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Palestinians thank France. (AP)
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| By israelinsider staff November 27, 2004 |
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Israel's ambassador criticised the French government for issuing a death certificate for Yasser Arafat stating his place of birth as Jerusalem.
"I cannot understand how the French government agreed to issue a death certificate based on false information," ambassador Nissim Zvili told a press conference in Montpellier.
Municipal officials at Clamart, the suburb of Paris where Arafat died on November 11, said they issued the document based of a family record book issued by the French foreign ministry in 1996, after Suha Arafat became a naturalized citizen of the Third Republic.
Arafat was born Mohammed Abdel-Rawf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Hussaini, on August 4, 1929.
While his official biography claims he was born in Jerusalem, numerous biographers agree that he was born in Cairo, where his Gaza-born father owned a business.
Zvili said the affair was "very badly perceived in Israel", adding that those responsible for issuing the "false document" could be subject to a legal process.
"I don't understand how when Arafat arrived in France he had been born in Cairo and when he left France he had been born in Jerusalem," he said.
He dismissed speculation that Arafat had been poisoned.
"There was a poisoning, but it wasn't of Arafat, but of public opinion in France, in Arab countries and among the Palestinian people," he said.
Last month, Zvili said that a growing number of members of the Jewish community in France are questioning their whole future in the country amid a rise in anti-Semitism.
"The phenomenon of anti-Semitism in France has reached worrying proportions. There have been lots of attacks against Jews, against people and their possessions, and fear is becoming deep-rooted in the Jewish community," he said.
Between 2,000-2,500 Jews are leaving France each year for Israel, according to the ambassador.
The Jewish community in France, at about 700,000, is the largest within the European Union.
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