the new president would be and I felt it was a very
ill atmosphere and I was not happy. There were accusations. I was next
to my husband and the media was saying that I was discussing money
and all of this and it was a very difficult time for me. I was under
so much pressure. The leadership from Palestine wanted to make
arguments and it was not the right time, I thought, when he was in a
coma, so I lost my temper and I was under pressure. He had a lot of
enemies but they were stronger when he was in a coma. Palestinian
enemies? And Israeli. And you said that amongst the Palestinians, that
they said that you were talking money. Can you imagine? You said you
feel you have been a victim of character assassination and that
Palestinians have pointed out that you were investigated by the French
authorities in Paris over $11 million that was supposedly put in
Swiss bank accounts in accounts that you controlled. Yes. We are here
filming in your apartment in Malta, so I have to ask you where the money
is? We know now who had the money because there have been serious
investigations into all the leaders. You don't have the money?
If there have been many, we would have seen it. This is character
assassination, not against me but against my husband. It was against
me. We are his inner circle, me and my daughter, so if they want to
attack Yasser Arafat, they attack his wife and daughter. Maybe it is
because you lived in Paris and your mother was a very prominent human
rights activist based in Paris for the Palestinian cause and her late
father was a prominent Palestinian banker and you are from one of the
most well`known Christian families who are Palestinian. Maybe they
thought your connections were very European. You studied at the
Sorbonne. I studied in France. Maybe that doesn't go well with the wife
of the Palestinian people's leader. They feel they are under siege and
struggle. I lived in Paris my whole life and studied there. I had all my
education and I worked in Paris. Paris was always Paris for me and we
were living in a small apartment in Paris but, you know the name Paris,
everyone thought that I was at fashion shows all the time. Nobody
would have seen me at fashion shows. I could not go to any
places. I was born in Palestine and I know the suffering of the
Palestinian people. I have been going to refugee camps with my
family and seeing what the needs are and you cannot judge somebody by
their appearance. I should not be veiled, and to get dressed like my
husband, to be considered a militant. It is in the heart, you
cannot just judge from the outside. You raise this thing about the veil
and how people appear because you are from a Christian family but you
converted to Islam when you married your husband in 1990. You said in an
interview with an Italian newspaper last year that he turned Palestine
into a secular country. People went to the beach in Gaza. He never
imagined it would become an Islamic State and Hamas has taken people
hostage. That is how I feel. If you can do elections in Gaza, I don't
know... You don't like religion? We are secular. We are Muslims and
Jews. My husband was saying you cannot be a good Muslim, you cannot
be a good Christian or a Jew... We are not struggling all our life to
have an Islamic State. But if you wanted it secular... We wanted a
secular state like Lebanon and Jordan. Muslim and secular,
open`minded. If Yasser Arafat was secular, why did he ask you to
convert? He was a Muslim, a real one, and he was open`minded, but you
cannot argue with his religion, he was a real Muslim person and when we
got married, he asked me to convert to Islam and I was honoured. Because
I studied Islam when I was young and my mother would apply just to stay
in the Islam studies class so it was not new to me. It was a tolerant
religion. What they are doing in the name of Islam is unacceptable.
