The Palestinian Authority is now facing financial catastrophe. The Trump Administration’s ending of all US aid — hundreds of millions of dollars –to the PA, its ending of American contributions to UNRWA, and the Israeli government’s decision to cut transfers of taxes on imports it collects for the PA by the amount the PA gives to terrorists and their families, has left the PA facing the deepest financial crisis of its existence. Both the American and Israeli governments insist they will not restore any aid (US) or cuts in tax money transferred (Israel), until the PA stops paying stipends to terrorists and their families — the “Pay For Slay” program that assures murderers of lifetime payments to them and their families.
In February, Israel announced that it would cut by $138 million a year, or 6% of the total, the amount it had been transferring to the Palestinian Authority from taxes on imports that reach the West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip via Israeli ports.
The deducted sum represents the amount of money paid by the Authority to terrorists and their families.
Because Israel is now deducting $11.6 million a month from the tax revenues it previously transferred to the PA, Abbas has decided he will not accept any money from Israel until the full amount is restored. He is thus foregoing nearly $140 million per month from the Israelis.
Never mind that he has had to slash the salaries for government employees by at least 50%,and also to let others go, on top of those whom UNRWA had to fire when the Americans ended their contribution to that group. Abbas insists he will never “surrender” to Israel’s demands; he would apparently rather forego both the American aid and all the tax money transferred from Israel, rather than end the Pay-For-Play program. He is more willing to push his people into even greater poverty than to end his support for terrorists.
Here is the television address he gave on April 29, 2019, where Israel is blamed for the PA’s financial crisis:
Mahmoud Abbas: “Our life is full of hardships, but some hardships can be overcome with some effort, while some hardships are very difficult to overcome. The hardships we are about to face are very difficult, for many reasons. First of all, as of late, we have had a financial crisis on our hands – a financial crisis that was brought about by the Israeli government, when it decided to deduct [from money it owes us] the sum [that we pay to the families]of the martyrs, the prisoners, and the wounded.
In Abbas’s view, the PA’s financial crisis is caused solely by the Israeli government. It has nothing to do with rampant corruption and fiscal mismanagement by Abbas and his henchman. He makes no mention about the ending of American aid to the PA, which he could restore overnight if he ended the “Pay-For-Slay” program. He mentions briefly that Israel has been perfectly willing to continue collecting taxes for the PA, deducting only the amount the PA provides terrorists (or as Abbas puts it, “martyrs”) and their families. It is Abbas’s decision to continue “Pay-For-Slay,” and his further decision to refuse all taxes collected by Israel for the PA, as long as the Jewish state deducts from those taxes to be transferred the amount the PA gives for “Pay-For-Slay.”
“Our position on this issue was, and still is, clear: We refuse to receive the money if any amount is missing from it, especially the amount that we pay to the families of] the martyrs, or any other amount that they owe us.”
Abbas thinks he can pressure the Israelis into restoring the amount they now deduct from the taxes they collect on behalf of the Palestinians. He apparently believes that the Israelis are worried about the economic collapse of the PA in the West Bank. But they aren’t. Israel knows the “Arab brothers” will in the end continue to shore up — but just barely — the Palestinians.
At the last Arab League meeting, Abbas’s fellow Arabs agreed to give the PA $100 million dollars a month. And Qatar by itself has agreed to give $480 million to the PA.. Not enough to cause jubilation in Ramallah — Abbas will keep his mournful expression and his hands out for more,–but enough to keep the PA afloat.
“The European position – and I do not want to say that it is 100% just – has started to [show] understanding. Therefore, Mrs. Mogherini said in the Arab League summit in Tunisia: ‘We support the two-state solution, and we are against moving [embassies] to Jerusalem and other matters.’ Of course, not everything is in our favor, but it is a good thing that such a position is coming from Europe. This is what we have historically become used to, because as you all know… It is Europe that invented – and this slightly annoys our neighbors… [Europe] invented Zionism and Israel. Let’s not fool ourselves. This is what history says. Whoever has something that refutes this history, go ahead…”
It was not Europe, but Jews in Europe–a very different thing — who first proposed, promoted, and politicked for Zionism. It was Theodor Herzl at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, with his belief that Jews could settle in and rebuild their ancient homeland as a Jewish state. He was , followed by other Zionists, who created, and raised money for, the Jewish National Fund, buying land in Ottoman Palestine for Jewish settlement.
