MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday for the decision to freeze the transfer of tax money to the Palestinian Authority. “Every day we learn how determined the Netanyahu administration is to fight not only with the Palestinians, but with the entire world,” he said. “The Palestinian tax money does not belong to the Israeli right-wing government and therefore it must not expropriate it.”

“The Prime Minister, who is also the Health Minister, is not taking time to deal with the nurses’ strike and the collapse of the public health system, but does have time to invest huge amounts of money in settlement,” Khenin continued. “That isn’t a punishment for the Palestinians, this government is first and foremost a punishment for Israelis.” Netanyahu is officially the Minister of Health due to the haredi (religious extremist) and anti-Zionist Yahadut Hatorah’s disinclination to officially take ministerial posts. Yahadut Hatorah member Yaakov Litzman serves as deputy minister of health.

MK Dov Khenin during a demonstration in Jerusalem for a Palestinian State alongside Israel (Photo: 972)

The Israeli government accepted it could not stop the Palestinians from going forward with their UN move. Israel’s forum of top ministers has yet to decide what steps to take in response to this defeat, although the United States has requested Israel to keep a low profile. On Friday, however, Israel announced that it would build 3,000 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in response to the UN move. It has also been revealed that Foreign Minister Ivette Avigdor Lieberman has recommended deducting the NIS 750 million owed by the PA to the Israel Electric Corporation from the tax money Israel transfers to the Palestinians every month, in accordance with 1994 Paris Agreement.