Israel Withholds Billions in Palestinian Authority Funds, Pushing West Bank to Brink
Austerity, mass unemployment and mounting debt grip the West Bank as withheld revenues deepen a years-long economic crisis. IDF warns that the situation could trigger a security flare-up
The Palestinian Authority (PA) and its residents are facing a worsening, suffocating economic squeeze as Israel continues to withhold approximately 14 billion shekels ($4.8 billion) in tax revenue owed to the PA.
Israel claims that these funds, collected as customs duties on Palestinian imports, are being used to support terrorism. As the withheld sums accumulate month after month in Israeli coffers, the PA government in Ramallah has been forced to adopt increasingly severe austerity measures. This economic strain has persisted for nearly three years. The PA continues to rely on the public's nearly miraculous ability to endure shrinking resources while hoping for relief from international donors.
Utdrag: Problemen ble komplette da Smotrich fra mai 2025 har holdt tilbake ALLE palestisnke midler:
The third stage began in May 2025, whenFinance Minister Bezalel Smotrichdecided to withhold all remaining funds held by Israel. Last week, in a press release on the withholding of April's payments, Smotrich reiterated that the move was intended as a protest against what he described as "the authority's anti-Israel activity in international institutions (like the Hague Court) and its own encouragement of terror." Some of the withheld funds have been redirected to compensate Israeli families affected by Palestinian attacks.
Kommentar: Dette er tyveri av andres penger. Norge som leder av "Giverlandskomiteen for Palestina" har et spesielt ansvar til å følge opp dennesaken
EDIT 7. mai 2026 Ny artikkel av Amira Hass: "Israel's Financial Chokehold on the Palestinians Is the Twin of Settler Terrorism"
Aldri før har så mange land anerkjent Palestina. Israels svar er en langsom revolusjon som effektivt dreper ideen om en palestinsk stat.
Mens verden er opptatt av Iran og Trumps fredsråd, tar Israel stadig mer kontroll over den palestinske Vestbredden. Retningen har vært klar lenge, men intensiteten øker dramatisk.
Det tilhører dessuten fortiden at Israel forsøker å bortforklare motivene for det som skjer. Etter Gaza-krigen bryr ikke landet seg om at resten av verden protesterer.
Avslutning:
For med myndighetenes aksept herjer bosetter-militser med palestinerne. Folk bankes opp, oliventrær brennes og boliger ødelegges. En bosetterdrevet kampanje for etnisk rensing på Vestbredden, er Olmerts dystre analyse.
Tragisk nok har han helt rett. Det er bare å lytte til Bezalel Smotrich, en av arkitektene bak:
«Vi fortsetter bosettingsrevolusjonen», forsikrer han sine ytterliggående tilhengere.
Revolusjonen er ideologidrevet. Og den betyr et endelig farvel til alt som minner om selv den mest beskjedne utgaven av en palestinsk stat.
Benjamin Netanyahu følger opp sin far Benzion sine analyser og verdigrunnlag, med praktisk politikk, som sørger for at det BLIR slik. Det ligger rasisme og mye gammeltestamentisk vold i grunnmuren her, ref Amalek-marsjordren til IDF.
Ref også at Bibi støtter seg på Smotrich og BenGvir.
Dette er fascisme med et ansikt, dvs tre ansikter.
Smotrich Has Completed Israel's Annexation of the West "Bank"
Ansvarert for den såkalte sivile admninistrasjon av de okkuperte palestinere innen IDF er overført til israeler som er utnevnt av og rapporterer til Smotrich. Sfard: DA har man i praksis annektert Vestbredden. Og det vil bli mer forskjellsbehandling, dvs apartheid i økende tempo
Artikkel i Haaretz 8. juli 2024 om israelske fundamentalister som ønsker mer krig, flere bosetniner og intifada. Og om Netanyahu som lar disse styre på:
'A
Miraculous Time': Israel's Far-right Jewish Fundamentalists Want War,
Settlements and Intifada. And Netanyahu Is Facilitating Them
"For far-right messianic settler ministers like Orit Strock and Bezalel
Smotrich and their sizeable constituencies, nine months of battles in
Gaza aren't enough. They sense a biblical opportunity for conquest and
power, and Prime Minister Netanyahu won't publicly oppose them. This is
the story of a war between two Israels"
Etter en rekke eksempler på hvordan de israelske religionsfanatikerne opererer avsluttes artikkelen slik:
"There are those who fully understand the two wars being fought. Especially one person: Benjamin Netanyahu.
