Israeli voters ignore West Bank at their peril, Abbas aide warns

'The biggest challenge is that the Israeli people don’t feel today that there is a cost to continuing the status quo,' said Mohammad Mustafa, the Palestinian deputy premier.

RAMALLAH // With a week to go before Israelis pick a new government, voters should pay more attention to the risk of a violent eruption in the cash-strapped and politically neglected West Bank, the Palestinian deputy premier said.

“The biggest challenge is that the Israeli people don’t feel today that there is a cost to continuing the status quo,” said Mohammad Mustafa, who is also president Mahmoud Abbas’s top economic adviser.

After last year’s riots, stabbings and hit-and-run attacks, Mr Mustafa said that he sees a “much stronger public reaction” if Israel continues to withhold more than US$100 million (Dh367m) in monthly tax revenue collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze the transfers in January after Mr Abbas took steps to seek Israel’s prosecution at the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.

While he says the outcome of the March 17 election is an internal Israeli affair, Mr Mustafa, 60, blames Mr Netanyahu’s policies for the economic woes of the Abbas government.

Unemployment in the West Bank is 29 per cent, growth around zero, and authorities lack the cash to pay more than 180,000 civil servants in full.

The International Monetary Fund shares Mr Mustafa’s concerns.

The Palestinian economy shrank almost 1 per cent last year, the first contraction since 2006, and probably will not recover in 2015 if Israel continues to withhold funds, the IMF said in January. That would create “a growing risk of social unrest and strikes that could lead to political instability”.

Isaac Herzog, Mr Netanyahu’s closest rival, has made reviving peace talks and repairing the rift with Mr Abbas a key part of his Zionist Union ticket’s campaign.

* Bloomberg