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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan | |||||
| Freed US aid to help ease Palestinian crisis: PM | |||||
| 2012-03-25 | |||||
RAMALLAH/WASHINGTON: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said yesterday the release of $88.6 million in development funds by US lawmakers would help ease a fiscal crisis in the aid-dependent Palestinian economy.
In August Republican lawmakers put a hold on $147 million in US assistance because they objected to a Palestinian push for recognition at the United Nations, arguing that Palestinian statehood should be achieved through peace talks with Israel. US lawmakers on Friday released $88.6 million in development aid for the Palestinians that they had held up since last summer, a move that should help ease a fiscal crisis in the aid-dependent Palestinian economy.
Ros-Lehtinen also said she was releasing the money with the understanding it would not be used for “assistance and recovery in Hamas-controlled Gaza,” West Bank road construction, or trade and tourism promotion in the Palestinian territories. The United States The letter did not say how the freed-up funds would be spent, but Ros-Lehtinen suggested earlier this week she would be willing to approve money targeted for water programs, health and food for the Palestinians. Both Granger and Ros-Lehtinen had barred expenditure of the US funds since last year because they objected to the Palestinian push for recognition at the United Nations. They argued that the path to Palestinian statehood was through a peace treaty with Israel. Granger said on Friday she had decided the money should be released for humanitarian reasons and to help stability in the Palestinian territories in a time of uncertainty across the Middle East.
“Right now it is in our interest — and the interest of our allies in the region — to allow aid to flow to address security and humanitarian concerns.” Granger chairs the House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee in charge of foreign aid, while Ros-Lehtinen chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Technically, the Obama administration can override the objections of individual lawmakers and spend aid money once it has been appropriated by Congress. But successive administrations have generally deferred to holds on funds by key members of relevant committees.
“I am disappointed that the administration would employ hard-ball tactics against Congress,” she said. Both Granger and Ros-Lehtinen have been pressured by the Obama administration as well as the international community to release the development aid, which Congress had appropriated for fiscal year 2011. There have been growing warnings, including from the International Monetary Fund, that the Palestinians are facing a deepening financial crisis due to a drop in aid from Western backers and wealthy Gulf states as well as Israeli restrictions on trade. The IMF urged donors last week to meet their aid pledges to the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has a projected 2012 budget deficit of $1.1 billion.
Congress voted in December to allow aid to the Palestinians to continue in fiscal 2012 — the current fiscal year — as long as they were not admitted as a state to any more UN organizations. The Palestinians won admission to UNESCO in October, a move that prompted the United States to cut off funding to that agency. | |||||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 If a county in the USA state voted to be a say "The Christian County of Sommerville" would the US Gov't continue to provide them federal grant money or would Field Marshal Holder intervene? Why do we give a cent to Islamic governments? |
| Posted by: jack salami 2012-03-25 09:51 |
| #1 Families of shahids get really upset when the monthly check is delayed? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2012-03-25 06:03 |