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Palestinian official calls Israel's freezing of taxes 'war crime'

Israel's freezing of $127m of Palestinian tax money in response to their bid to join the ICC is being criticised by some as 'collective punishment'
Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator, has called the Israeli decision to withhold Palestinian funds a 'war crime' (AFP)

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has scathingly accused the Israeli government of behaving like “pirates” calling the Israeli decision to withhold Palestinian tax revenues a form of “collective punishment” against the Palestinian people and a “war crime.”

This comes on the back of the Israeli authority’s refusal to transfer $127mn (106 million euros) of tax revenue, that they had collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA), to the PA on Friday.

Erekat has refused to bow to the financial arm-twisting though and has made it abundantly clear that this sort of economic tactic will not work. “If Israel thinks that through economic pressure it will succeed in diverting our approach from freedom and independence, then it is wrong,” he told Associated Press. “This is the money of the Palestinian people and Israel is not a donor country.”

"This decision is a new Israeli war crime, but we won't back off in the face of those pressures," he told AFP.

An official confirmed to AFP on Saturday that the decision by the Israeli administration to freeze the transfer of the taxes was in direct retaliation for Palestine's application to join the ICC, which it made on Friday.

"The funds for the month of December were due to pass on Friday, but it was decided to halt the transfer as part of the response to the Palestinian move," said an official quoted by Israeli daily Haaretz.

Another official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the report to AFP but would say no more.

Further countering the Palestinian move to join the ICC, sources close to an Israeli government official told AFP on Saturday that Israel is also considering filing war crimes suits overseas against Palestinian leaders in response to their ICC application.

The delay in the payment of this money - which Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah confirmed had not been received on Friday - will have serious repercussions. According to the finance ministry the delay will make it hard to pay civil servants' salaries and will impact the effective running of schools and hospitals, as well as people's ability to buy basic items like bread and milk.

This is not the first time Israel has delayed payments to the Palestinians to signal its displeasure.

It did so in 2012, after they won a UN vote recognising Palestine as a non-member state.

It also employed the tactic twice in 2011 after President Mahmoud Abbas announced reconciliation with Hamas and after the Palestinians won admission to UNESCO.

Under the terms of an economic agreement between the sides signed in 1994, Israel transfers to the Palestinian Authority tens of millions of dollars each month in customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports.

The tax revenues make up around two-thirds of the Palestinian Authority's annual budget, excluding foreign aid.

Israeli judicial offensive

 
Meanwhile, legal proceedings at courts in the United States and elsewhere are being weighed against Abbas, his Palestinian Authority and other senior officials, Israeli sources said in a statement.
 
The basis of the complaints would be that Abbas's partnership in a consensus government with Hamas makes him complicit in the group's rocket attacks from Gaza against civilians in Israel.
 
"In recent days officials in Israel stressed that those who should be wary of legal proceedings are the heads of the PA who cooperate within the unity government with Hamas, a declared terrorist organisation which like the Islamic State carries out war crimes - it fires at civilians from within population centres," the statement said.
 
The sources, who declined to be named, did not detail precisely where or when such proceedings could be launched.
 
The Palestinians' ICC bid is firmly opposed by Israel and the United States.
 
It is part of a shift in strategy for the Palestinians, who are seeking to internationalise their campaign for statehood and move away from the stalled US-led negotiation process.
 
The US has branded the ICC move as "counterproductive" and warned it would only push the sides further apart.
 
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is to review the so-called instruments of accession and notify state members on the request to join the ICC within 60 days.
 
The Palestinian consensus government took office last June, following the reconciliation deal between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah movement, ending seven years of rival administrations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
 
Hamas remains the de facto power in Gaza and fought a bitter summer war with Israel, which took the lives of 73 people on the Israeli side - 6 of whom were civilians - and nearly 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

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