Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Cash-strapped Palestinian Authority begs for emergency funds from China and Russia, lambastes Arab states for lack of aid

What a bunch of good-for-nothing parasites.
(Times of Israel) Facing a billion-dollar deficit and with no funds to pay government employee salaries, the Palestinian Authority has asked Russia and China to help rescue it from financial collapse.

Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki this week blasted Arab countries for not fulfilling financial pledges toward the Palestinian Authority. He also assigned responsibility to Israel for the crisis, for its withholding of tax money collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority since December. (Israel decided on that move in response to the PA’s unilateral move to seek upgraded status, to nonmember observer state, at the UN General Assembly on November 29. It said it was withholding the funds to pay down the PA’s debts to Israel, including for electricity.)

The Arab League decided last March to create a “financial safety net” of $100 million a month to protect the Palestinian Authority from financial collapse. Arab failure to fulfill a pledge to fund that safety net proved that “the Arab nation is incredibly moving away from the Palestinian issue,” Maliki said.

“It is shameful to talk about an Arab [financial] safety net when not a penny was paid to the PA,” Muhammad Shtayya, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team told Palestinian radio on Monday.

According to London-based daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat, the Palestinian Authority has sent out a plea for funding to Russia and China, and assembled a delegation to travel to Western and Asian capitals and update them on the depth of the financial crisis.

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