The United States Congress is set to withhold upwards of 200 million USD from the Palestinian Authority according to The Independent. On the surface this sounds like a blow to the Palestinian Authority but it will be the Palestinian people which suffer the most. It is unlikely that the Palestinian Authority will not be fully cut off from US and Israeli aid in the foreseeable future.
The Independent is reporting that the United States Congress is going to withhold 200 million dollars in aid money earmarked for the Palestinian Authority (PA). The move is a response to the unilateral PA move to seek statehood recognition in the United Nations. The aid money was said to be earmarked for food aid, health care and to support efforts to build a nascent state.
In the build up to the Palestinian statehood bid in the United Nations, some conservative American politicians floated the idea that the United States should punish the Palestinian leadership by withholding aid money; a primary source of income for a Palestinian Authority struggling to pays its bills.
The Palestinian Authority is in a dire situation. According to an International Crisis Group report dated 12 September 2011,
The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is in an unenviable position. It lacks legitimacy. Negotiations, after decades of failure, have been discredited in the eyes of the people, who are convinced talks have prolonged occupation…The PA is under financial strain. The regional mood is inhospitable to slow and deliberative progress. The leadership thus is unable and unwilling to maintain its course of the past two decades—but so too is it unwilling to jettison it.
By withholding money from PA, the US, presumably with the full knowledge of their Israeli partners, is playing with fire. A severely bankrupt PA unable to pay 100,000 employees could spark outright rebellion against the Palestinian leadership. Growing Palestinian discontent with the PA leadership, easily detected on the streets of Ramallah, could transform into West Bank civil disobedience directed at the PA and, ultimately, the Israeli occupation. But this is not going to happen.
It is increasingly probable that the United States and Israel have decided to slowly move the Palestinian economy in the West Bank back to its Second Intifada levels of ‘near catastrophe.’ Described succinctly in the work of Israeli political philosophers Adi Ophir and Ariella Azouly, Israel kept the Palestinian economy just above catastrophic levels of widespread hunger and economic collapse during the Second Intifada.
Fully aware that widespread hunger and dire economic conditions on the West Bank would engender worldwide condemnation, Israel carefully exerted control over its captive Palestinian economy. In 2006, when Hamas came into power in the Gaza Strip, Israel along with other Western countries again exercised their ability to punish Palestinians for their decisions however misguided.
The Palestinian Authority and Israel work closely on a variety of issues concerning governance in the West Bank. For example, Israel depends on the PA security forces in the West Bank to keep Palestinian discontent from manifesting into actual rebellion, unarmed or armed, against Israel’s occupation. In this regard, a certain amount of aid revenue, enough to maintain the viability of the PA, is virtually guaranteed from the United States and Israel. The move to withhold 200 million dollars for projects related to health care and the building of the state is a crude way to apply pressure directly on the Palestinian people without affecting their leadership. Palestinians are now being punished for decisions taken by a leadership which did not consult them.
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has spent the last two years building an economy under occupation with encouraging results. However, the American move to withhold a small portion of aid shows that no matter the Palestinian efforts to prepare for statehood they are still solely dependent on international aid and the good grace of the Israeli occupation. It is in Israel’s interest to maintain a strong PA which will control growing discontent among Palestinians and stop efforts for widespread civil disobedience. When and if, Israel decides that the PA is no longer operating according to its interests, the money will stop coming.
October 1, 2011
4:44 am
The fact that they have decided to cut off the aid from the health sector while keeping the aid for the security forces is very humilating. Honestly speaking, the PA is nothing but a house negro for the USA.
October 1, 2011
6:36 am
There is nothing about these congressional moves that’s “conservative.” It’s just one more piece of evidence that the US Congress is controlled by the Israeli lobby – a fact which everyone there knows but is afraid to say openly.
The cut-off doesn’t even have to come to a vote. It’s all done by committees, whose chairs have accrued an unconstitutional amount of power over the years. And if you look at the membership of the committees, and the chairs of the committees, on all matters relevant to the relationship between the US and Israel, you’ll find a solid bipartisan Zionist bloc.
The US has been conquered from within by the agents of a foreign power taking advantage of the corruption of its political institutions.
October 1, 2011
8:06 am
Do those congressmen not know that every cent that is spent on the West Bank is actually subsidizing Israel and the occupation?
October 1, 2011
9:46 am
All the congressmen know about Israel is how much AIPAC pays them.
Here’s what will happen. Someone sensible in the Israeli government will point this out to Netanyahu, who will point it out to the minyan in charge of AIPAC, who will point it out to the chairs of the committees, and the funds will quietly be authorized.
In the meantime, the members of the committees will have demonstrated the strength of their allegiance to AIPAC, which is their real purpose.
October 1, 2011
10:50 am
Let’s hope they cut off every last dollar. As you must recall, the US President practically begged Abbas not to put the US in this difficult situation at the UN. The PA not only didn’t listen, but played up and is playing up the solitary nature of Israel’s and the US’s rejection of this call to ignore the Oslo Accords and all previous American diplomatic efforts. When an American President goes to the PA, which has received arms, training for its army, billions of dollars, diplomatic support, a commitment to help build their state, etc., etc., and then they spit in the face of the Americans, at a minimum they should expect to have their funding cut off.
