Israel: Palestinian economy not ready for independence

Palestinian economy not ready for independence Ramallah – Arabstoday Israel is preparing a report to be offered to the Donors Convention, planned next Wednesday, in the Belgian Capital Brussels, in which it states that the Palestinian economy is not ready for the Palestinians to have their own independent state.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz\'s website, this report will be handed to all the delegations participating in this convention, including Norway\'s foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere (whose ountry is leading the convention), the EU Foreign Policy Commissioner, Catherine Ashton, and the International Quartet\'s  Middle-East envoy, Tony Blair.
Haaretz said it has received a copy of this report, which lists \"several steps taken by Israel to support the Palestinian economy, although, Israel has noticed no progress in it in the last few years\". The newspaper admitted that some parts of the report have been twisted to send a message to the donors that the Palestinian economy cannot support an independent state.
Meanwhile, the newspaper has revealed that some of the report\'s data are in contrast to data issued in certain other international reports, including the World Bank report of 2011, which disclosed that the Palestinian economy is qualified to support an independent state.
Haaretz quoted phrases from the report which may expose the real intentions behind it including \"The current economical crisis of the Palestinian Authority is not based only on the reduction of the international donations, but also for the misusing of the budget from the Palestinian Authority\"  \"The negative role played by the official financial institution of the Palestinian Authority, is not reflecting an image of an institution which can bear the responsibilities of an independent state\'s economy, that assures the need of more reformations from the Palestinian Authority in order to be qualified to meet the conditions of establishing an independent state\"
The report did not take into account that the Palestinian Authority is suffering from the huge settlement held by the Israeli government, which is considered a huge obstacle against the economical progress in the Palestinian territories, although, a lot of international reports have praised the economical performance of the Palestinian Authority.