The new Palestinian prime minister accused the United States of declaring “financial war” on his people and said an American peace plan purported to be in the works will be “born dead”.
In his first interview with the international media sincetaking office over the weekend, Mohammad Shtayyeh laid out plans to get throughthe financial crisis he has inherited and predicted that the internationalcommunity, including US allies in the Arab world, would join the Palestiniansin rejecting President Donald Trump’s expected peace plan.
“There are no partners in Palestine for Trump. Thereare no Arab partners for Trump and there are no European partners forTrump,” Shtayyeh said during a wide-ranging hour-long interview onTuesday.
Shtayyeh, a British-educated economist, takes office at adifficult time for the Palestinians, with his government, the PalestinianAuthority, mired in a dire financial crisis. The PA administers autonomouszones in the West Bank.
The Trumpadministration has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars of aid, includingall of its support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Israel has also withheld tens of millions of dollars of taxtransfers to punish the Palestinians for their “martyrs’ fund,” aprogramme that provides stipends to the families of Palestinians imprisoned orkilled as a result of fighting with Israel.
The Israelis say the fund rewards violence, while thePalestinians say the payments are a national duty to families affected bydecades of violence. Furious about the withholding, the Palestinians have inturn refused to accept partial tax transfers from Israel.
Without its key sources of revenue, the Palestinian Authority has begun paying only half salaries to tens of thousands of civil servants, reduced services and increased borrowing. In a new report being released Wednesday, the World Bank said the Palestinian deficit will grow from USD 400 million last year to over $1 billion this year.