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Suha's Outburst Infuriates Palestinians

(Jerusalem Post)Matthew Gutman - Suha Arafat's public refusal Monday to permit PA leaders Qurei and Abbas to visit her dying husband catapulted her to the level of national pariah. Dislike of Suha Arafat, said human rights activist Bassem Eid, "is something that most people can agree upon....For us she has become a neighborhood bully." "After four years of calling from Paris, she begins to tell us who our legitimate leaders are," said commentator Muhammad Yaghi. An editor at a Palestinian daily described one of his favorite "Suha moments": Gazans had just completed a food drive for Iraqi children apparently going hungry because of sanctions. Suha had every outgoing box stamped with "a gift from the first lady of Palestine." Suha met her future husband, 34 years her senior, in the offices of former French president Francoise Mitterand. They married in 1991 when she was 28 and he was 62. In 1999 she almost ruined Hillary Clinton's New York Senate run by stating at a joint conference with the former first lady that Israel uses poison gas to disperse demonstrations.
2004-11-09 00:00:00
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