U.S. to meet full pledge to P.A.

The United States is set to make good on its pledge to transfer $550 million to the Palestinian Authority.

Henrietta Fore, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, made the announcement Sunday at the annual dinner of the American Task Force on Palestine.

The United States made the pledge last December at a donors’ conference that solicited an overall $7 billion in pledges. Many of the countries, particularly Arab nations, have yet to make good on their pledges.

Some $300 million of the U.S. money would be in direct cash transfers to the Palestinian Authority, reversing policies that for years restricted such transfers to non-governmental groups. One $150 million transfer took place in March; another is forthcoming in coming weeks.

Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad’s government has instituted transparency procedures that have helped persuade congressional appropriators to drop their resistance to such transfers. Fayyad also spoke at the conference; he excoriated Israel for expanding settlements and adding roadblocks since the re-launch of peace talks last year in Annapolis, Md.

“Every indicator of settlement activity – from public- and private-initiated construction, to tenders and building permits – shows that rather than stopping, settlement activity has in fact accelerated since Annapolis,” he said. “Similarly, restrictions on access and movement are tighter than they were before Annapolis.” Israel insists that settlement building has frozen and that roadblocks have been removed. Fayyad said both sides had much to do to meet their pledges to increase security for both peoples.

“There is no dignity in what is happening to us now and the same is true for the Israelis,” he said. “There is nothing dignified in Israeli parents having to be afraid while their children are away at school. There is no dignity for the mother of the Israeli soldier who delayed a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint near Nablus, causing her to lose her unborn child.”