Middle East conflict: Minister: Israel must not withhold tax money

Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan (SPD) has emphasized Israel to pay back tax money to the Palestinian Authority. The government of President Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah is under unprecedented political and financial pressure, said the minister of the German press agency during her trip through the Middle East region.

A collapse of the autonomy authority would open room for further instability in the West Bank, she warned. Experts fear that Islamist Hamas could capitalize from such a situation.

As part of the Oslo Peace process in the 1990s, it was agreed that Israel will raise taxes and tariffs in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip and forwarded them to the Palestinian Authority.

Does Germany jump into the breach?

“In this situation, Israel is responsible for immediately paying out the taxes due to the Palestinians,” Alabali Radovan told dpa in the Jordan capital Amman. In view of the situation, Germany will check additional help for the budget of the autonomy authority and also advise on additional help within the EU. “There is no time to lose,” said the SPD politician.

Foreign Minister Johann WadePhul (CDU) had already asked the Israeli government to pass on the tax money that has been completely blocked since May, which is legally entitled to the Palestinians. The Minister of Development, who had visited the West Bank on Tuesday and Wednesday, said that without a functioning Palestinian authority, there would be no realistic chance of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The two -state solution means that Israel and an independent, democratic Palestinian state live peacefully by side. UN Secretary General António Guterres said at the end of July that a two-state solution was currently further away than ever.

Autonomic authority is intended to implement reforms

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently called one of the principles to terminate the war to the establishment of an Israel to peacefully gathered civil government without the participation of the Hamas or the Autonomic Agency. The Federal Government sees the need for reform in the autonomy authority, but pleads to include it in the administration of the Gaza Strip according to a ceasefire – so that no power vacuum is also created there.

The Federal Government is committed to an armistice in the Gaza Strip and the release of the remaining Israeli hostages, which Hamas and other Islamist groups were dragged on in the terrorist attack on October 7, 2023.