Report: Israel transferred money to PA in order to prevent economic collapse, but the PA is unwilling to accept the money.
Israel secretly transferred hundreds of millions of shekels to the Palestinian Authority to prevent its collapse – but the Palestinians returned the money, Kan 11 News reported on Sunday.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon discussed this subject during a meeting on Sunday, according to the report. The meeting was also attended by the head of the National Security Council, Meir Ben-Shabbat, and the two discussed the possibility of persuading PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas to accept hundreds of millions of shekels from Israel.
On Saturday, Kahlon met with the official in charge of regional affairs in the Palestinian Authority regarding the economic situation in the PA.
In February, the Israeli Cabinet decided to implement the policy to offset the PA’s payments to terrorists. Immediately after the Cabinet’s decision, the PA announced it would not take the partial sum of the funds from Israel.
Abbas later reiterated that he would not accept partial payment of tax transfers owed by Israel and also stressed that he would not end the financial support for the families of terrorists imprisoned or killed by Israel.
A diplomatic source expressed surprise at the timing of Sunday’s publication, saying that he does not recognize a change in the pattern on either side. “Israel may have tried to transfer money, but the Palestinians made clear in advance that they would not accept it and similar attempts that were made recently were rejected, even in public.”
EU OFFICIAL PROPOSES PALESTINIAN TERRORISM PAYMENTS ON NEEDS BASIS
“The EU is ready to help the PA with technical assistance to organize such a system, Johannes Hahn said.
BY TOVAH LAZAROFF APRIL 30, 2019 22:17
3 minute read.
Payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families should be based on needs rather than merit, a top European Union official proposed on Tuesday, as he sought a compromise proposal that would avert the financial collapse of the Palestinian Authority.
In Brussels on Tuesday, the 15-member Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that meets twice a year to discuss donor funding to the PA, attempted without success to find a resolutions to the PA’s funding crisis. The meeting, chaired by Norway, includes representatives from the EU, the United States, the United Nations, the Arab League, Israel and the PA. It is one of the few international forums where Israelis and Palestinians maintain normal ties.
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The EU Commissioner for the European Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, whose office is in charge of EU financial support to the PA, spoke at the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee about the crisis resulting from the terrorism payment issue.
“We are all aware of the fiscal crisis the PA is facing and of the potential human, social and security consequences. Both sides need to move towards a solution,” he said.
“Israel’s decision to withhold clearance revenues violates current arrangements,” Hahn explained. “At the same time, we do not support the system of Palestinian payments to ‘prisoners and martyrs.’”
Israel has withheld from the PA’s tax revenues the money – estimated by the UN to be $140 million this year – that the PA distributes monthly to terrorists and their families.
To protest the Israeli tax revenue withholding, the PA has refused to accept of tax revenues from Israel, estimated by the UN to make up 65% of its budget. It’s a move that could trigger the collapse of the PA.
In defending the terrorism payments, Palestinians have pointed to the financial straights families of terrorists find themselves in, even though the payment system is sliding scale. The funding increases based on the severity of the crime and the time in jail.
Hahn suggested that the prisoners and their families should be integrated into the PA’s social welfare system, a move that would normalize payments but would also remove any financial incentive for terrorism.
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The EU is ready to help the PA with technical assistance to organize such a system, Hahn said. The EU has not and will not be contributing financially to any social welfare payments to the prisoners and their families.
“We are ready to work with the Palestinian Authority to see how beneficiaries of the current scheme could be integrated on the basis of need rather than any other criteria into the PA’s regular social allowance system,” he stated.
“Should the PA and Israel not find a way out and should the PA’s fiscal situation so require, we would be ready to offer, as an interim measure, to any state, including Israel, to use the EU’s PEGASE system of direct financial support to channel funds, in the secure knowledge that they benefit vetted individuals, including those that are in Gaza,” Hahn said.
In its concluding remarks regarding the meeting, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said that the Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to explore resolutions to the crisis.
‘I am pleased that Israel and the Palestinian Authority are now working actively to solve the ongoing fiscal crisis and conflict over the transfers of tax revenues,” Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide said.
