Israel considering releasing Palestine tax revenue

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel is considering the release of Palestinian tax revenues, which it has frozen for over a month. The Israeli prime minister is expected to announce the proposal during a Monday discussion in the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
Netanyahu's aide said that the change in policy is in the interest of preventing the collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The decision to reconsider withholding the funds was also influenced by the fact that the Palestinians have not pursued moves in other international organizations, Haaretz reported Netanyahu as saying.
Netanyahu also said that he sees the Palestinian Authority's reconciliation with Hamas as a solely tactical move.
"We see that their talks with Hamas are only a tactical, symbolic move that has no concrete solutions," he said during a discussion in the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee.
Moreover, one of Netanyahu's aides said that Israel has no interest in bringing about the collapse of the PA, and for this reason it intends on releasing the funds.
Israel froze the transfer of funds owed to the West Bank government, amounting to around $100 million a month, after the UN cultural agency UNESCO voted to admit Palestine as a member on October 31.
Prime Minister in the Ramallah-based government Salam Fayyad said Thursday that the PA is "fast approaching the point of being completely incapacitated" by the tax block.
On Sunday, Fayyad said that he will be unable to pay the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants due to Israel's economic sanctions.
Fayyad told reporters on Sunday that the sanctions have a "devastating impact" on the Palestinian economy.                
The UK's top diplomat to the Palestinians Jerusalem Vincent Fean echoed Fayyad's call, saying that "these are funds that belong to the Palestinian Authority by right and Israel has an obligation to transfer" the tax revenues.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said last week that the Israeli policy to withhold funds "amounts to waterboarding an economy, because you almost kill it while allowing a small amount of air to come in."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as well as UN chief Ban Ki-moon, have called on Netanyahu to release the Palestinians' tax money.
Ban Ki-moon noted that Israel is required to transfer the money to the Palestinians under the terms of the agreements between the two sides and added that tensions need to be eased so that peace negotiations can be resumed.  
When Israel froze revenues earlier this year after Hamas and Fatah signed a unity deal, the PA delayed salary payments to all its employees for the first time since 2007.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Saturday in a live television debate that if the PA collapses it "will not be the end of the world for Israel.”
“The tax revenue which Israel transfers to the PA is meant to help them stand in the face of Hamas, and since Mahmoud Abbas allied with Khaled Meshaal, this money will not be delivered from now on," Ayalon said.
President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal met last Thursday in Cairo to discuss implementing a reconciliation agreement signed in May.
Under the terms of an economic agreement between the sides signed in Paris in 1994, Israel transfers customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets each month, which amount to around half of the PA's domestic revenue base.