He
understands that his governing coalition is dependent on those fighting
a fundamentalist war and he needs to keep them happy or they will bring
down his government. But to limit the scale of the protest, to continue
working with the security establishment and the Biden administration, he also needs to keep up an appearance of fighting the other war.
That's why Netanyahu on the one hand agrees to send delegations to Doha and Cairo
for talks on a possible cease-fire and hostage-release agreement, while
putting out briefings that are aimed at hampering those talks. While
Israel stumbles between the two wars it is waging, he is focused on his
own personal war for political survival."
Man kan konkludere at slik situasjonen er kommer ikke Netanyahu til å avslutte Gaza-krigen. Snarere må man se opp for en oppskalering, både hva gjelder Vestbredden og Libanon.
"IDF transfers powers in occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants
‘Actual annexation’ taking place, says NGO analyst, as legal powers transferred to officials led by far-right Bezalel Smotrich"
The Israeli military has quietly handed over significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to pro-settler civil servants working for the far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich.
An order posted by the Israel Defense Forces on its website on 29 May transfers responsibility for dozens of bylaws at the Civil Administration – the Israeli body governing in the West Bank – from the military to officials led by Smotrich at the defence ministry.
Smotrich and his allies have long seen control of the Civil Administration, or significant parts of it, as a means of extending Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank. Their ultimate goal is direct control by central government and its ministries. The transfer reduces the likelihood of legal checks on settlement expansion and development."
Smotrich er egentlig finansminister i Netanyahus regjering. Men så har han fått en konstruert stilling i Forsvarsdepartementet, og der ansvar for den sivile administrasonen av de okkuperte palestinerne.
Det som nå skjer kaller noen mer enn en "krypende anneksjon":
"Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst for Israel-Palestine at Crisis Group, said: “The big story is that this is no longer ‘creeping annexation’ or ‘de facto annexation’, it is actual annexation.
“This is the legalisation [and] normalisation of a long-term policy. Smotrich is basically re-establishing the way in which the occupation works by taking a large part out of the hands of the military."
Det er liten tvil om hva den langsiktige strategien er for behandlingen av de okkuperte palestinerne.
Fagartikkel om regjeringsavtalen i Israel der Smotrich får en stilling i Forsvarsdepartementet OG ansvaret for Siviladministrasjonenen av okkuperte palestinske områder:
Forfattet av: "The Israeli Law Professors Forum for Democracy"
"Position Paper No 24: Implications of the Agreement Subordinating the Civil Administration to the Additional Minister in the Ministry of Defense"
We find that: ● The power sharing agreement signed on 23 February 2023 between the Minister of Defense and the Additional Minister in the Ministry of Defense, transfers most of the powers of the Civil Administration, the military body charged with management of civil aspects of the military government in the West Bank, to MK Bezalel Smotrich, the Additional Minister. ● The transfer of responsibility for, and management of, the Territories to civilian hands (a minister in the Ministry of Defense, albeit in coordination with the Minister of Defense and subject to the approval of the Prime Minister) constitutes an explicit and public subordination of the West Bank’s management to national and social interests of the state, in direct contravention of international law. ● The agreement is an overt and formal measure that gives validity to claims that Israel’s practices constitute apartheid, which is prohibited under international law.
"Smotrich calls for Palestinian-free buffer zones around West Bank settlements"
"Finance minister says olive harvest must cease in
designated areas to reduce friction, blames rising settler violence on
‘left-wing anarchist activists’"
I en artikkel i Haaretz 12. mars analyseres den ferske israelske finansminister Bezalel Smotrich. (HELE artikkelen nederst under Kilde):
"Israel's 'Evangelical' Jewish Fundamentalist, Bezalel Smotrich, Comes to Washington"
Forfatteren betegner Smotrich som ""Evangelical", Jewish Fundamentalist". Som baserer sin tro og gjerninger på tusener år gamle jødiske skrifter.
EDIT 30. mai 2023 Artikkel i Jerusalem Post , se Ny Info: "What is Smotrich's frightening, suicidal plan for Israel's future? - opinion"
"The signs are a clear warning to those who would stand in the way of annexation or attempt to enforce the law in opposition to the messianic, settler vision."
Artikkelen 30. mai 2023 bekrefter Smotrich sin plan som en "messianic settler vision". Med den sentrale rolle Smotrich er gitt av Netanyahu i regjeringen må dette også være Netanyahu sin plan.
