Palestinian officials in Ramallah on Saturday accused the US of putting pressure
on Arab foreign ministers not to visit Ramallah.
The accusation came as
Arab League Secretary- General Nabil Elaraby arrived in Ramallah for talks with
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
This was the first visit
to the West Bank by an Arab League secretary-general.
Four Arab foreign
ministers who were supposed to accompany Elaraby backtracked at the last
minute.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amru was the only minister to
accompany the Arab League chief on his visit to Ramallah.
PLO Executive
member Wasel Abu Yusef told reporters that the US administration was behind the
cancellation of the four Arab ministers’ visit to the West Bank.
“The
Americans prevented the Arab foreign ministers from visiting Ramallah,” Abu
Yusef charged.
Some of the ministers who called off their visit claimed
that they did not want to pass through IDF checkpoints on their way to
Ramallah.
But Elaraby and the Egyptian foreign minister arrived in the
city aboard a Jordanian helicopter, which landed in the Mukata presidential
compound.
Abu Yusef and other Palestinian officials also accused
Washington of exerting pressure on the Arab countries not to provide the
Palestinians with financial aid.
“The US and Israel are imposing an
economic blockade on the Palestinian state and are preventing the Arab countries
and Western donors from providing Palestinians with financial aid,” he added.
“Unfortunately, these countries have succumbed to the pressure, further
intensifying the financial crisis in the Palestinian Authority.”
Abu
Yusef, who is also head of the Palestinian group the Arab Liberation Front,
accused the US and Israel of waging war on the Palestinians following last
month’s UN vote in favor of recognizing the Palestinian Authority as a
non-member state.
Elaraby said after the meeting with Abbas that the Arab
countries had yet to fulfill their promise to give the Palestinians $100 million
per month to solve its severe financial crisis.
He said that the Arab
League would hold “consultations” with its members to ensure that they met their
commitment toward the Palestinians.
“Palestine is in need of material and
political support,” Elaraby told a news conference in the Palestinians’ de facto
capital of Ramallah.
“Arab countries agreed at their Baghdad summit [in
March] for an Arab safety net of $100m. each month, but unfortunately none of
this has been achieved yet,” he said.
“We must admit that Palestine needs
material and political support,” Elaraby said. “The Palestinian Authority can’t
manage its affairs without financial support.”
Elaraby and other
prominent Arab and Islamic leaders, including the Egyptian prime minister, met
Abbas’s Palestinian Hamas rivals in Gaza during their brief war with Israel last
month.
Hamas also won a diplomatic coup by receiving Emir Hamad bin
Khalifa al- Thani, ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar, who pledged $400m.
in aid for the impoverished territory in October.
The emir postponed a
visit to Ramallah he had announced this month, disappointing PA officials who
had hoped he would arrive bearing gifts of cash.
The Gaza visits broke
years of diplomatic quarantine for the Hamas, and increased the isolation of the
Western-backed Ramallah government.
Abbas has accused Israel of “piracy”
after it withheld customs revenues it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf,
citing months of utilities bills Ramallah owes Israeli companies.
The
financial crisis has forced the PA to delay salary payments to West Bank
employees, who have gone on strike in protest. Abbas has responded by saying he
might give up power and compel Israel to take on the Palestinians’
affairs.
“Sit in the chair here instead of me, take the keys, and you
will be responsible for the Palestinian Authority,” Abbas warned Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu, in an interview with Haaretz newspaper last week.
“I
won’t do anything as long as there are diplomatic negotiations,” he said. “But
if the stalemate continues... what’s left for us to do?” Reuters contributed to
this report.