In a deranged little piece for The Guardian, Uri Avnery shows that he’s the Israeli leftist equivalent of America’s 9/11 Truthers: If Arafat were still alive.

In the meantime, the unanswered questions come up again: how did Yasser Arafat die? Was he murdered?

On the way back from Arafat’s funeral in 2004, I ran into Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli Knesset. I asked him if he believed that Arafat was murdered. Zahalka, a doctor of pharmacology, answered “Yes!” without hesitation. That was my feeling too. But a hunch is not proof. It is only a product of intuition, common sense and experience.

Recently we got a kind of confirmation. Just before he died last month, Uri Dan, Ariel Sharon’s loyal mouthpiece for almost 50 years, published a book in France. It includes a report of a conversation Sharon told him about, with President Bush. Sharon asked for permission to kill Arafat and Bush gave it to him, with the proviso that it must be done undetectably. When Dan asked Sharon whether it had been carried out, Sharon answered: “It’s better not to talk about that.” Dan took this as confirmation.

The secret services of many countries have poisons that are all but undetectable. Ten years ago, Mossad tried to kill Khaled Mashal, the Hamas leader, in broad daylight on a thoroughfare in Amman. He was saved only when the Israeli government was compelled to provide the antidote to the poison it had used. Viktor Yushchenko, the president of Ukraine, was poisoned and saved only when the symptoms were identified by experts in time.

Is there proof Arafat was murdered by Israeli or other agents? No, there is none. This week I again ran into Zahalka, and both of us concluded that the suspicion is growing stronger, together with the conviction that Arafat’s absence is felt now more than ever.

Here’s Avnery (on the right) with the grizzled old murderer himself, flashing the Victory sign in their glory days:

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, center, flashes the ‘V’ sign with Israeli peace activists Latif Dori, center left, Uri Avnery, right, to hundreds of school children who packed into his compound to support him in the West Bank town of Ramallah Saturday, Sept. 13, 2003. The two Israeli activists came to Ramallah to support the Palestinian leader as Israel threatens to send him into exile or further isolate him. Other people are bodyguards. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)