“The major cuts in public services in Palestine cannot continue. Today’s AHLC meeting in Brussels was a good start and a step on the way towards reaching agreement on this issue,” said Søreide.
“The international community cannot cover the financial gap that has now arisen. We will do what we can to support the parties and to help resolve the current crisis,” Søreide said.
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Whaa! Payments to terrorists on the basis of need rather than “merit” What are these governments notions of “merit?” Success in killing Jews? And the Israeli government participating in regular meetings about giving aid to its mortal enemy, the PLO? Even going along with continued payments to “needy” terrorists who have murdered or tried to murder Jews? What kind of kooky, craven government is that? Have Netanyahu and his Cabinet, the Israeli miltary chiefs, etc., gone stark raving mad? The only answer that I can come up with is “yes they have.” And they have been stark raving mad ever since Israel agreed to let the PLO set up a government and bring in an army to Yesha (Judea, Samaria, Gaza), and to hand over a large part of Judea-Samaria, and eventually all of Gaza, to the terrorists. It is long overdue for the Israeli people to take to the streets in large numbers, scream bloody murder, and demand that their government stop this crazy appeasement immediately.
Whaa! Payments to terrorists on the basis of need rather than “merit” What are these governments notions of “merit?” Success in killing Jews? And the Israeli government participating in regular meetings about giving aid to its mortal enemy, the PLO? Even going along with continued payments to “needy” terrorists who have murdered or tried to murder Jews? What kind of kooky, craven government is that? Have Netanyahu and his Cabinet, the Israeli miltary chiefs, etc., gone stark raving mad? The only answer that I can come up with is “yes they have.” And they have been stark raving mad ever since Israel agreed to let the PLO set up a government and bring in an army to Yesha (Judea, Samaria, Gaza), and to hand over a large part of Judea-Samaria, and eventually all of Gaza, to the terrorists. It is long overdue for the Israeli people to take to the streets in large numbers, scream bloody murder, and demand that their government stop this crazy appeasement immediately.
If Mr Netanyahu is so keen, willing and able, to transfer money to ab bas, so that the latter could be provided with the means for his to pay- to -slay more Jews; then clearly, the former does not need my donations.
@ Inna Kreer:
Because then there’d be no partner for peace, haw haw haw.
Why Israel is so afraid of PA collapse?
Looking forward to the collapse, the money could be spent on the additional security needed.
Netanyahu, Kahlon preparing for possible PA collapse
https://worldisraelnews.com/netanyahu-kahlon-preparing-for-possible-pa-collapse/
By World Israel News Staff
Israeli officials are telling the Palestinian Authority (PA) that they will not be intimidated by threats of a financial collapse of the Ramallah regime, although they are preparing for such a scenario.
The PA is refusing to accept Israeli money transfers from tax revenues collected on its behalf to protest Israel’s deduction of the amount equal to that which the Authority pays terrorists and their families.
Israel says that if the Palestinians would cease funneling out the terror payments, it would respond by transferring the full extent of the tax revenues. Jerusalem also argues that the 1994 agreement, part of the Oslo process, according to which Israel collects the tax revenues on behalf of the Palestinians, allows the Israeli foreign minister to freeze the transfer.
According to Israeli figures, the PA spends about seven percent of its budget on stipends to terrorists and their families. The monies that Israel transfers are said to total more than half of the Authority’s budget.
To protest the Israeli cut, Palestinian officials are warning that they might pull out of the Oslo Accords, which granted them self rule during the 1990s in Arab localities located in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon held an emergency meeting on Sunday to prepare for the possibility of a PA collapse. According to a Channel 13 TV report, Kahlon met with a senior PA official on Saturday to discuss the issue.
In an interview with Israeli public broadcaster Kan, former PA Minister of Prisoners Affairs Ashraf al-Ajrami said Monday that “the Authority is refusing to accept the money because Israel is violating agreements.” He expressed overall frustration with the Israeli government and its close relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.
He warned that the PA might take “significant steps” during the coming month, adding that it could include a move to “unequivocally declare that the Oslo accord is dead.”
The outgoing chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Avi Dichter, told Kan that the PA must understand that it cannot “fund terror and also ask Israel to ensure its stability.”