Israel's 'Evangelical' Jewish Fundamentalist, Bezalel Smotrich, Comes to Washington
Rightly
facing a cold shoulder from many American Jews, Israel's finance
minister advocates a brand of Jewish fundamentalism that not only
resembles extreme Evangelical Christianity, but which poses a unique
threat to Israel’s democracy – and to Palestinians' welfare
Israel's
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, known for his extremist views and
literal interpretation of the Bible, is in Washington this week.Credit: Credit: Photos: Tomer Appelbaum; Ingimage. Artwork by Anastasia Shub
As Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich heads to Washington today, his statements in support of “erasing”
the Palestinian village of Hawara still echo off the walls of the State
Department and numerous Jewish organizations, all of whom have made it
clear that they will not meet with him during his visit.
Even
the right-leaning AIPAC will not greet Israel’s finance minister. His
awkward and halfhearted attempts to backtrack only cemented that this
Israeli government is – and America's reception of it – is like none we
have ever seen.
Despite the coalition parties' differences, they have presented a monolithic eagerness to weaken Israel's judicial system,
dismantle the checks and balances on power and expand the role of
religion in the public sphere. More than half its seats are taken by
religiously observant Jews, and while most past Israeli governments had
ultra-Orthodox representation, none have had the religious Zionist
public represented solely by hardline fundamentalists, nor did any,
ever, have Kahanist ministers.
The particular brand of fundamentalist Judaism that the extremists
currently in power espouse is different from that of ultra-Orthodoxy.
Ultra-Orthodoxy’s piety is dedicated to community and continuity, that
is, to maintaining their cocoon of like-minded, meticulously observant
Jews, following what they believe is the path of their forefathers and
taking care that their children do the same. Theirs is a fundamentalism
interested less in theology and more in sociology, and thus also capable
of pragmatism, usually with an added wink and a Yiddish pun.
In contrast, Bezalel Smotrich and National
Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir display a fundamentalism resembling
that of extreme Evangelical Christianity. It involves a literal
interpretation of the Bible, which its adherents use to transform the
world around them, both politically and socially. This type of
fundamentalism is committed to zealous authenticity in belief and
practice, and, in maintaining a dogmatic understanding of tradition,
shows little aptitude toward pragmatism.
This fundamentalism poses a unique threat to Israel’s democracy – and to the wellbeing of Palestinians.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (left) and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in the Knesset, in December.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg
In 2017, Smotrich presented what he called the "decisiveness plan"
– or the "subjugation plan"; the translation can go both ways. In it,
he proposed to offer the Palestinians – in Israel and in the occupied
territories alike – three options: surrender and agree to become
residents with reduced voting rights, emigrate, or resist and be
subjected to the full force of the Israeli military.
In an essay that year in the right-wing publication Hashiloach, Smotrich
admitted that this plan is “lacking in democratic characteristics,” but
claims it is the only realistic path that Israel can take. What he does
not mention, though, is that this plan and is not based on geopolitical
assessments, but on an ancient Talmudic text.
In a speech he delivered a year before he published his plan, Smotrich recounted a tale
in which the prophet Joshua, who came to conquer the Promised Land,
sent messages to the people living there offering them the same options.
Smotrich claimed that "There is one absolute and correct truth… This is
the basis for the approach of Joshua when he entered the Land, which I
seek to adopt even today. The foundation of our absolute truths is faith
in the Torah... The Torah of Moses is the only base on which we must
establish the belief in the righteousness of the way and the fighting
spirit of the Israel Defense Forces.”
Israel’s new finance minister displays the most basic characteristics of
fundamentalist religiosity: a perception of history by which what was
true thousands of years ago is also valid today; an ambition to shape
contemporary life according to ancient ways, to thrust the past into the
present; and a literalist understanding of scripture which reduces a
rich religious tradition into a rigid and simplistic framework. These
produce a one-dimensional submission to the authority of the Holy
Scriptures.
He has absolutely no qualms about his beliefs. Just six months ago, during the previous Israeli government, Smotrich shouted across the Knesset floor to the Arab MKs: “You’re only here by mistake, because Ben Gurion didn’t finish the job and throw you out in 1948.”
And he is not alone. Ben-Gvir is a longtime devotee of the teachings of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, a vile racist
whose Kach movement was designated a terrorist organization by both the
United States and Israel. Ben-Gvir himself was twice convicted for
supporting a terrorist organization due to his activities with the
group.
In his books, Kahane used the very same account of Joshua to justify the
future expulsion of Israeli Arabs, which he repeatedly claimed must be
implemented. The tale plays a part in the movement’s theology, which is
also grounded in a fundamentalist interpretation of Jewish tradition. In
the past, Ben-Gvir explicitly said that Jews must “Drive out the Arab
enemy,” and though he has recently insisted that he no longer thinks so,
he claimed just five years ago that “every word of Kahane's is relevant
to today’s reality.”
