Teachers forced to equip schools at own expense as austerity bites West Bank
Alaa Tartir explains that the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization “created an inherently dependent and fragile Palestinian ‘authority.’” After years of building up its public sector, the PA today has around 150,000 public servants, Tartir told The Electronic Intifada. “When Israel decides to withhold Palestinian taxes or when the PA passes through a financial crisis — which is recurrent — those monthly salaries get majorly delayed or paid in installments over months,” he said. “When Israel withholds taxes it does indeed commit another form of ‘collective punishment’ because it does not only punish the civil servants but also their families [and] we are talking about hundreds of thousands of people that are affected,” Tartir continued. Yet, the PA’s neoliberal economic policies have only worsened the situation. A Western-backed agenda “entrenched the structural deficiencies in the Palestinian economy and created further distortion,” said Tartir. “It increased inequalities, poverty and unemployment. It created a status of individual wealth for some but national poverty for all.”
Palestinians Set to Seek Redress in a World Court
Nadia Hijab on the PLO/Palestine joining the International Criminal Court: “They have to take some meaningful steps to recover anything of their really shredded credibility … That fig leaf of action is growing steadily more tattered. They keep saying it’s a new paradigm and they want to use international tools, but now they have actually been put on the spot.”
The Palestinians’ Desperation Move
Mahmoud Abbas’ team signing papers on New Year’s Eve to join the International Criminal Court was not surprising. Nadia Hijab is quoted in the day’s top Times editorial saying, “They have to take some meaningful steps to recover anything of their really shredded credibility.”
Palestinians move to join ICC after UN resolution fails
How to look at Mahmoud Abbas’ moves during last week of 2014, vis-à-vis Israel, the United States, and international bodies? Two Al-Shabaka advisors separately comment… Diana Buttu: “This is a good step in the right direction … to start isolating Israel.” Osamah Khalil: Joining the ICC is “only meaningful if Abbas actually uses it to hold Israel accountable.”
U.S. Twists Arms to Help Defeat Resolution on Palestine
“Despite U.S. threats and blandishments, the PLO/Palestine does have room for maneuver in the legal and diplomatic arena – it just has not yet been effective at using it.” -Nadia Hijab
Predictions: What will shape the Middle East in 2015?
“You can be sure sovereignty won’t be on the cards for the truncated Palestinian state envisaged, or rights for Palestinian refugees. But Palestinian civil society at home and abroad will torpedo a bad deal … The Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement will chalk up more victories. The EU will be forced to take stronger measures against Israeli settlements and racism. The first cracks, albeit paper-thin, will appear in the solid US Congress support for Israel.” -Nadia Hijab
Tough day of talks as Palestinians push for UN statehood bid
Here’s what two Al-Shabaka Policy Advisors have to say on the PLO’s statehood bid at the UN… Nadia Hijab: “They are primarily trying to buy time and doing anything they can to postpone the dreaded moment when they say they have run out of options.” Sam Bahour: “The tragicomedy of US monopolisation of the never-ending ‘peace’ process has come to a dead end.”
Under siege: from Leningrad to Gaza
OpenSecurity has a shortened version of our roundtable discussion with Ayah Bashir and Esther Rapoport, “two strangers with very different pasts united by a common experience of siege and blockade.”
Gaza plan ‘relieves Israel of responsibility’
“Complicated mechanisms are being created to maneuver around the problem, not address it,” said Al-Shabaka Program Manager Alaa Tartir about the UN-PA partnership to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. “This means more money is wasted and Palestinians’ dependency status is entrenched … They are trying to maneuver around Hamas, even though, like it or not, it’s the governing body in Gaza.”
