{"id":145,"date":"2026-06-01T13:10:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=145"},"modified":"2026-06-01T13:10:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T13:10:22","slug":"the-palestinian-authority-is-being-strangled-to-death-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=145","title":{"rendered":"The Palestinian Authority Is Being Strangled to Death"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

R<\/span>amallah\u2014<\/em>\u201cI feel like I am going to work with zombies,\u201d Lutfi said. \u201cPeople who have had all of their hopes destroyed. They don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re going to get their money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Three Poems to Get You Through the Drought<\/a><\/p>\n

Lutfi works for the Palestinian Authority, the body that nominally governs the occupied West Bank. (He asked that his last name be withheld so that he could speak freely about his work.) But it\u2019s unclear how long he will hold on to his job, because the PA\u2019s ability to carry out basic public services, let alone employ people, is collapsing.<\/p>\n

The PA is currently facing a deficit of more than 4.5 billion shekels (about $1.9 billion). Amid the financial emergency, Palestinian youth are attending school only three days a week, as schools struggle to pay rising electricity costs and teachers go without salaries. Ministerial offices, even in the relatively insulated city center of Ramallah, are mostly empty. As of late 2025, civil servants were being paid only 60 percent of their salary, in a slow decline since October 7 that reflects the increasingly dire financial straits the PA finds itself in.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, this crisis is not an accident. It is the direct result of Israeli government policy\u2014specifically the policies of far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has made no secret of his desire to eliminate the PA completely.\u00a0\u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, let the [Palestinian] Authority collapse. It is an enemy,\u201d Smotrich told Israel\u2019s Channel 14 in June 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a systematic approach by certain members of the coalition to bankrupt the PA and to dissolve it.\u201dMouin Rabbani, senior fellow at the Middle East Council, explained. \u201cThey need to get the PA out of the way in order to exercise complete control over the occupied territories.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the aftermath of October 7, Smotrich cited the PA\u2019s failure to condemn the attack as justification for withholding revenue. He has also pointed to the PA\u2019s \u201cMartyrs\u2019 Fund\u201d\u2014a program providing stipends to Palestinian prisoners, which critics call \u201cpay for slay\u201d\u2014as further grounds for the freeze. The fund became the basis of a March 2026 US appeals court ruling finding the PA liable for financing attacks on American citizens. PA President Mahmoud Abbas ended the payments in February 2025 at the Trump administration\u2019s urging.<\/p>\n

The distribution of the PA\u2019s \u201cclearance revenues\u201d\u2014which, per the 1994 Paris Protocol, Israel collects on behalf of the PA and is then supposed to distribute every month, to the tune of roughly $188 million\u2014is still on hold. If Israel does not soon resume transferring the withheld revenue, it will be completely insolvent, \u201ccompletely bankrupt,\u201d said Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.<\/p>\n

Lutfi has seen the impact of Smotrich\u2019s crusade firsthand. He works for the PA\u2019s land registry, documenting Palestinian claims to land in the West Bank. His job is one of the most basic prerequisites for any final settlement: quite literally, who owns what.<\/p>\n

But his team\u2019s work is now on indefinite pause. Equipment that they use to assess land in the most remote areas of the West Bank is falling into disrepair, and Lutfi\u2019s union, the Jordan Engineers Association, recently urged its employees to stop showing up to work entirely.<\/p>\n

The PA owes Lutfi 17 months of back pay, and, as he recounted to me, the consensus among fellow employees is that they\u2019re never going to get it.<\/p>\n

To make up for the budget deficit, the PA has been forced to borrow funds from Palestinian banks, and even if the clearance revenues are released in full, \u201cwhich is never going to happen,\u201d Lutfi emphasized, it wouldn\u2019t be enough to cover the salaries.<\/p>\n

Without some kind of outside intervention, the PA won\u2019t be able to climb out of its fiscal hole. But help does not seem forthcoming. \u201cIn the past, the US or Europeans would swoop in to save the PA from complete bankruptcy. But this time, there may not be a savior,\u201d Hassan explained.<\/p>\n

For decades, the European Union and its member states have been the PA\u2019s largest external donors, pumping hundreds of millions of euros annually into the West Bank. But times have changed, and Smotrich has shattered the status quo. When Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa recently asked the EU and its other backers to make up the shortfall, caused by what Rabbani calls Smotrich\u2019s \u201ceconomic warfare,\u201d the EU declined.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that the PA was a beloved institution before Israel\u2019s latest assault. Far from it. Part of why Abbas\u2019s approval rating is, as Rabbani put it, \u201csomewhere between zero and zero,\u201d is that Palestinians in the West Bank view the PA for what it is: a mechanism for Israel to administer the Palestinian territories without having to do so itself.<\/p>\n

