The Palestinian Authority said on Tuesday it will pay public sector workers 60% of their December salaries this week as it grapples with the long running fallout of Israel's refusal to transfer tax funds earmarked for Gaza.Funding to the Palestinian Authority, the body that exercises limited governance in the occupied West Bank, has been severely restricted by the months-long dispute over transferring tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians.Under interim peace accords signed in the early 1990s, Israel collects taxes on the Palestinians' behalf and typically transfers them to the PA monthly on the approval of the finance minister.However, transfers have been stalled since October, when Smotrich withheld around 600 million shekels ($164.51 million) of the total 1 billion shekels due for transfer, prompting the Palestinian Authority, which says Gaza is an integral part of Palestinian territory, to refuse to accept any funds."We cannot accept conditions on our money. We will remain committed to the prisoners and martyrs and to our people in the Gaza Strip, not out of favor, but by virtue of our national, religious, and moral responsibility," Shtayyeh said.
It makes no sense for Israel to pay money that will go to Hamas, which is where all the Gaza money goes, directly or not.
But notice that Israel still is willing to pay the PA over $100 million a month - and the PA refuses it. Because, they say, they want to continue to pay terrorists ("prisoners and martyrs.")
And then the PA whines about having no money!
One other paragraph is most interesting:
Funding from international donors has also been squeezed, falling from 30% of the $6 billion annual budget to around 1%, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said.
That's a drop from $1.8 billion annually to $60 million.
Notice that they don't complain about that drastic cut of funding nearly as much as about Israel's much more modest cut.
And notice that this means that the world is not nearly as pro-Palestinian as it pretends to be.
Because being anti-Israel is not the same as being pro-Palestinian.
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