The diagnosis of the day is liver failure. Not something I would wish on anyone, even a radical Islamic terrorist, since I watched my father die of it nearly a decade ago. However, if I had been given the choice between my father or a radical Islamic terrorist dying like this, I would have had to say bye-bye Arafat.

Yasser Arafat lay critically ill with liver failure on Sunday and his condition was getting no better, a Palestinian official said, as Palestinian leaders adopted in his absence a plan to restore order in their areas.

Israel completed preparations to bury the Palestinian president, should he die, in the Gaza Strip -- a move that would contradict Arafat's stated desire to be buried in Jerusalem.

It should say something about the life a man has lived, when he is to be denied the choice of final resting place. Jerusalem, usually so accommodating in situations such as this, will not have him. I compare it to the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris that has been trying to evict Jim Morrison since the day he moved in, in an effort to reduce the detritus and trouble left behind by his fans.

Ironically, it is France who is footing the bill for Arafat's medical care. And no one in the country seems to think there is anything wrong with that.

The French government (almost a third of the population in France are the government, by the way) is trying to combat anti-Semitism with ads portraying all of us as the children of Jews, which we are. But this is nothing more than lip service if they can turn around and extend hospitality to the enemy of Israel, and do it with taxes paid by Jewish citizens.

American Jews, however, are not so silent with their opions on harboring Arafat.

In an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on France, the American Board of Rabbis has demanded a worldwide ban on French products.

The New York-based association which promotes Jewish unity abroad voted unanimously to call on Jewish people around the world to boycott everything French: goods, services, and even the language.

The board is outraged at France's providing hospital treatment for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who it describes as a "master terrorist", responsible for "the murder of thousands of infants, children, women, and men."

Association President, Rabbi Mordechai Yitzchok Friedman, said "France's harboring of Arafat, is consistent with its tradition of anti-Semitism and anti-American activities."

The Rabbi said the hosting of Yasser Arafat was an act of terrorism and was in breach of the U.S.'s Global Anti-Semitism Bill, under which the U.S. State Department is to monitor global anti-Semitism and annually rate countries on their treatment of Jews.

To treat a man with proper Western medical care is not the issue here. They are treating him on the hospitality of the house. Chirac is trying to send some kind of political message that is supposed to make him look generous, and remind us all that medicine transcends borders. However, in the eyes of most Jews, and in my eyes as well, the message he is sending is that he cares not for the wishes of 585,000 of his taxpayers. Why should he? When Muslims hold the largest share of the population in France, at 25%, it makes the Jews insignificant. Again.

World War II saw Jews stripped of their belongings, their gold and silver used to pay for the trains and machinery that would ultimately lead to their deaths. Now it's just called taxation.

And yet, the French call Bush the new Hitler? I think not.