Cash-strapped Palestine urges donors to send money

RAMALLAH: Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is urging Arab countries to keep their promises and send tens of millions of dollars to his cash-strapped government.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has always relied on foreign aid but is now embroiled in its worst cash crisis in years, unable to pay tens of thousands of government employees.
Fayyad needs $1 billion to close the 2012 spending gap, but previous heavy borrowing means he can no longer turn to banks. Unlike Arab states, Western donors have mostly made good on pledges.
Fayyad yesterday called on “donors, particularly the Arab brothers,” to send the promised money.
Arab donors have linked aid to ending the political rift that created rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza. Attempts to end the rift have failed.
Separately, European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso called yesterday for a return to Israeli-Palestinian talks, warning the peace process must not become "an orphan of the Arab Spring."
Barroso was speaking after talks with Fayyad on the first day of a trip which includes stops in the West Bank and Israel.
"The momentous change that we are witnessing throughout the Arab world should constitute an incitement and not a deterrent to the resumption of negotiations," he said, according to an advance copy of his remarks.
"The Middle East peace process cannot become an orphan of the Arab Spring."
Direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been on hold since late September 2010, and efforts by the peacemaking Quartet — which groups the EU, United Nations, United States and Russia — have had little success.
But Barroso said the European Union considered resolving the conflict a "strategic priority," and would continue to work to find a way to bring the two sides back to the table.
"Meanwhile it is important that the two parties do not act in a way that undermines the viability of a two-state solution," Barroso said.
"In this respect it is with concern that we see the continuous growth of settlements in the West Bank, including east Jerusalem."
Barroso, who was scheduled to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas late yesterday, offered support for the reconciliation process between Abbas's Fatah party and the rival Hamas movement which rules Gaza.
"This is a key factor contributing to the unity of a future Palestinian state and to reaching the two-state solution," he said.
And he said that new elections, which are called for under the reconciliation deal signed last year but have been delayed as the two sides bicker over implementation of the agreement, would constitute "a significant contribution to Palestinian state-building."
"It is important that all Palestinian actors take advantage of the positive developments towards democratisation in the region to build a future of democracy, security and prosperity," his prepared remarks said.
Today, Barroso will meet with Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres.
Their talks are expected to focus on the peace process but also efforts to curb Iran's nuclear programme, which Israel says poses an existential threat to the Jewish state.
EU officials said Barroso will also discuss ongoing violence in Syria, where an uprising has been met with brutal repression and where observers fear the unfolding of a civil war, with both Israel and the Palestinians.