Ramallah: The Palestinian consensus government has urged its Israeli counterpart to suspend unilateral action on Palestinian tax revenues.
The Palestinians want Israeli to reverse its decision to use tax money to pay off debts owed by Palestinian individuals to Israelis.
Instead, they say Israelis should settle the matter in Palestinian courts.
Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Abu Diyak says the Israeli decision is directed at punishing the Palestinian leadership, putting massive pressure on the Palestinians, and legalising piracy of Palestinian national financial resources.
In a strongly-worded statement, he said the Israeli government had no right to impose rules and laws on the Palestinian public and government.
Abu Diyak said the tax revenues were Palestinian public funds that Israel was not authorised to deduct or withhold to settle individual debts. He said the Palestinian judicial system had jurisdiction over the Palestinian public, and Israelis could sue Palestinians in Palestinian courts. The verdicts in these cases would be final.
“The Israeli government should clearly understand that the Palestinian government will never act as debt collector from the Palestinian public for the Israeli occupation,” he said.
Abu Diyak stressed that under commercial and trade agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Israel, the occupation had no right to act unilaterally on financial clearings of tax revenues that the occupation authorities collected on behalf of the Palestinians.
Under the 1994 Paris Protocol Trade Agreements, Israel is expected to collect taxes on behalf of the Palestinians and transfer them to the Palestinian treasury monthly.
The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) uses the transferred tax revenues to pay the salaries of more than 160,000 public servants.
Israel, however, has used tax revenues as a punitive tool, with the Israeli government withholding the revenues to respond to what the Israelis call unilateral Palestinian political moves in the international arena.
Israel also collects Palestinian tax revenues to cover Palestinian debts to Israeli utility services.
Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked has submitted a proposal to the Israeli cabinet to use the PNA tax revenues to pay off debts owed by Palestinian individuals to Israelis.
According to a statement from Shaked’s office, Palestinian debt to Israel currently stands at some 500 million shekels ($140 million) owed by 20,716 individuals.
Israel believes it is the duty of the PNA to collect this money.
An official from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions said debts should not be settled by deducting money from Palestinian public funds, and he called for international bodies to resolve the issue.
He added that Israel owed more than 30 billion shekels ($8.4 billion) to Palestinian workers following the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel.