You lived in Paris for many years. How do you explain what happened in
the last few days in Paris? It's terrible. A crime. France opened its
arms to all of these immigrants and gave them all the French
nationality. We can't treat France like this. The country has the light
of lip `` liberty, democracy and fraternity. We have ministers from
Muslim origin and France opened its arms. It's terrible. Are you worried
about a religious day mentioned now to the conflict between the
Palestinians and Israelis? One example. A rabbi, you who do click,
leading the movement for Jews to be able to pray in the compound, the
mosque into Rozelle, he told HARDtalk recently that just as the
Muslims can pray at Temple Mount, so should Christians and Jews. ``
Yehuda Glick. The Palestinian Muslims say this is not something
they can accept. I have to say the Israeli government is not saying
this will happen but it does mean that you are getting a kind of
religious dimension to the conflict, both amongst some Israelis and with
Hamas. This is very provocative. We don't need to put fuel. I don't know
what's going on, it's terrible. That mosque is not just a Palestinian day
mentioned, it is an international and Arab day mentioned, from China
to India to Pakistan. In doing this they are provoking every single
Muslim in the Arab and Muslim world. 1.5 billion Muslims. This is very
dangerous. It will escalate the conflict. This is the problem. There
is no solution for the Palestinian case. It will escalate. This is very
dangerous and alarming, and we don't want to have a religious war in that
area. What about the religious Thai mentioned to what's going on within
the Palestinian movement? `` the religious element. We have Tata, the
more secular branch. In November Palestinians were prevented from
commemorating the 10th anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat. Where
they were going to go was damaged. People trying to gather were
disbursed. Not only disbursed, I was so much offended and so much upset
about what went on. Yasser Arafat is a leader from all over the world. He
is an Arab, an international leader. Hamas has no right to prevent
celebrating the hero of the founder of the Palestinian cause. The
Bluebird stadium, put bombs in front of the leaders' houses. `` they blew
the. I did not appreciate this. I will tell you, we have not had... We
don't have all of these martyrs from Lebanon, Syria, to have a Muslim
state. We want a Muslim laws because I respect the Muslim religions, but
not the state. Anyway, we are not a part... We should not be a part of
the Muslim Brotherhood over the world. This is not religious, this
is a nationalist cause. A nationalist cause and their army
nationalists who aren't Muslims. Yes! `` there are many Muslim
nationalists. Most of the very important leaders were Christians.
We don't want this! The same as Lebanon, one of the party was
Christian. This is not a religious cause and it is very dangerous. We
don't want Palestine to be a Muslim state. You said recently that he
believed the armed struggle is no longer plausible. When you look at
your husband's legacy, with the olive branch in one hand and be gone
in the other, you believe them that he was wrong to think could be an
armed struggle? In the beginning Yasser Arafat was... It's not me who
will judge him. Its history. But now we are leading an equal world. We
had 1000 people killed in one day. It's not equal. We can't do on
calculating risks for our people. We have another refugee camp in Gaza,
we have 500,000 people who are displaced. This is after what
happened in August. Yes! For which price? If there is a price I would
say for which price? But Hamas, before doing something like this,
they have to calculate. They are not alone. There are people in Gaza, the
most crowded city in the world, and they have to protect their people.
They say they build tunnels. Why did they not build shelters? Listen,
come on, they have to recognise. They have to recognise because
there's no other way. Don't tell me now that they are going to banish
Israel from the river to the sea. Are you optimistic that this
alliance between Hamas and Fatah will hold? No, I think they have
different agendas. Both of them. Hamas has to stop being part of the
Muslim Brotherhood all over the world. If it stops, it will
concentrate only on people on the ground, maybe there will be a
solution. But there are two different agendas and I don't
think... There will never be a reconciliation between Hamas and
Fatah. It's ten years since Yasser Arafat died. When you look at the
state of Palestine today, you are no closer to having your state. 2000
people died in Gaza last year, during July and August. There is
some progress made in the diplomatic scene I President Abbas signing the
International Criminal Court, to join that and so on. `` by President
. But Yasser Arafat's legacy hasn't bought the piece he wanted.
President Abbas did not have an easy task. He tried his best to put
Palestine on the ground. He joined the UN in 2012, as a nonmember
observer. He tried to do his best. He said he is and Yasser Arafat,
don't compere me to Yasser Arafat. He has a different way of thinking.
It's not easy to come after Yasser Arafat. Nothing happened because
Israel, you know, continued to settle, continued to build a wall.
Good Yasser Arafat's legacy continued to your daughter? The
daughter of Yasser Arafat? Should share, in time, `` could she become
leader in time? It's a difficult question. It's an honour for us to
have his name, but also a huge burden. She is still young, still
studying, and I don't want to impose. She will choose whatever she
wants. Do you want her to? It's her choice, actually. His legacy, I
assure you, people... Although it Arab leaders have been killed or put
in prison by the people, Yasser Arafat people are still crying on
his tomb and thinking about him as a great hero. His legacy will go on.
Thank you very much for coming on HARDtalk. Thank you.