PA President Abbas’ America Boycott Showing Cracks – US Envoy Welcome at Funding Conference

It’s a case of money speaking louder than boycotts. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ edict banning contact with American officials is already showing cracks – the biggest one coming with the assistance of Abbas’ own prime minister, Dr. Rami Hamdallah. The PM will be joined by Trump peace envoy Jason Greenblatt in Brussels on Wednesday at a donors’ conference convened by Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide, head of the formal donor states group, and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. Somewhat surprisingly, the primary focus of the assemblage will be an Israeli proposal to rebuild the Gaza Strip at a cost of about $1 billion, the funding to be supplied by the international community. The plan features an upgrade for infrastructure including electricity and desalination plants, and improvements for the existing industrial zone at the Erez crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip. While Palestinians criticize Israel for imposing restrictions on goods entering Gaza which, they argue, fuels the growing humanitarian crisis, Israeli officials respond by charging the Hamas rulers of the enclave with an indifference toward the need to invest in infrastructure rather than spending millions of dollars received from Iran on terror tunnels.