October 1, 2011
12:48 pm
When an American president goes to Israel, which has received so much more from the US, and the Israeli PM spits in the face of the Americans, the president commits additional injustice on Israel’s behalf instead of cutting off every dollar, as he should.
It really depends on whose spit it is, doesn’t it?
October 1, 2011
1:03 pm
The American President didn’t come to Israel. He went to Cairo. My guess is that his foreign policy would be in much better shape had he come to Israel instead.
The Israeli PM, in trying to appease the US President actually froze all settlement construction and even in eastern Jerusalem there was a moratorium. That PM, against long-standing policy of his party which to this day hasn’t even changed its charter, stood publicly and offered two states for two people.
What comparable compromises have we seen from the Palestinians? Zip.
October 1, 2011
3:37 pm
The entirety of the US aid to the PA has been based on the participation of the PLO in bilateral peace process with Israel. It should come as no surprise that the US is going to cut off aid when the PLO abandons the process. It should also not come as much of a surprise that there are going to be repercussions to a determined attempt by the Palestinians to put the United States into a very uncomfortable diplomatic position. Obama took positions that were the least pro-Israeli of any American president and in return the Palestinians have decided to undermine the United States at the United Nations. Bad idea.
October 1, 2011
4:18 pm
Well said Historian….Abbas said F U to Obama and was warned ahead of time thhis would happen….and did it anyway. Actions, they do tend to have consequences.
October 2, 2011
2:30 am
Historian, nobody cares about your outrageous genocidal opinions outside of your sordid land-grabbing society. Cutting off all aid to the PA would be a huge disaster for you. They’re the only ones blunting the edge of Palestinian resistance.
Learn to get along. When the US declines over the next century, China and the rest of the world aren’t going to care about your zionist dreams of conquest.
October 2, 2011
4:31 am
*Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said if the United States continues to stymie the Palestinian efforts to get a state recognized by the United Nations, the Palestinian Authority should be dismantled. [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] should throw the keys in their faces”.
“If the United States wants the Palestinian Authority to continue to exist, then the price is the establishment of a Palestinian state in keeping with the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital . . . But if the United States vetoes accepting Palestine to the United Nations in the Security Council, uses its financial aid to the PA as political blackmail and leaves Israel as the source of authority, then in my opinion, the PA must cease to exist. . . .The Palestinian Authority has a mission called independence. If the PA cannot achieve independence, it’s better that it didn’t exist at all.” — PLO Executive Committee Member Saeb Erekat
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/erekat-palestinian-authority-cannot-exist-without-independent-state-1.375258
*Fayyad recently stated that “either we achieve freedom from the Israeli occupation or we will demand instant Israeli citizenship, including the right to vote.”
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1054/re1.htm
*Abbas has stated he will dissolve PA, and let Israel take over West Bank if the UN bid fails. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/abbas-threatens-to-dissolve-pa-let-israel-take-over-west-bank-1.328834
October 2, 2011
10:03 am
Let them try to dismantle the PA. Hamas will throw them off the rooftops of Ramallah faster than you can say “We were bluffing.”
October 2, 2011
10:37 am
I guess abbas’s pledge to ethnically cleanse the west bank of Jews did it for Obama. Despite all the petrodollars funding the apartheid myth, it is the Arab countries that have systematically rid themselves of Jews, Christians, Armenians and Copts. It would be ridiculous for US to continue funding such a racist polucy
October 3, 2011
1:09 am
I always enjoy reading your pieces Joseph, and I personally do not think they will cut off the Aid, yes they may reduce it. The US and Israel are in favor of keeping things the way it is..
I don’t think the US nor Israel will be happy about a new possibly radical government that might win the next elections if it happens
October 3, 2011
8:26 am
Actually, Saudis already promised to increase their contribution to PA budget by exactly same amount. And they can cut purchases of American arms by the same amount. If Saudis mean business, they could cut purchases by some multiple of American cut.
Looking back, Gulf Arab states cut their direct aid by the amount contributed by USA, and apparently they are ready to do the reverse to support PA bid.
Zarkissan: just next door to Israel there is a large number of Armenians, Copts and other Christians in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. And we “fund” neither of these countries. We give some money here and there specifically to have a degree of influence and not to benefit the locals in any way.
October 3, 2011
10:03 pm
Re: I guess abbas’s pledge to ethnically cleanse the west bank of Jews did it for Obama.
Obama doesn’t seem to give a damn that Israel has revoked the residency of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, so your thinking is a little muddled.
Here is a clarification from USA Today: In the headline and story, Palestinian Ambassador Maen Areikat says he was referring to Israelis, not Jews, when he stated that “it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated first.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-09-13/palestinian-israeli-jews-future-state-israel-PLO/50394882/1
October 4, 2011
7:11 am
I think this would be a positive development, I would like to see all US aid cut. (I would also like to see all aid to Israel stopped) It’s mostly money to prop up the illegal Occupation. The US is not an honest broker and US involvement, and the strings attached to that money, just serve to take all futher and further away from peace.
October 7, 2011
4:23 am
Lets cut the $200 million and give it to NIH. We need the money at home