Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced on May 22 that Israel will withhold Palestinian tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank “until further notice”. The move came on the same day that Norway, Spain and Ireland announced that they will recognise a Palestinian state.
These funds constitute between 60% and 65% of the Palestinian public budget. Withholding them will have a devastating effect both on a Palestinian government already in financial crisis and on the lives of the Palestinian people.
This is not the first time Israel has withheld funds that provide basic goods and services to people in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has used this tool six times since the peace accords of the 1990s, when it began collecting tax on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.
