Palestinians carry a portrait of Arafat as they march through Ramallah. (AFP)

JERUSALEM, 11 November 2004 — Having decided that Yasser Arafat will not return to his functions, the Palestinian leadership moved yesterday to shape the post-Arafat era.

“The post-Arafat era has started,” said Hannan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Legislative Council (parliament). “An interim government is in place, pending general elections.”

The new leadership decided that Arafat was incapacitated, thus triggering the constitutional mechanisms for choosing a new leadership.

It also approved plans submitted by the Egyptian authorities for a state funeral to be held for Arafat in Cairo.

The leadership also signed an agreement with the Israeli government to have Arafat buried in Ramallah. The site of a mosque demolished by the Israelis in 2002, was chosen as the place where a national mausoleum will be built for Arafat.

The new leadership, headed by Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ahmad Qorei, quashed an effort by elements linked with Suha Arafat to amend the Basic Law, and prevent elections. The proposed amendment, backed by Farouq Kaddoumi, a favorite of Suha to become leader, would have allowed Arafat to continue as president of the Palestinian Authority for as long as he was not officially pronounced dead.

The Palestinian leaders rejected suggestions that Arafat, who was in deepening coma for the fifth straight day, be subjected to euthanasia, or mercy killing, by having his life-support machine switched off.

“We shall never allow that,” said Tayssir Al-Tamimi, a Palestinian religious leader who visited the dying leader in his hospital room near Paris yesterday. “Mercy killing has no place in Islam.”

The row over euthanasia broke out after reports from Paris that a British consultant brought in by the French had advised taking Arafat off the life-support machine to allow him “a dignified end.”

Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian foreign minister, provided fresh information on Arafat’s condition. He said there was still no definite diagnosis and the French doctors could not decide what had led to the sudden deterioration in Arafat’s condition.

Shaath said poisoning had been ruled out and it was also certain that Arafat did not suffer from any form of cancer. The 75-year-old leader was surviving with his heart, still “beating well”, his two lungs and parts of his brain. But his liver and kidneys had stopped functioning altogether.

Shaath said: “He is in the final phase of his life. But there is no possibility of euthanasia.”

This means that the world may never learn the exact cause of Arafat’s death.

As the prospect of life without Arafat took shape, a power struggle seemed to be brewing with at least one faction trying to prevent Mahmoud Abbas from taking over the three key positions of Arafat at the same time.

The positions are the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, the chairmanship of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the secretary-generalship of Al-Fatah.

Under the Basic Law the presidency of the authority goes to Rawhi Fattouh, the current speaker of he Parliament until elections are held in 60 days. But most senior leaders want a consensus behind he candidacy of Mahmoud Abbas to underline Palestinian national unity at this juncture.

Suha and her allies, including Kaddoumi and UN ambassador Nasser Al-Qudwah, Arafat’s cousin, are trying to field a candidate of their own against Abbas.

The group also wants Abbas not to stand for the top Al-Fatah position, thus accepting a measure of power sharing.

The state funeral, whenever it comes, will be a solemn affair with more than 100 heads of state and government, among them President Jacques Chirac of France, King Abdallah of Jordan and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, expected to attend.

The burial place is close to the Muqataa compound where Arafat had been holed in for more than three years. Bulldozers started cleaning the area yesterday, removing the blocs of concrete placed by the Palestinians in 2001 to prevent Israeli helicopters from landing there.