Comments

You have commented 358 times on Rantburg.

Your Name

Your e-mail (optional)

Website (optional)

	My Original Nic Pic-a-Nic Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Foto

Submit your comments on this article

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel, PA ink deal to release $500 million in withheld Palestinian tax revenues

2025-01-14

[IsraelTimes] Funds will be used to pay off debt to Israel Electric Corporation; both sides declare victory after agreeing to mechanism that US hopes can be used for release of additional money

Israel and the Paleostinian Authority announced Sunday that they had struck a deal allowing for the release of roughly $500 million in Paleostinian tax revenues for use in electricity and fuel payments to Israel.

Both sides framed the agreement as a victory after months of negotiations, which US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created ... by the — you know — you know, the thing...
’s administration helped mediate, according to a senior Western diplomat familiar with the matter, who said the goal was to use the deal as a framework for the release of additional funds that Israel has been withholding from the PA.

Under interim peace accords reached in the 1990s, Israel’s Finance Ministry collects tax revenues on behalf of the PA and makes monthly transfers to Ramallah, but a dispute broke out over the payments in the wake of Hamas
Hamas

..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.

The Israeli cabinet refused to transfer the portion of the funds that Ramallah uses to pay for services and employees in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, arguing that the money could reach the Hamas terror group. The roughly $75 million in revenues amounts to about a quarter of the entire monthly transfer.

Protesting the move, the PA refused to accept any of the tax revenues, which make up the vast majority of the PA’s annual budget. Unable to pay its employees in full for months, the move has risked Ramallah’s complete financial collapse.

In January 2024, the cabinet approved a framework under which the Gaza portion of the funds would be transferred to Norway, which would then be required to hold onto the funds until Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signed off on their release to the PA.

That mechanism worked for several months, and Smotrich signed off on the release of some of those funds from Norway to the PA.

But then in May, Norway joined Spain and Ireland in formally recognizing a Paleostinian state, infuriating Jerusalem. Smotrich in response announced the end of the agreement involving Norway.

Oslo still had roughly $420 million in Paleostinian tax revenues in its possession, but the Israeli Finance Ministry warned that if those funds were transferred to the PA, Israel would dock that money from subsequent monthly tax revenue transfers.

With the PA’s financial state particularly bleak in the year since Hamas’s October 7 massacre, significant efforts were made by the US to secure the release of those funds. Washington sought to recruit Morocco to replace Norway, but this idea was eventually shelved in favor of the current formula that has removed the middle-man, the Western diplomat said.

More recently, Israel proposed allowing the release of the funds if they were used to pay off the massive amounts of debt that the PA owes to Israeli electric and fuel companies that have accumulated over time due to various Paleostinian municipalities’ failure to make their payments.

Ramallah initially chafed at the idea, wanting more autonomy over how to spend the funds. Ultimately, though, it caved after Israel made clear it would not accept the release of the money held up in Norway under any other circumstances, the diplomat said.

Sweetening the deal for the PA, though, is the fact that the payment of the debt to the Israeli fuel and electricity companies improves Ramallah’s standing with Paleostinian banks who now see that it is capable of paying off such debts when adjudicating future loan requests.

The released funds, which have accumulated interest over time, will go toward paying off fuel and electricity debt in addition to covering such payments in the months ahead, the Israeli and PA finance ministries said in their respective announcements. Smotrich’s office said the deal resulted in the payoff of $544 million in debt to Israel. He updated the cabinet of the deal on Sunday.

"The PA’s debt to the [Israel Electric Corportation] resulted in high loans and interest rates, as well as damage to IEC’s credit, which was ultimately rolled over to the citizens of Israel," Smotrich told the cabinet, according to the statement from his office.

The agreement doesn’t release the Gaza portion of Paleostinian tax revenues that Israel has continued to withhold since the Norwegian agreement fell apart. However,
ars longa, vita brevis...
the Western diplomat said the goal is to use the new framework so that those funds can be used for electricity and fuel payments in the future.

Smotrich has been opposed to sending funds to the PA, which uses the money to pay public sector wages. The withheld funds forced the PA to drastically cut public sector wages for months.

Israel also deducts funds equal to the total amount of so-called martyr payments, which the PA pays to families of Paleostinian holy warriors or the families of slain attackers.

The PA finance ministry said $570 million remains withheld by Israel, bringing the total withheld funds to over $980 million as of 2024.

"This has exacerbated the financial crisis, as the government continues to transfer these allocations directly to the accounts of public servants in Gaza," the ministry said, adding that it was working with international partners to secure the release of these funds as soon as possible.

Posted by:trailing wife

00:00