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Stardate
20020330.0925 (Captain's Log): I'm no longer certain that Arafat is going to die. In the original scenario I envisioned, I thought Israel would assault the entire compound without any pause, and that Arafat would "accidentally" catch a bullet in the course of the fighting. But now that Israel has got him surrounded in a small area, they seem to have paused the situation. It's looking more and more like they intend to capture him.
That suggests a different possibility; they intend to hold him incommunicado while they go through the files and documents they've captured, in hopes that they can discover enough incriminating information to discredit him both with the Palestinians and internationally. Afterwards, they might try and imprison him, or exile him. But the idea isn't so much to kill him as to render him powerless. This has advantages; it means he would not be made a martyr, and thus in death could not be a symbol around which the Palestinian cause could be rallied.
If he is still alive by Monday morning, then I think the chance of him dying within the following week is reduced to 1 in 10.
Update: I think they're hoping for three things, all of which are plausible. First, records of illegal arms importation. Second, records of contacts with terrorists which implicate Arafat directly in attacks about which he claimed no knowledge, to show that he privately ordered them and then publicly condemned them. Third and most critically, information indicating that he has stashed large amounts of money somewhere for his own use, e.g. in numbered bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or the like. Each of these would play to a different audience.
The bank accounts would be needed to discredit him with the Palestinians. Arms shipments would discredit him with Americans. Involvement in terrorist attacks would discredit him in Europe. The cumulative effect of them all would be to make Arafat a liability to the Arabs, who would drop him out of embarrassment.
The jackpot would be information tying him to al Qaeda, but that would be too much to hope for.
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