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Pay up, Israel

The Palestinian Authority loses $350 million every year due to Israel’s violations of various agreements. It’s time to pay up.

Sam Bahour
4 min readMay 1, 2019

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The Palestinian government loses around $350 million a year due to Israel’s restrictions and violations of signed agreements, according to a recent report published by the Palestinian Authority. The estimated sum amounts to almost 30 percent of Palestine’s expected budget deficit in 2018.

That means taxpayers around the world are footing the bill for Israel’s wrongdoings. Now it’s time for Israel to pay up.

The latest report, titled Stopping Fiscal Leakages, was submitted in September to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), a 15-member group chaired by Norway and co-sponsored by the European Union and United States, which serves as the principal policy-level coordination mechanism for development assistance to the Palestinian people. Without their foreign donor support, there would be no Palestinian government as we know it.

The report is the equivalent to a summons for Israel to pay up for the fiscal damage it is causing the Palestinians. Here is a peek into the $350 million annual losses:

Leakages resulting from lack of control over West Bank land

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Sam Bahour
Sam Bahour

Written by Sam Bahour

Writer, businessperson, activist.

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