MPAC Calls on Bush & Rice to Lift Sanctions on Palestinian Authority

The Muslim Public Affairs Council today expressed deep concern with the freeze on Palestinian assets and sanctions which have made an economic deterioration affecting 3.5 million Palestinians imminent. MPAC calls on the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, who are meeting today on the issue, to lift the sanctions on the Palestinian people, who rely on the PA for the vast majority of their schools, hospitals and financial services.

Israel has been withholding since February the transfer of $50 million in monthly tax and customs fees it collects for the Palestinians and has reduced the number of Palestinians allowed work in Israel. The U.S. supported and observed the democratically held elections, and should now follow the World Bank’s lead and call on Israel to release the desperately needed funds. The United States should release the funds allocated regardless of who is in the position of leadership.

SEE: “Palestinian Authority ‘At Risk’” (BBC, 5/8/06)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4984216.stm

Foreign governments, which provide about 60 percent of the authority’s budget, have cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority after the Hamas party took power in March. The EU suspended about $600 million in annual direct budgetary assistance.

The State Department has argued that they have redirected funds to Palestinian civil society groups in order to provide humanitarian aid, however this funding does not replace what is needed for a sound governmental infrastructure. Even though funds are supposed to be able to be used for humanitarian purposes, international banks are refusing to wire the funds to the designated recipients since Hamas was named on the Department of Treasury’s list of terrorist organizations.

The World Bank yesterday warned that the West Bank and Gaza Strip appear to be headed for the “worst year in their dismal recent economic history.” There are “signs of food and gasoline shortages manifesting in Gaza, the result of faltering supply (due to persistent closure of passages into Gaza),” according to the report. The Palestinian educational and health systems are at risk as a direct result of the withheld funds. As the World Bank report states, “A protracted period in which the PA is disabled might result in the unravelling of a dozen years of donor efforts to build the responsible, accountable institutions needed for a future Palestinian state or for continued governance ad interim.”

The Palestinian people cannot be subjected to “collective punishment”, which violates all human rights norms, for participating in a democratically held election. We are learning from the tragedy of Iraq that the worst that can happen to people is anarchy, and we are watching in horror as the Palestinian situation comes close that. The consequences of such a situation will not lead to a resolution of the conflict, will encourage extremism and terrorism and will alienate us and tarnish our image not only in the Arab and Muslim nations but to so many areas of the world.

The international community views U.S. policy towards the Palestinian problem as a barometer of U.S. policy towards the Muslim world. U.S. foreign aid has resulted in more oppression of the Palestinian people, and the latest chapter of financial suffocation reinforces this premise.