Read more The Palestinian Authority Is Being Strangled to Death<\/a><\/p>\n

So why does Israel\u2019s far-right coalition want to dissolve the body that has been administering its occupation of the West Bank? It comes down to land and annexation. \u201cIf you no longer have a PA, you no longer have a counterpart for the implementation of the Oslo agreements, which neither party has officially renounced, even though they\u2019re functionally nonexistent. Israel will then use that as a pretext to reestablish direct control and annex whatever it wants,\u201d Rabbani explained.<\/p>\n

Also at play is the desire to push Palestinians to flee the West Bank, voluntarily at first, and potentially later, involuntarily, explained Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. By collapsing the PA and keeping the West Bank in perpetual economic crisis, Israel can make conditions so unlivable that residents choose to emigrate, shifting the territory\u2019s demographic balance even further in Israel\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

While the capital, Ramallah, has been somewhat insulated from the worst of the PA\u2019s financial collapse, an economic crisis is operating in tandem across the wider West Bank.<\/p>\n

Shut off from Israel after October 7 under the justification of a \u201csecurity concern,\u201d the 125,000 or more Palestinian workers who once worked in construction inside Israel, and whose wages injected an estimated $380 million per month into the Palestinian economy, are suffering too. \u201cI grew up in Palestine around the time of the First Intifada. That period of the Israeli occupation seems like a golden age compared to the kinds of deprivation and poverty I saw last summer,\u201d Hassan said.<\/p>\n

Palestinian families are used to financial hardship. But many of them are now at a breaking point, Lutfi explained. \u201cI think most people can\u2019t lend money from their family members anymore. Because they don\u2019t have it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the PA\u2019s higher-ups have been largely insulated from the economic crisis. They dine in the finest restaurants in Ramallah, discussing monetary policy. (I have seen this firsthand.) Lutfi pointed to the fact that while salaries have been cut, other PA benefits and compensation are still being paid in full, and if you work at one of the PA\u2019s consulates, salaries are still fully intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have the choice of what gets cut, and they always choose to cut the workers\u2014the actual workers\u2014and anything that does not touch them.\u201d More than half of PA public-sector employees earn the equivalent of $664 a month or less, while some senior officials take home more than $10,000 a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Palestinians ask: Why are senior PA officials still enjoying VIP status and a lifestyle that far outpaces any normal Palestinian lifestyle in the occupied territories?\u201d Hassan asked.<\/p>\n

The PA is out of the picture for the Palestinian youth I interviewed in Al-Manara, a traffic circle in the heart of Ramallah. They have few prospects, economic or otherwise. Jobs are almost impossible to find; permits to enter Israel have been cut off; and movement restrictions have only escalated since October 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho cares if [the PA] dies,\u201d one person said. \u201cLet them go. What have they done for us but serve the ihtilal<\/em> [the occupation]?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Trump administration, via its \u201cBoard of Peace,\u201d vaguely attempted to rehabilitate the PA, to give it a place and renewed legitimacy in the postwar governance of Gaza. But this is a nonstarter for the Israelis. Brown said PA bureaucrats are still waiting in hotels in Cairo for a call that they will be part of the deal. They still haven\u2019t gotten it.<\/p>\n

Now it is only a matter of time before Israel\u2019s de facto annexation becomes a legal one, and collapsing the PA while keeping the West Bank in dire economic straits is part of the plan. It was when the PA stopped working toward the objectives of Oslo that it fell apart, according to Rabbani.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I were Smotrich\u2019s adviser, I\u2019d tell him to just pass a law tomorrow declaring the West Bank an eternal part of the Jewish state. Nobody\u2019s going to do anything about it,\u201d Rabbani said.<\/p>\n

Read more The GOP Is Not a Political Party\u2014It\u2019s a Cult<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Palestinian Authority Is Being Strangled to Death - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=145\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Palestinian Authority Is Being Strangled to Death - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=145\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-01T13:10:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=145#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=145\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"The Palestinian Authority Is Being Strangled to Death\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-01T13:10:22+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=145\"},\"wordCount\":1523,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=145#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/8f98ecc42b2e4ce2d870da9e40c54a49.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"World\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=145#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=145\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=145\",\"name\":\"The Palestinian Authority Is Being Strangled to Death - 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