Due to the difficult economic situation of the Palestinian Authority, the Minister of Regional Cooperation, Issawi Farage, left for Norway yesterday (Monday) ahead of the “Donor Conference” in Oslo, an international forum that will meet tomorrow to raise funds from foreign countries to assist Palestinian Authority funding.
The Prime Minister’s Office’s Twitter account said that Farage was meeting with a number of Palestinian representatives from the Foreign and Finance Ministries and the Water Authority in order to “deepen cooperation between the international community and the Palestinians in order to launch important projects that benefit the Palestinians.”
The donors’ conference is attended by 16 Western countries, and has been held every year since 1993. Under Netanyahu’s rule, an informal boycott of the conference was imposed.
Referring to the inclusion of the Paris Protocol, the economic annex to the Oslo Accords, Farage said that it was in Israel’s interest to “regulate economic activity and combat the phenomenon of a black market and tax evasion” in the Palestinian Authority. According to him, the PA and Israel are one tax unit, and therefore there must be coordination between the parties to prevent negative effects.
Before his flight, the minister added in an interview with Radio 103FM: “I do what Netanyahu did ten years ago under the table, but do it off the table. There is a protocol between us and the Palestinians, and one shekel cannot enter the PA without our approval.”
Farage denied involvement in political issues during the trip, but members of the opposition hinted that this was not a matter of financial assistance to the residents of the PA alone. “Did you want a change?” Tweeted MK Simcha Rotman. So that the salaries of the baby killers can enter the bank on time. “