It was the Jews who, even before the period of the Mandate, went to the “desolate waste” of Palestine, as Mark Twain had described it in the 19th century, to resurrect old cities, including the four holy cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed,and Tiberias, and to build new cities, as the Jewish city of Tel Aviv, and to undertake impressive projects of land reclamation, famously making the desert bloom.
During the Mandatory period, the Jews were seldom helped by the British in Palestine, many of whom opposed Zionism, and wished it to fail. During World War II the British prevented Jews fleeing the Nazis from finding refuge in Palestine. During the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49, while the British provided arms to both Egypt and Iraq, and armed, trained, and officered Jordan’s Arab Legion, the Jews had to rely mostly on small arms that they managed to smuggle in with the help of fellow Jews abroad, as well as on a hodgepodge of civilian planes converted to military use, or assembled by cannibalizing parts from damaged planes left by the British; most important for the fledgling air force were 60 reconditioned Messerschmitts sold to Israel by the Czech government.
Abbas wants to blame Europe for “Zionism” in order to make the Europeans feel guilty about their supposed role in the creation of Israel, so that they will now want to make amends by taking the “Palestinian” side against the Jewish state. He cannot allow himself to recognize the truth: the Jewish state was a product of immense Jewish effort.
Jews themselves bought the land, often at inflated prices, from absentee landlords in Beirut and Amman. Jews built the Jewish state quite literally, turning desolate wastes into cities and farms; agriculture was revived; roads constructed; factories built, Western-level hospitals and universities founded. Some Jews who had known only city life in Europe became in Eretz Israel farmers and manual laborers. It was the Jews alone who defended their state’s existence from the attempt by the Arabs to snuff out its young life in 1948; it was Jews alone who fought off repeated attempts by the Arabs, in 1967 and 1973, to crush them.
Just as Nasser in 1967 could not admit that Israel alone had defeated three Arab armies, and instead concocted a story about American and British planes helping the Israelis, so Abbas cannot bear to attribute Israel’s continued spectacular success to the Jews of Israel. “Zionism” and “Israel” for Abbas are the creations of an ill-defined “Europe” and it is”Europe” that must pay reparations for all the harm it has done “Palestinians.”
[…] “Let me tell you – and I am not bragging – that we have a democracy that is better than that of many of the most important democratic countries in the world. For example, there is election fraud in the United States. What proves this is the talk about election fraud and [foreign] interference. We did not have any election fraud here.
Abbas claims that the “Palestinian” democracy “is better than that of the most important democratic countries in the world.” Why is that? Because in the U.S.,for example, there is ”election fraud” and [foreign–i.e.Russian] interference. In the last national election, there was a single instance of provable voter fraud in one Congressional district in North Carolina. Other charges of such fraud in that election have been made in a handful of places, but nothing has been proven.
But what is so amusing about Abbas’ charge is that there is no election fraud in the “Palestinian” democracy because there are no — or very rarely — elections.
No need for Abbas to engage in election fraud, for he was last elected President in 2004, for a term that was supposed to expire in 2009. Ten years later, without any popular elections, Abbas is still there as President. He’s discovered the best way to avoid election fraud: don’t hold elections..
[…] “Of course, we have asked the [Arab] brothers for a safety net. Allah willing… I mean, we do not have high hopes, but Allah willing, something will happen. We asked for 100 million dollars…”
Question: “A month?”
Mahmoud Abbas: “Yes, as a safety net. We told them that we will take it as a debt… We will take it as a loan. Give it to us and we will give it back. We will give your money back, especially since Israel will give back the money it took from us, sooner or later. But [Israel] will return the money according to our terms, not theirs. As soon as we get our money, we will pay our debt to you. Even on the debt offer, we have not received a response. But we have to endure and be patient.”