Palestinian
Omar Khalifa, 27, inspects his car last week which was attached by
Israeli settlers while he was in it with his family, in Huwara, the West
Bank.Credit: RANEEN SAWAFTA/ REUTERS
Just as Kahane insisted that non-Jews should not be able to vote in
Israel, Smotrich also plans to reduce Israeli Arabs to the status of
non-voting subjects. As he said in a private conversation in 2017,
Palestinians will be relegated to the status of “resident aliens,”
because, as he explained then, “according to Jewish law there must
always be some inferiority.”
This kind of dogmatic, selective
interpretation of Jewish tradition, linked with the will – and now the
power – to turn it into the law of the land, is something that Israeli
citizens are encountering for the first time in the highest echelons of
their government. The horror that has struck many of the Israelis who
are witnessing it is a catalyst for the mass demonstrations that have
engulfed the country over the last two months.
The hundreds of thousands of people are protesting
what they conceive as a threat to Israeli democracy and the integrity
of Jewish tradition alike. Hopefully, the cold shoulder that Smotrich is
receiving from the United States is a sign that the international
community is taking note as well.
Tomer Persico is a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and a Rubinstein Fellow at Reichman University. Twitter: @TomerPersico
Den ameikanske senator Chris van Hollen er intervjuet i Haaretz 8. desember 2022:
The Senator Pushing Action on Abu Akleh Case Has a Message for Netanyahu's Allies Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen is leading congressional efforts calling for accountability over the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. He explains why it matters and warns of tensions between Washington and Jerusalem once Netanyahu's far-right allies take power
Utdrag, der van Hollen uttaler seg om de nye ministrene Ben-Gvir og Smotrich:
“These are avowed racists who have been very involved in inciting
violence against Palestinians,” Van Hollen says. “We often say that one
of the important things that unite the people of the United States and
the people of Israel is shared values. You now have individuals in this
Israeli government who clearly do not share values of racial, ethnic and
religious tolerance in any way."
Klartale fra van Hollen: - Han vil ha klarhet i Abu Akleh-saken - Han er klar mht hva som er "delte verdier" landene imellom
Tydelighet fra politikerne er ønskelig i denne konflikten. Chris van Gollen viser han står for.
DET er vurderingen til den israelske kommentator Nehemia Shtrasler:
"Opinion" |
"Israel Is on the Road to an Iran-style Theocracy"
"The upcoming election will be a fateful one. This election will
determine whether we go on living in a liberal democracy or slide toward
an authoritarian regime that falls somewhere between a democracy and a
dictatorship, with an all-powerful leader unrestrained by a system of
checks and balances."
"The Likud-settler-Haredi bloc is
planning an assassination attempt on democracy. These politicians seek
to totally change the face of our system of government. Instead of three
independent branches – executive, legislative and judiciary – the
executive branch (the prime minister and cabinet) will dominate the two,
deprive them of their independence and turn them into rubber stamps. In
other words, this election is not about a change of government, but a
change of regime."
...............................
Shtrasler angir det er Netayahu som er arkitekten for det løpet som han beskriver som et angrep på demokratiets grunnvoller.
Israel Election: Ben-Gvir Just Took Another Major Step in Mainstreaming Jewish Supremacy
Itamar
Ben-Gvir relinquished a couple of potential Kahanists in the next
Knesset because the legitimacy he gained from partnering with Benjamin
Netanyahu is worth much more to him
Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir smiling on Jerusalem's Temple Mount in May.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg
The agreement reached just before Shabbat on Friday, in a neighboring
villa to Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence, has already assumed the
grand title “the Caesarea deal” in the Israeli media – as if the
temporary merger of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Bezalel
Smotrich’s National Union-Tekuma (which markets itself as “Religious
Zionism”) into one joint slate for the November 1 election is an event
of historic proportions.
There’s more than a slight degree of exaggeration here from a media that is trying to create some interest in yet another election, especially one being drawn out over a long hot summer.
On
the surface, nothing has changed. The two parties already ran together
in the last election under the Religious Zionism banner. Ben-Gvir,
follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane and true believer in Kahane’s fascist and supremacist ideology,
has been a lawmaker for a year and a half. The time for treating him as
a representative of a tiny minority, as an aberration, is long over.
Nothing
is new with Netanyahu either. He was the matchmaker for Ben-Gvir and
the only slightly less extreme Smotrich – in many ways the more
religious fundamentalist of the two – last time around as well. He went
about it a little more overtly this time, announcing publicly that he was summoning them to a meeting and then announcing the agreement himself.
But this no longer shocks anyone.
