Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has realized there is a limit to how many times any protege can expect to go to his benefactor and still come away with enough to line his pockets.
Moreover, with his health declining along with that of his top aide, PLO secretary-general Saeb Erekat, Abbas has figured out he has to focus on his priorities: liquid wealth or grandiosity.
The decision was easy: the Palestinian Authority’s mammoth $17.5 million “presidential palace” is being transformed into a “national library,” according PA Culture Minister Ehab Bessaiso.
The 4,700-square-meter complex is situated on a 27,000-square-meter lot in the village of Surda, near the Palestinian Authority capital city of Ramallah.
“The president believes the palace should be used for public benefit by turning it into a huge national library supervised by a board of trustees,” Mohammed Shtayyeh, head of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR) told AFP.
Construction on the “palace” began about five years ago, and was being paid for by the Palestinian Authority’s finance ministry and PECDAR, which channels donor funding. But the Palestinian Authority is deeply in debt and pretty much out of cash. Much of the money it receives goes to pay salaries for bloodthirsty terrorists incarcerated in Israeli prisons, and the families of those who lost their lives trying to murder Israelis.
Abbas passionately told U.S. peace envoys earlier this year that he would rather lose his position than be the one to roll back payments of terrorist salaries and stipends to their families. This year alone, more than a full third of the foreign aid received by the Palestinian Authority was rerouted to cover those costs alone.
Thus, the decision to repurpose the “presidential palace” into a national library instead.
Of course, it is also not clear how long it will take to create the library; but that project is infinitely more attractive to foreign donors and much easier to justify in a grant proposal than another decade’s worth of aid for a palace.