Arab finance ministers meeting Sunday in Cairo reaffirmed a pledge made in April to pay $100 million a month to the Palestinian Authority.
The promise was made the day after the Trump peace team rolled out the economic portion of its Middle East peace plan, Peace to Prosperity, just a few days ahead of the two-day workshop hosted by Bahrain intended to discuss it.
The Arab League also insisted on “complete Arab support to the Palestinian state’s economic, political and financial independence.”
The move seems at odds with an interview with an unnamed Saudi Arabian diplomat published Friday in the Hebrew-language Globes business news magazine who “made it clear he speaks for himself, bu said his views are identical to the winds blowing through the corridors of government in Riyadh,” said Globes journalist Danny Zaken.
“You have to understand that Saudi Arabia has a deep commitment and responsibility to the Palestinians, which was reflected in the renewal of the king’s promise to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at their last meeting that he would not allow the advance of diplomatic moves that would harm the Palestinian leadership,” the Saudi official diplomat said. “But both the king and the crown prince are trying to persuade the Palestinians to seriously examine the economic and political developments.
“We and other countries also are willing to invest huge sums in this – amounts that the Palestinians have not dreamed of receiving – and if this plan starts to run, they’ll enjoy true independence, excellent education, good employment, a healthy economy and will no longer be dependent on charity.” The official added with extraordinary perceptiveness, however: “It may be difficult for them to emerge from the image of the eternal victim, and they may not believe they can manage without it.”
He also said the plan is expected to create “a real state for the Palestinians,” according to Globes.
“As far as we know, the plan contains a clear track leading to “full Palestinian independence at the end of the process. We also have reservations about the American proposals on a number of issues, especially Jerusalem and Haram al-Sharif, but we are convinced that even the most complex questions can be solved when the stomach is full and life is calm, that is, when the economic situation improves, there is no violence and there is a real horizon,” the Saudi diplomat told Globes, “but that the Palestinians still do not accept.”