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2024-11-29 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Under US pressure, security cabinet extends Israel-PA bank ties deal by a year
[IsraelTimes] Move pushed by Biden administration comes after Smotrich insisted on month-by-month renewals; Ben Gvir votes against the measure he says will allow Ramallah to limp on

The security cabinet on Thursday extended a waiver allowing Israeli banks to work with Paleostinian ones for another year — a move pushed by the Biden administration and its Western allies, who feared that failure to do so ahead of a deadline at the end of the week would lead to the collapse of the Paleostinian Authority, an Israeli official confirmed to The Times of Israel.
Without hard, real life consequences, they ‘ll never learn to do better. The odds are that with such consequences they still won’t learn, but the not learning will be cheaper and less fraught for all involved.
For the past two months, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had only agreed to extend the corresponding banking agreement one month at a time, adding to uncertainty regarding whether the far-right minister would act on his repeated calls to bring down the PA ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump
...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US...
’s return to the White House.

While it stalled the longer extension, Israel said it wanted proof that PA-regulated banks complied with international statutes on counter-terrorism and anti-money laundering. The Treasury Department said in October that the PA had met both of the requirements laid out by Israel.
Uh huh. Sure they did.
Ahead of the security cabinet vote, ministers were presented with the National Security Council’s position in favor of a one-year extension, due to concerns that failure to do so would have major security and diplomatic repercussions, the Israeli official said, confirming a report on the Axios news site.

After the security cabinet vote, Smotrich suggested that he had leveraged Israel’s extension of the banking deal to ensure that the US would not allow the Security Council to pass a resolution recognizing a Paleostinian state. A Biden administration official told The Times of Israel that no such initiative had been in the cards.

Nonetheless, Smotrich had been concerned that it was and told associates of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would [not] authorize another extension of the banking deal unless the US made clear that it would not advance a UN Security Council Resolution against Israel, the US official said. Netanyahu aides reached out to their counterparts in the Biden administration, who assured them that Washington’s policy on the matter had not changed.

The administration has repeatedly come out against efforts to unilaterally recognize a Paleostinian state, asserting that the outcome should be the culmination of negotiations between the parties. But some in Jerusalem feared the step would be reconsidered before 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...
wraps up his term in office.

The US official said the administration was still considering other steps to boost prospects for a two-state solution before the end of the lame-duck period.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir tweeted on Thursday evening that he had voted against extending the banking cooperation deal, blasting fellow cabinet members who have talked of collapsing the PA only to back a measure that would allow Ramallah to limp on.

The Paleostinian economy relies heavily on the banks’ relationships with their Israeli counterparts to process transactions made in shekels, as the PA does not have its own currency. Some NIS 53 billion ($14 billion) were exchanged at Paleostinian banks in 2023, according to official data.

US officials have warned that failure to maintain banking relations between Israel and the Paleostinians would turn the West Bank into a "cash economy," which would benefit terrorist organizations in the territory and make it harder for the already-weakened PA to fight such groups.
It can’t possibly be harder — PA staff are involved up to their eyebrows.
The West Bank economy has been in dire straits over the past year, as tens of thousands of Paleostinian day laborers were denied entry into Israel during the war 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...

Posted by trailing wife 2024-11-29 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ]  Top
 File under: Palestinian Authority 

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