PLO to meet on future of Palestinian Authority

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian leadership meets this week for crucial talks on the future of the Palestinian Authority, whose existence is under threat after Israel cut off a key source of funds.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and their ultimate decision-making body, will mull an array of urgent economic and political issues.
Of most immediate concern at the two-day meeting in Ramallah starting on Wednesday will be the financial crisis facing the Palestinian Authority (PA).
For the past two months, Israel has withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue owed to the PA, the interim governing body which rules the West Bank, after the Palestinians moved to join the International Criminal Court to sue Israel for alleged war crimes.
The cash crunch has left the PA unable to pay 180,000 employees.
In another blow, a New York court last week found both the PLO and the PA liable for a series of attacks in Occupied Al-Quds, ordering them to pay damages of more than $650 million.
The mandate of the PA, which was set up through the Oslo Accords in 1994 as an interim self-governing authority, has long expired. And the presidential mandate of Mahmud Abbas, who also serves as head of the PLO and the ruling Fatah movement, expired in 2009.
The Palestinian Legislative Council, or parliament, in which Hamas won a majority during the last elections in 2006, has not held a full session since 2007 when the Islamist movement forced its Fatah rivals out of Gaza.
Like in previous crises, the PA has threatened to halt security coordination with Israel in the West Bank, and even to dissolve itself, in a move which has sparked concern in both Washington and Europe.
Such a decision can only be taken by the 130 members of the PLO’s central council who meet this week in Ramallah.
“The PA cannot last in its current form — that is, without any real sovereignty — because on the ground, Israel keeps dividing up the land and building settlements,” warned Mohammed Shtayyeh, a former peace negotiator and senior member of Fatah, the dominant movement within the PLO.