Abbas seems here to be doubtful that his “Arab brothers” will come through with his request for $100 million a month.”We do not have high hopes,” he admits dolefully. Yet he made this television address on April 29, and the week before, at a meeting of the Arab League, his “Arab brothers” pledged to give the PA $100 million a month.
Was he still not certain that they meant it, and so he wanted to put on a sorrowful mien and suggest that it might not be coming, so as to ensure that it would? What is most maddening about this is that Abbas, who with his sons Tareq and Yasser has accumulated a family fortune of $400 million, and has no money worries of his own.
Yet he is willing to forego the entire amount that Israel collects in taxes for the PA, $138 million monthly, to show how admirably uncompromising he can be. He’s standing on principle: the principle that terrorists and their families must be supported no matter what damage is done to ordinary people in the West Bank and Gaza. Add to that self-inflicted loss of tax money from Israel the many hundreds of millions pf dollars in American aid to the PA that has been cut, again because of Abbas’ refusal to end the program of giving money to terrorists and their families.
Many “Palestinians” do not wish to remain in thrall to Abbas’ policy, and would rather receive the American aid money, and the tax money Israel has collected on behalf of the Palestinians, than continue with “Pay-For-Slay.” As salaries continue to be` cut, and unemployment rises inexorably in the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian anxiety rises. No polls will be allowed that ask about current support for Abbas’s “Pay-For-Slay”policy and its consequences, because Abbas cannot risk the likely negative results.
For now, Abbas has been saved — just –by two new sources of funds. At the Arab League meeting in Tunisia on May 21, they were promised $100 million a month. And part of the latest ceasefire, Israel is allowing, Qatar to transfer $480 million to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. But the Palestinians will still be living on the edge; the amounts they will now receive are less than half the amount the P.A. will lose from the complete cessation of American aid and from Abbas’ refusal to accept any of the taxes that Israel collects for the Palestinians each month. Qatar’s $480 million is equivalent to little more than two months’ worth of those Israeli-collected taxes and the American aid that was cut.
And this brings us to a different offer that dwarfs that of Qatar — the $10 billion that Saudi Arabia has apparently offered Abbas if he accepts the Middle East peace plan of the Americans, Trump’s “Deal of the Century.” We know that that “deal” will leave Israel in control of much of the West Bank and of Jerusalem.
The proposed “Palestinian” capital will be the Jerusalem suburb of Abu Dis,which the “Palestinians” are free to consider, and describe, as a matter of saving face, as part of Jerusalem. $10 billion is an awful lot of money for Mahmoud Abbas to turn down. But he may well do so, depicting himself as bravely withstanding a “sinister attempt to bribe the Palestinian people and their elected representatives [!] to give up part of their homeland.” This will make him into a heroic figure for some “Palestinians,” especially those in his inner circle who have already helped themselves to millions in aid money and need not worry. But Abbas will be scorned as indifferent to the plight of people facing ever-increasing levels of poverty, people who care less about the “struggle for Palestine” on which President-For-Life Mahmoud Abbas has grown rich, and are increasingly anxious about their own catastrophic economic condition. It is Abbas who is refusing the taxes collected by Israel on behalf of the PA; as long as Israel deducts a sum equal to what the PA supplies to terrorists and their families, Abbas refuses all of it. He thinks Israel is terrified of the economic collapse of the PA and will have to give in; he’s dead wrong.
The Palestinian economy will hobble long, and as happened several months ago, protests by impoverished “Palestinians” will again erupt. There will be demands that Abbas accept the $10 billion from the Saudis, even with the conditions that Riyadh has set out. Not all “Palestinians” are willing to sacrifice their own wellbeing for the so-called “martyrs.” With PA salaries already cut by 50% in less than half a year, with many more cuts to follow, with a 50% unemployment rate (70% for younger workers) among Palestinians, how long will Palestinian Arabs want to endure great hardship in order that Mahmoud Abbas, who already has his $400 million, can present himself as a heroically uncompromising upholder of “Palestinian” rights, even as he dips into the Authority’s diminished till, for his own family’s benefit, yet again?