No one should give the terrorists a penny. B http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/2 00712/INT20071214c.html Palestinians Taking Their Funding and Reform Plan to Donor Nations By Julie Stahl CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief December 14, 2007
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - The World Bank on Thursday endorsed a Palestinian Authority economic recovery plan that aims to raise $5.6 billion from international donors over the next three years. Delegations from approximately 90 nations and organizations are meeting in Paris on December 17 to hear the Palestinian Authority "present its reform and economic development program that is designed to launch the territories toward nation status," the U.S. State Department said. The State Department called the donor's conference "an opportunity for the global community to reinforce its support for a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and an opportunity for the Palestinians to show their genuine desire for statehood." Among other things, the Palestinian plan calls on Israel to relax its hold on the West Bank. But Israeli experts wonder just how effective the plan will be. The Palestinians "need help," said Ezra Sadan, the managing partner of a financial company, who has worked extensively with Palestinians on developing their economy. The Palestinians lost one third of their gross domestic product during the last intifadah (uprising), which erupted in 2000, Sadan told Cybercast News Service. About 100,000 Palestinians lost their jobs in Israel as a result of the uprising. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad will present the three-year economic plan, which reportedly includes a promise to cut government spending and reform government institutions. About 70 percent of the amount Fayyad hopes to raise is for budgetary support, including payment of salaries for more than 150,000 state employees, many of whom work for the security forces. Thirty percent is for development projects. "Substantial financial assistance is needed in order to ensure the continued operation of the P.A.," Fayyad said on Thursday. Fayyad said there would be a "substantial improvement" of Palestinian living conditions if the funding needs are met. But, he added, for such an improvement to be sustained, it is "vital" for Israel to "remove restrictions on Palestinians, particularly its blockade of Gaza," which the radical Hamas now controls. The plan also includes humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Abbas' government already is paying the salaries of 31,000 civil servants in Gaza who are not affiliated with Hamas and it also pays the Gaza Strip's utility bills, the Associated Press reported. The World Bank said Palestinian reforms had to be fully supported by both the large increase in aid and Israel relaxing its closure of the Palestinian territories. Israel has put in place a system of roadblocks and checkpoints throughout the West Bank in an attempt to stop terrorists from committing attacks in Israel. But the system also prevents Palestinians from freely seeking work inside Israel and from freely moving between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli officials have committed themselves to removing some roadblocks, but Palestinians complain that little has been done. Foreign Ministry spokesman Aryeh Mekel said that if there weren't any terrorism, there wouldn't be such restrictions on Palestinians' freedom of movement. "The onus is really on the other side," said Mekel. But Sadan said the roadblocks are only part of the story. The Palestinians don't have a functioning system of government. They don't even have a way of dealing with civil affairs, let alone the economy, said Sadan. He said the Israeli business community and Israeli professionals are "indifferent" to Palestinian needs because they don't trust the Palestinians. When the intifadah started, the Palestinians became an unreliable labor force because they could not reach jobs inside Israel due to the security closures. Israelis who once employed Palestinians have long since replaced them with foreign workers, mostly from the Far East, Sadan said. "The last intifadah was very costly for the Palestinians," said Sadan. "It almost cost them the possibility of a healthy economy." There is no doubt that Fayyad -- whom Sadan described as an "honest man" - will do his best, but the question is whether his best will be good enough, he added. Palestinian expert Professor Barry Rubin said the amount being requested by the P.A. is out of line and suggested that it be linked to P.A. performance instead of given freely. For all practical purposes, they are asking for a 400 percent increase in foreign aid, said Rubin, director of the Center for Global Research in International Affairs near Tel Aviv. They should be given small amounts that are used as leverage and linked to their performance in areas such as stopping incitement and rounding up terrorists, Rubin told Cybercast News Service. Instead, they want to use the money at least in part to pay the security services, which have sometimes been involved in terror attacks, Rubin said. The money is not buying peace but keeping P.A. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction in power and Hamas out of power, he said. It is not clear how much money the P.A. will raise in pledges at the donor conference, since many donors are wary of giving to the Palestinians. They want to know that there is a mechanism in place to follow-up on the contributions, said Mekel. P.A. officials admitted that they have not made the necessary progress in reforming their security forces - a key international demand for funding Fayyad's government, the Jerusalem Post reported on Friday. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will attend the donor's conference. "This is an opportunity for the international community to signal very strongly that it intends to make sure that the resources are there for the Palestinian government under [Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad to provide for the Palestinian people and to begin to provide a framework in which economic development can flourish," said Rice. She said international support is crucial until the Palestinians have a functioning economy. Robert Danin, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, recently told a congressional committee that all U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Territories has been and will continue to be governed by strict accountability and oversight. Between 1999 and 2005, the P.A. received more than $6 billion in foreign aid. The U.S. has been the largest single donor. Other donors include European Union countries, Arab countries (led by Saudi Arabia), and Japan, according to information published by the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (PASSIA). The Palestinian Authority takes in additional revenue from income, health, import, fuel and value added taxes collected by Israel and transferred to the P.A. Those taxes have been withheld by Israel from time to time, mainly because of Israel's concern that the money was being used to help support terrorism. Although the P.A. was supposed to collect its own tax revenues as a result of its creation in 1994, there have been problems and inefficiency in collecting those taxes, PASSIA said. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), 58 percent of Palestinian families live below the poverty line. About 40 percent of the 900,000 people in the Palestinian workforce are unemployed. Unemployment is even higher in the Gaza Strip. Since 1993, USAID has given the Palestinians more than $1.7 billion in economic assistance, its Web site said. Until recently, all U.S. funding to the P.A. went for projects through the USAID as a means to better monitor how the funds were spent. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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