The Palestinian Authority is criticized for aiding the Israeli occupation, and yet Israeli leaders are threatening to shut it down. This is because even its basic efforts to be recognized as a state challenge Israel's colonial project.
It isn’t news that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is in a deep crisis, and much of it is caused by Israel’s policy of economic strangulation. The Israeli government has been blocking the PA’s customs money, making it increasingly difficult to continue running public services, security, and its own bureaucracy. Israel’s hardline Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is threatening not to renew the indemnity that allows Israeli banks to deal with Palestinian banks, and if he goes through with it, it would trigger the collapse of the Palestinian banking sector, and possibly the PA itself.
Then there’s Israel’s brazen military raids into PA-administered areas, looting money exchange offices, and arresting hundreds of Palestinians before parading them through the streets in front of the headquarters of the PA Security Forces.
The Israeli cabinet even renewed discussion over the idea of installing a local tribal “Emirate” in Hebron instead of the PA as a prelude to doing the same elsewhere in the West Bank, which Israel has signalled that it plans to annex.
It isn’t news that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is in a deep crisis, and much of it is caused by Israel’s policy of economic strangulation. The Israeli government has been blocking the PA’s customs money, making it increasingly difficult to continue running public services, security, and its own bureaucracy. Israel’s hardline Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is threatening not to renew the indemnity that allows Israeli banks to deal with Palestinian banks, and if he goes through with it, it would trigger the collapse of the Palestinian banking sector, and possibly the PA itself.
Then there’s Israel’s brazen military raids into PA-administered areas, looting money exchange offices, and arresting hundreds of Palestinians before parading them through the streets in front of the headquarters of the PA Security Forces.
The Israeli cabinet even renewed discussion over the idea of installing a local tribal “Emirate” in Hebron instead of the PA as a prelude to doing the same elsewhere in the West Bank, which Israel has signalled that it plans to annex.
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