Posted on 07/29/2002 3:51:10 AM PDT by Alouette
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel planned to hand over $15 million to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority on Monday, the first of three installments of tax revenue that has been withheld from Palestinians for much of the past 22 months of fighting, both sides said.
Israel had been demanding international supervision of the money to ensure it wouldn't be used to fund Palestinian militants, but agreed to place the cash under the responsibility of the new Palestinian finance minister, Salam Fayed.
Meanwhile, tensions escalated Sunday after Jewish settlers clashed with Palestinians in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron, leaving a 14-year-old Palestinian girl dead in what Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer called a "Jewish riot."
Monday's planned money transfer is a small fraction of the estimated $600 million in taxes and customs revenues that Israel has collected on behalf of the Palestinians. Israel stopped handing over the money after the fighting broke out in September 2000.
In another move aimed at reducing hostilities, Ben-Eliezer said he would meet this week with Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razek Yehiyeh to discuss security issues based on proposals by President Bush.
"We are ready to move, and we see on the other side some initial signs of willingness to take part in this plan. They at least submitted some sort of plans," Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio.
Also, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon ordered the army and security services to ease some restrictions on Palestinian civilians. The moves including shortening curfews, lifting some roadblocks, and raising the number of Palestinians allowed to enter Israel for work to 12,000, a statement from Sharon's office said.
Previously, the government had said it would issue 7,000 work permits, although it said the number could reach 70,000. Before the conflict, some 125,000 Palestinians crossed into Israel daily for work.
Israel said it is up to the Palestinian Authority to combat militant groups if more restrictions are to be lifted.
"When they do that, we will be immediately ready to leave the territories and ease any restrictions," said Mark Sofer, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Sharon also named his dovish foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to be in charge of aiding the Palestinians. Peres is in France and was to meet with President Jaques Chirac on Monday.
Meanwhile, thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus defied the army's five-week curfew for the second day Monday, filling markets and opening offices as Israeli soldiers stood by on the outskirts without taking any action.
The organizers of the protest, the Nablus city governor, Mahmoud Alol, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, urged residents to break the curfew Sunday and do it again on Monday.
"So many of our people are suffering from hunger and others couldn't get medicine, so we have to get our rights by ourselves," Alol said.
The round-the-clock curfew in Nablus has only been lifted five times, for a few hours at a stretch, since Israeli troops reoccupied the city more than five weeks ago.
In another development, Israeli troops arrested two Palestinians they said were planning to carry out suicide bombings in Israel. One of them, a woman, was arrested outside Jenin while the other was taken from his apartment in the town, which is in the northern West Bank town.
Israeli forces on Sunday arrested two local leaders of the militant group Hamas in the West Bank city of Ramallah. One of them, Hussein Abu Kweik, was the intended target of a missile strike that instead killed his wife and three children in March, Palestinian intelligence officials said. Israeli security sources said the two had been involved in organizing recent suicide bombings.
Sunday's troubles in Hebron erupted during a funeral procession, as settlers carried a slain Israeli soldier from the biblical Tomb of the Patriarchs, through the narrow streets to the cemetery. Palestinians, confined to their homes by army-imposed curfew, threw stones at the funeral procession, and the armed settlers responded by firing shots and using metal bars and stones to smash windows of cars and homes.
A 14-year-old Palestinian girl was killed as she stood on the balcony of her family's home, and several Palestinian civilians and Israeli police officers were wounded, witnesses said.
All the casualties were blamed on the settlers.
"I very much regret to say there was a Jewish riot," Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio. "It's just as well the army and the Israeli police brought it under control otherwise something terrible could have happened."
However, several Palestinian witnesses said soldiers did little or nothing to stop the attacks by settlers.
Those dang settlers, shooting back again. They must be frustrated and desperate. Desperate yeah, that's the ticket.
Of course. It's all their fault, you know. How do you expect 3,000,000 Arabs to keep their unique Palestinian heritage if they've got to live side by side with these 400 Jews smack in the middle of dar al Islam??
Oh, good grief.
Groan....
If I didn't know better, I might think the Israelis want to drive the "Palestinians" out altogether...
However, on the original point of the article: I agree with a poster above, don't throw rocks at angry people with guns.
Yet there is always enough money for guns and bombs. Hm.
Sorry, you have it wrong. Israel didn't fail to turn over the tax monies. They refused to turn over the tax monies because the Palestinian Authority has never, ever, complied with even one of the terms of the treaty they signed. Do you understand a little better now?
If I didn't know better, I might think the Israelis want to drive the "Palestinians" out altogether...
Hmmmm....Since the so-called "Palestinians" do not see the overwhelming amount of this tax money (because it is stolen by their leaders), I do not get the impression that you know better. Am I wrong?
I believe both sides have factions that would like to exterminate, or otherwise remove the opposition; and, from time to time, these factions achieve ascendancy-with blood-curdling results.
As a general rule, we have ( at least after the Eisenhower era ) supported the Israelis. We have armed them - admittedly as a means of testing out some of our own weaponry in those geographic conditions - and have, on occasion, helped them pull their fat out of the fire.They have reciprocated;and I believe they have been reasonably good allies.
I do not, however, propose to view the Israelis through rose-tinted bi-focals , or applaud their every action.
I have been waiting patiently for an explanation of this.
Taxes?
Collected from whom? How?
Don't the "palestinian" collect their own taxes?
Seems odd to me that a country is giving money to the enemy for any reason whatsoever.
I can picture it now... U.S. taxes promised to Germany during 1943 is being currently negotiated...
This actually makes sense to you?
Why should the Israelis collect the taxes for them?
Why can't the palestinian leadership steal it directly?
Tax collection has always been risky. Here I can picture it as downright deadly.
c. Revenue Transfers from Israel
In reaction to the bombing on July 30, the Israeli Cabinet decided to cease payment of revenue "clearances" to the PA. These clearances are mainly VAT, excise taxes and customs duties, and to a lesser extent income tax, collected by the Government of Israel on behalf of the PA, and remitted to the PA, according to the provisions of the Economic Protocol of the Interim Agreement.
This is from 1997
I know that. IMO, your "vision" is distorted. You seem to be able to see the Israeli "failure", but not the cause of it.
I know it is not "politically correct" (on this website) to state the Israelis and the "Palestinians" both have essentially the same aim : exclusive occupation of the "Holy Land".
Well, since the Israelis have given up parts of the territories they captured in a defensive war to the so-called "Palestinians" in return for nothing (except worthless treaties), I would conclude that your statement is unsupported by facts.
I believe both sides have factions that would like to exterminate, or otherwise remove the opposition; and, from time to time, these factions achieve ascendancy-with blood-curdling results.
Again, the evidence to make this charge against the Israelis is unsupported by fact. They have made territorial concessions to the Arabs. In addition,they granted the Arabs arms, money, water rights, political power, and honor. Doesn't sound to me like they want to exterminate them. But don't let the facts disturb your "reality".
I do not, however, propose to view the Israelis through rose-tinted bi-focals , or applaud their every action.
Neither do I. However there is a difference between seeing them as you do and seeing the reality of the situation.
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