... This is a tough poker hand.
(1) Arafat is at the end of his usefulness to the PA and and he is impotently rattling his dull saber to rally those few radical followers who will still listen to him.
(2) He knows that there is a Sierra 168 HPBT in flight with his name engraved on it and he wants the world to believe he had something to do with a really big explosion that is going to happen after his death.
(3) This is a product of another, seeming physiologically effective, Al Qaeda press leak. Like the bridge/subway/scuba diver/ hollow threats that grips Wall Street and keep our Homeland Defense Generals chasing shadows. In a way these can be considered wins for them even if the act never takes place.
(4) He is aa brother of the evil Islamic Jihad family and he knows something.