Palestinians are being robbed by Israel

[nuune]

Palestinians are being robbed by Israel

By Amira Hass, AMIRA HASS is the Ramallah correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

 

IT IS EVIDENTLY difficult to scrub off the sticker that is glued onto the front window. That's why when a new car from Germany or South Korea or the United States rolls onto the packed streets of Gaza or Ramallah, it generally has the big label with thick, red Hebrew letters forming the word "Checked" stuck on its windshield for several months.

 

The label is a mark of the special customs and security checks conducted at the Israeli seaports of Ashdod or Haifa, which serve as the main entrances for most of the foreign goods bound for the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians import all sorts of products: water pumps from Sweden, bulldozers and boxes of corn flakes from the United States, plastic toys from China, washing machines from France and cheese from Denmark — and virtually all of them reach their destinations only after they've been through Israeli port authorities and Israeli security checks.

 

At the ports, Palestinian importers are required to pay the Israeli authorities the value-added tax of 17%, as well as whatever custom taxes are due on goods that come in on their way to the West Bank or Gaza. These transactions (along with direct Palestinian transactions with Israeli firms and merchants) last year yielded revenues of $711 million.

 

But whose revenues are they?

 

To judge by the actions of the Israeli Cabinet on Sunday, the money belongs to Israel. The Cabinet announced that it was going to withhold Palestinian tax and customs revenues, at least for the moment, as a response to Hamas' electoral victory. Until the money is released — if it is released — the Israeli treasury will earn the interest.

 

But it's not supposed to work this way. According to the Oslo accords (and by any standards of common sense and basic justice), the revenues should serve the people who ultimately buy the goods. These tax receipts are not donations of goodwill from Israel; they are not charity. This is not like, say, Dutch foreign aid money, which is given freely by the Dutch people and can be withheld if the Dutch choose to stop giving it. These are tax revenues that are due to the people in the territories where the goods are headed, and the Israelis have no right to hold them up.

 

Since 1994, these revenues, transferred each month from the Israeli Ministry of Finance, have made up a critical portion of the Palestinian Authority budget. When Israel briefly stopped transferring the revenues in 2001, pressure from the EU and other countries — including the U.S. — forced Israel to reverse its decision. Unfortunately, after the Hamas victory, such pressure seems unlikely.

 

Last year, the $711 million constituted almost two-thirds of the Palestinian Authority's revenues. (Only $383 million was collected in income and sales taxes within the West Bank and Gaza.) Even with all those revenues, there was still an $800-million shortfall in the Authority's $1.9-billion budget. Why are domestic tax receipts so low? Because the economy is in constant recession and "operates well below its potential," according to the World Bank.

 

What debilitates and cripples the Palestinian economy is Israel's heavy, systematic restrictions on movement within the occupied territories — hundreds of roadblocks and military checkpoints that delay, prolong and sabotage normal economic activity and, hence, potential tax revenues.

 

The Palestinian Authority cannot compensate for the "lost" — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say "stolen" — tax revenues.

 

Its Ministry of Health, for example, has been unable to pay its contractors for hospital food, equipment or medicine for three months, and is $22 million in debt. Now, with Israel hijacking an additional $50 million or so each month, the ministry will not be able to pay the salaries of its 13,000 employees. The same is true with the approximately 40,000 employees of the Ministry of Education.

 

 

In the Palestinian territories, 35% of residents between the ages of 20 and 24 were unemployed during the third quarter of 2005. About 43% live below the World Bank's poverty line, and 15% live in deep poverty — which means, according to the World Bank, that they are unable to meet subsistence needs.

 

By taking their meager — but undoubtedly their own — revenues, Israel does not punish Hamas or persuade it to change its positions. It simply gives the Palestinians another reason to regard Israel as an aggressive and repressive occupying power.

 

 

Full Article-LA TIMES

[Castro]

Only now they're being robbed? I believe the heist began 58 years ago. This is "democracy" in action what the US, EU and Israel are doing. Too bad those whom the Palestinians have as brethren are busy boycotting Danish pastries or marrying 58 women. :rolleyes:

[nuune]

Duq Castro, true, and none of the Arab world are aware of that or, if they know can't do anything about it.

 

do you think the Arabs can give the Palestians an alternative funds or help, we know the US already asked the return of their funds,

 

I believe that even if the so called Arabs help the Palestians in anyway, that help would be controlled by the US and Israel so it won't go into the hands of Hamas

[Cara.]

Come on, people. Do you expect Israelis to feel bad about Arabs, or for Yemenis to help out Palestinians, when Somalis don't give a fig about fellow Somalis? It's easy to roll our eyes at the duplicity of the Jews, or the selfishness of the Arabs, while turning a blind eye to our own dirty laundry.

 

It's fun pointing fingers, but let's clean house before we judge others, eh? Or at the very least let's have a moratorium on attacking Arabs, Jews, Americans or Danes until we figure out why Xaliimos in Minneapolis are on Jenny Craig while little Faarax in Juba is drinking his own urine to alleviate thirst.

[Castro]

^ That finger-pointing is an indication of the level of impotence we've reached individually and collectively. I'm all ears atheer. Tell me something. Tell me anything that would give me hope. Right now, I'm running on fumes.

 

Edit: I believe it was Che Guevara who said: "A revolution without guns? It'll never work." So while watching The Motorcycle Diaries (a movie based on the diary of his early years), it painfully occured to me there are so few people on earth who have the moral fortitude, the strength of character and the selflessness to do what he later did. His was a predictable yet extremely rare reaction to injustices that remain with us to this day. He made a choice that directly impacted his life and the lives of countless others. Few of us can claim to be like Che, Malcom or Martin. Alas, I'm in the majority.

[Cara.]

There's a reason why those guys are icons, Castro. And I'll thank you to add Sayyidka to the list.

 

As for what to do about our problems, damned if I know. Things are just a little maddening for me right know, I feel like dropping out of school and joining the Peace Corps or something. It seems kind of callous and elitist to be applying for million dollar grants to study cell membranes when a dollar a day is unimaginable riches to some segments of the global community.

[Castro]

^ Indeed Sayyidka proudly belongs to this iconic group. The sad thing is, once you become acquainted with your own mortality, you wonder how your life will be remembered. Since the only guarantee we've ever been given is that we will die, theirs are not such unimaginable choices.