‘Israel’s financial piracy targeting Palestinian unity’ http://tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=239827

Israel said on Sunday it has suspended tax transfers to the Palestinians in response to Mahmoud Abbas's agreement to forge an alliance with the Islamic resistance movement Hamas. According to Reuters, a senior Palestinian official in the occupied West Bank said Israel had no right to withhold Palestinian funds.  Asked about Israel's decision, Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said, “Israel has started a war even before the formation of the unity government.”  Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he had suspended a routine handover of 300 million shekels ($88 million) in customs and other levies that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians under interim peace deals. 

Israel had threatened sanctions last week in response to Acting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's announcement of a unity deal with Hamas that envisages the formation of an interim government and elections later this year. According to Xinhua, the Palestinian leadership censured Israel's decision to halt tax transfers. “This is clear financial piracy,” said Erekat, who is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Executive Committee and the former chief Palestinian negotiator. The accord with Hamas is an internal Palestinian matter, and “the Israeli decision is financial piracy that reflects Israel's dangerous intentions,” Erekat said. He went on to say that Israel’s hasty response to the effort to form a Palestinian unity government provided evidence that “the Palestinian split served Israel's high interests.”