IMF rejects loan request by Israel

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has rejected a loan presented by Israel to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority (PA) last April to prevent its financial collapse, Israeli newspaper (Haaretz) reported. Israel sought to borrow $100 million from IMF, but the request was turned down because the PA is not a state, Haaretz added. The approach to the IMF began to crystallize during the IMF's annual conference in Washington when PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met during the conference with Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer and the two discussed the PA's serious financial crisis, the Israeli newspaper indicated. According to Haaretz, Fayyad explained to Fischer that the euro crisis in Europe and the financial crisis in the US made it impossible for Western nations to increase their financial assistance to the PA. Also, Arab states were not transferring funds that they had promised, and Palestinian banks were refusing to extend any more credit to the government due to its inability to make debt payments.