Arafat's eating habits

Here is one of the more disturbing images I've come across. Ever.

In an interview with Yediot this weekend, Ehud Ya'ari, Israeli Channel 2's highly respected analyst for Arab Affairs, describes his last meeting with Yassir Arafat, three months before Arafat's death. Yaari went to visit him in the Muqata, and says (translation mine):

"We met for dinner. He didn't know he was ill, and I didn't know. He approached me through a middle man, and asked that I come to visit him to see what's going on. He didn't let anyone into the room. Me, him and the man in whose car I came.... So we ate, we talked. He talked and talked, was very friendly. He knew how to open the tap of personal charm when he wanted to. He had a habit of feeding you with his hand into your mouth. So the whole evening, he fed me."

Thanks Ehud. That will take me quite a while to get rid of.

But wait. It gets better. The interviewer, Uri Misgav, has a killer follow-up question: "Was it tasty?"

Yaari continues:

"We ate makloubeh. It wasn't great. Listen, there was no woman in the muqata, it was very obvious. There was no one to supervise. His clothes were not clean, I got the impression he wasn't taken care of the way you need to..."

I really hope he made sure Arafat washed his hands before he hand-fed him supper....