Netanyahu’s predecessor as Likud leader, Yitzhak Shamir – a man of
staunch nationalist ideals – regularly led the party out of the Knesset
auditorium whenever Kahane got up to speak in his lone term as a
lawmaker between 1984 and 1988. Likud then ensured, together with nearly
all the other parties, that Kahane’s Kach party would no longer be
allowed to run in another election. Netanyahu has no such scruples.
Ben-Gvir
is essential to Netanyahu in his mission to eke out the far-right vote,
which could ensure his return to power. Polling shows that a third of
Otzma Yehudit’s potential voters are those who have barely, if ever,
voted in the past. Bringing out those who habitually stay home on
Election Day is a rare political achievement and could be the key to
Netanyahu reaching the 61 lawmakers that would give him the majority
that has been so elusive in the past four elections. But all this was
true in the last election as well.
What is different this time around is that
in previous elections, Netanyahu tried to make sure that Ben-Gvir would
be included in one of the far-right slates as part of a strategy not to
leave any right-wing votes lying on the floor.
In
the elections where it had run separately, Otzma Yehudit never crossed
the 3.25-percent electoral threshold and its votes were wasted. In the
round of polling carried out last week, after Ben-Gvir had announced
that he had failed to reach an agreement with Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit
was therefore running alone, the party easily passed the threshold. In
fact, in all of the polls, on the right it received the second-highest
number of seats after Likud, either equaling or surpassing Shas.
This of course could have been a blip. Ben-Gvir is certainly cautious
enough to think this may be the case, which is why, despite dwarfing
Smotrich’s party in the polls, he agreed on Friday to merge the tickets
on the basis of a 50-50 split of the top-10 spots – with Otzma Yehudit’s
candidates getting lower spots on the slate. (Ben-Gvir himself is
second on the ticket to Smotrich and his next candidate is placed at
number five.) Now, though, there is no question about him being a
doubtful candidate who risks dropping below the threshold. Instead, he
is a major power broker in a possible Netanyahu governing coalition. He
has banked those polls.
Despite his polling advantage and their
well-known personal loathing of each other, Ben-Gvir still preferred to
join Smotrich because there’s one thing more important to him than the
number of lawmakers he personally controls in the next Knesset.
More than anything, he craves legitimacy.
The
46-year-old Ben-Gvir was the head of Kach’s youth department back in
1994 when, in the wake of the Hebron massacre carried out by Kach veteran Baruch Goldstein
– whose picture until recently hung in the Ben-Gvir family’s living
room – the movement was proscribed as a terror organization. He was
arrested dozens of times and forbidden to join the Israeli army as a
result.
Ben-Gvir’s life mission is to succeed where Kahane failed and make the
movement, which was renamed Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and changed
parts of its platform so it could run again for the Knesset, as a
legitimate, mainstream political party. That’s why he ostensibly
accepted the rules and became a lawyer, and it’s why he admonishes his
young admirers when they cry “Death to the Arabs!”
Every time Ben-Gvir is interviewed as a legitimate politician, as he is nowadays daily, he is another step closer to his goal.
He
could quite likely have won more Knesset seats in this election if
Otzma Yehudit had done it alone. But he craves the little bit of
establishment respectability that Smotrich has within the religious
Zionist community that once shunned Kahane. And, more than anything, he
wants to be openly acknowledged by Israel’s great leader Netanyahu.
This
is his opportunity to fit in with Netanyahu’s grand plan and it’s worth
it, even if he has a few fewer lawmakers in the next Knesset.
Netanyahu didn’t go all the way. He is
still maintaining the slightest of distances. He didn’t put out a joint
photograph or promise that Ben-Gvir would be a minister in his next
government. There is still the possibility that after the election, he
will offer to exclude Otzma Yehudit if Benny Gantz’s National Unity
Party agrees to join his coalition.
Ben-Gvir
is perfectly aware of such an outcome. But for now, he is on an equal
footing with the other party leaders in a potential Likud government, a
senior partner to Netanyahu. This is a feat that was unimaginable back
in the days when he and his fellow Kahanists were outcasts on the
furthest margins of Israeli politics.
Netanyahu er febrilsk foran valget i Israel om få dager.
Han har bundet Likud til et valgsamarbeid med 2 israelske ekstrem-partier på høyresiden.
Ved samarbeidet får disse partiers ledere ... Bezazel Smotrich henholdsvis Itamar Ben-Gvir ... plass i Knesset og kanskje i regjeringen. Ihvertfall får de løfter av Netanyahu om ekstrem høyrepolitikk i Israel visavis palestinerne.
Det er på sin plass å studere hvem disse to ekstremistene er som Netayahu nå løfter i varmen.
