From our “cry me a river” department, brought to us by (who else?) the New Duranty Times:
JERUSALEM, March 10 “” In the last two weeks, the Palestinian Authority has been given about $70 million “” more than $40 million released by the World Bank, nearly $21 million from the European Union and $10 million from Norway. But even when all that money arrives, the Palestinian Authority will have only 95 percent of the money needed to pay February’s overdue salaries, according to the Palestinian economic minister.
How it will cover salaries for March, said the minister, Mazen Sinokrot, “remains a mystery.” And once Hamas, the militant Islamic party that swept January’s legislative elections, names a new government, significant amounts of international aid will dry up.
“We’re bankrupt,” Mr. Sinokrot said bluntly in an interview on Thursday in his Ramallah office. “The world can’t abandon us. It’s in no one’s interest, not for Israel or anyone, to have the P.A. public sector collapse. To increase unemployment this way would be a message of violence, not of peace.”