Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz on Tuesday threatened severe financial ramifications if Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas goes through with the unilateral statehood bid in the United Nations.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Steinitz said the Israeli government could stop collecting the PA’s tax money.
“It is my view, there is no (Israeli) government decision, that if the Palestinians violated the very fundamentals of the peace agreement, we should reconsider delivering tax money to them,” Steinitz said. He added that the taxes that Israel collects on behalf of the PA total about 500 million Israeli shekels a month.