Israeli official: PA can withstand Smotrich’s withholding of its funds

WASHINGTON — The Times of Israel asked a senior Israeli official briefing reporters whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was concerned about the Palestinian Authority collapsing in light of the measures advanced by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that have brought Ramallah to the brink of financial ruin.

The Israeli official responds that Netanyahu believes the PA will be able to survive, before pivoting to tout the steps that Israel has taken to clamp down on Palestinian terror in the West Bank. The official says Israel may soon need to conduct another counterterror operation in the territory’s refugee camps. Such raids over the past three years have already displaced thousands of Palestinians.

As for the more than $6 billion of Palestinian clearance revenues that Israel is withholding from the PA, the senior Israeli official says Jerusalem is holding discussions internally, as well as with the US, about what to do with those funds.

The US has sought to have them transferred to the Trump-controlled Board of Peace that is overseeing the postwar management of Gaza, though Smotrich has resisted the idea, while the PA has demanded that it receive at least a portion of the funds, given that they belong to Ramallah in the first place, sources familiar with the matter have told The Times of Israel.