Hamas has sent a letter to Israel demanding the tax money that Israel has been withholding since Hamas took office. You have to love the tone of this article in the JPost:
In a direct communique to the finance minister of a country it refuses to recognize, the Palestinian Authority’s Finance Ministry, headed by Hamas’s Omar Abdel Razek, has written to Avraham Hirchson, demanding that Israel transfer to the PA’s coffers the hundreds of millions of dollars in customs revenues it has been withholding since Hamas’s victory in January’s elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
The one-page letter was written on PA-headed paper in English and formally addressed to Hirchson at his ministry in Jerusalem, Israel. The PA has said it needs the money to meet the payroll for its approximately 160,000 civil servants, whom it has generally been unable to pay since the international community froze funding after Hamas came to power.
The letter accused Israel of unlawful behavior and specified the agreements under which, it asserted, Israel was obligated to transfer the funds, including the Paris protocol on economic relations of April 1994, which formed part of the Oslo accords.
Those would be the same Oslo accords that Hamas says they are not bound by. Funny how when it’s to their advantage, though, Israel should be bound by them, hm?
Despite heavy international pressure since its PLC victory and formation of the PA government, Hamas has steadfastly refused to recognize Israel or to honor previous agreements between Israel and the PA – two of the three international preconditions for substantive relations with the PA government. (The third, also unfulfilled, condition is the renunciation of terrorism.)
The Finance Ministry is not treating the letter as representing any formal change in that Hamas position, and has no intention of responding to the letter, The Jerusalem Post has learned. Nor does the ministry anticipate a change of policy that would see a resumption of the customs transfers.
I think the answer to when Hamas will be getting the tax revenues would be on the day Hell freezes over.
Give Hamas a one finger extended (you knwo which one) answer.
As far as I know Israeli government, I think that they will transfer the money much sooner than that. A little pressure from the US, EU or both of them, and the money will be released “to prevent the economical state of the Palestinians from deteriorating beyond the critical point” or some other lame excuse.
Keep the PA cut off. If Hamas repudiated the agreements the PA made (but never kept) with Israel then the latter is no longer bound by them. As you say Meryl, it cuts both ways. If the Hamas big shots can’t fill their Swiss bank accounts, if they can’t bribe their gunmen not to shoot them, if they can’t pay for more rockets, they will be in trouble.
Somebody had better stand up soon among the Palis and point out the obvious, that the terrorism and war with Israel is destroying Pali society, and for no gain. If any of the Palis want to get a life, they should make peace now.