A report in the Palestinian Authority press says that a multi-branch team of PA agents found an Arab-driven car carrying 20,000 shekels’ worth of cleaning products several days ago. The “contraband” was manufactured in the Jewish community of Karnei Shomron in Samaria (Shomron) – and was therefore promptly confiscated and destroyed.
The operation was carried out by a joint team of PA police, tax officials, customs agents, and PA Preventive Security personnel. They banded together to carry out a recent PA Finance Ministry decision to prevent all use of products made in the Jewish towns of Judea and Samaria.
The cleaning-products factory, located in the Karnei Shomron industrial zone, is owned by Israeli-Arabs.
The destruction operation was described in the PA as a “Palestinian national moral obligation” in safeguarding PA “interests and its economy.”
In early January, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad took part in a mass burning of Israeli products made in Judea and Samaria. Food, books, cosmetics, clothing, and handicrafts were incinerated. A PA official said at the time that they had found and destroyed one million dollars’ worth of Israeli products in PA stores.
Israel Facilitated PA Conference
Israel, for its part, has made many efforts to help the PA economy in Judea and Samaria. Most notable among various gestures such as issuing increasing numbers of permits for PA residents to work in Israel. Israel bent over backwards to facilitate the Bethlehem Economic Conference for Investors in May 2008.