The Biden administration is highly concerned Israel’s finance minister will cut Palestinian banks off from the Israeli financial system next month and cause an economic collapse in the occupied West Bank, two U.S. officials told Axios.
The crash of the Palestinian banking system could bring down the Palestinian Authority, creating a power vacuum that could throw the West Bank into chaos and exacerbate the conflict in the region.
Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, an ultranationalist anti-Palestinian settler, has taken many steps over the last two years to weaken the Palestinian Authority as part of his ideology of annexing the West Bank.
In the past, Smotrich described the Palestinian Authority as a threat to Israel and said Hamas was an asset because support for the group split Palestinians’ governing power and lowers the chances of a Palestinian state being established.
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Article URL : https://www.axios.com/2024/09/20/israel-palestinian-bank-us-economic-collapse-concerns