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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (194610)	8/2/2006 10:46:23 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

"...Israel controls a significant portion of the PA economy both directly and indirectly. Israel collects duties on foreign imports headed for the Palestinian territories and charges value added tax (VAT) on Israeli goods and services headed for those areas. These totaled about $75 million per month in 2005, according to the Israeli Ministry of Finance. Out of this figure, Israel withholds money to pay the PA's water and electricity bills, which Palestinians have refused to pay for years to protest Israeli occupation. Israel withholds about $15 million each month to cover these bills. That leaves about $60 million that Israel would normally pass along to the PA; however, since the Hamas government was elected, Israel has been withholding this revenue. In addition to withholding tax money, Israeli roadblocks and other restrictions have prevented thousands of Palestinians from working in Israel. Before the second intifada began in 2000, 22 percent of employed Palestinians worked in Israel or Israeli settlements. By 2005, that figure had dropped to 10 percent of employed Palestinians, who earned 12 percent of all Palestinian income. Security restrictions have put these incomes in jeopardy, adding to the territory's dire straits: The PA has 22 percent unemployment, 43 percent poverty, and 15 percent 'deep poverty,' where people cannot meet their subsistence needs, according to Elizabeth Young of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. cfr.org ------------------ It's a big refugee camp and the warden decided to starve everyone because of the way they voted in a democratic election. Either give up the hypocrisy or stop whining about looking like a complete hypocrite. If this happened to your family, what would you do? Capitulate? Bend over? What?