Jerusalem – Israel’s Cabinet decided Sunday to immediately freeze the transfer of about $50 million a month in tax and customs receipts due to the Palestinian Authority, arguing that the swearing in of a Hamas-dominated legislature on Saturday meant that the Palestinians were now led by the militant group.
“It is clear that in the light of the Hamas majority in the parliament and the instructions to form a new government that were given to the head of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority is in practice becoming a terrorist authority,” Ehud Olmert, Israel’s acting prime minister, told his Cabinet. “The state of Israel will not agree to this.”
Although the Cabinet decided to hold back on other penalties it had been considering, its move to withhold the receipts immediately put it at odds with its main ally, the United States, and the other members of the so-called quartet – the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – that has been promoting peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.
The quartet has said its funding for the Palestinian Authority will continue until a new Hamas-led government is in place, a process that could take five weeks or longer. Even as Israel acted to cut off money to the Palestinians, the quartet’s representative, James Wolfensohn, was in the Middle East talking with Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region to try to raise money for the Palestinian Authority until Hamas fully takes over the government.
The U.S. State Department said Sunday it had no comment on the Israeli decision.
The Israeli move means that Olmert, in the midst of an election campaign, will not have to transfer customs and taxes for February to the Palestinians. He was sharply criticized by the Israeli right wing for having transferred the January payment, and if he had agreed to the quartet’s timetable, he might even have had to transfer the payment due for March.
The Israeli move means the Palestinian Authority will have an immediate shortfall of about $110 million a month in its budget, which largely goes to pay 135,000 workers, including about 58,000 in the security services. The salary situation has already become critical, with many members of the security services in the past few weeks staging armed demonstrations to demand their pay.
Hamas says it will seek aid from the Muslim world to ease the budget situation.
In Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinians were already in a financial crisis.
“Unfortunately, the pressures have begun and the support and the aid started to decrease,” he said. “Therefore we are currently in a financial crisis, and we hope to overcome it month by month.”
Abbas went to Gaza City to meet today with Ismail Haniya, 42, who Hamas confirmed would be its choice for prime minister, to ask him to form a government. Once Haniya accepts the charge, he will have five weeks to form a government, though he says he will need less time than that.
On Saturday, Abbas, in a speech to the new parliament, said he expected a new government to accept previous agreements with Israel and to support negotiations with it – positions Hamas rejects. He did not specifically require an explicit recognition of Israel.
“We will start a dialogue with President Abbas and the other factions,” Haniya said in remarks broadcast on al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite channel. He also criticized Israel’s new penalties against the Palestinians, calling them “part of the continued Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.”
Israel’s Cabinet decided to hold back for now on other penalties that would have further serious effects on Palestinian life, like preventing Palestinian workers from entering Israel or making it more difficult for Palestinian goods to be transported into Israel.
Instead, the Cabinet said it would urge the international community to refrain from all financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority except for humanitarian aid, would seek to prevent any new shipments of arms or equipment to the Palestinian security services, and would increase security checks at crossings between Israel and Gaza.