Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been greeted by cheering crowds as he returned to the occupied West Bank after his successful UN bid for upgraded diplomatic status for Palestine.The celebrations took place despite Israel’s announcement on Sunday that it was withholding $120m in tax revenue that it collected for the Palestinian Authority (PA) in November.The vote to recognise Palestine as a non-member observer state has angered Israel, which said - hours after the UN General Assembly passed the vote - that it would construct thousands of new settler homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.Under interim peace deals, which Israel says the Palestinians violated by unilaterally seeking the upgrade, Israel collects about $100m a month in duties on behalf of the authority.Israeli officials said the PA owes about $200m to the Israel Electric Corporation and that money will now be deducted from the tax transfers.The already financially troubled PA, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, largely depends on the tax money to pay civil servants’ salaries.Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official, said Israel was guilty of “piracy and theft” by refusing to hand over the funds.Israel has previously frozen payments to the body during times of heightened diplomatic tensions.Josh Lockman, a professor of international law at the University of Southern California, said Israel’s reaction to Palestine’s new UN status brings into doubt its “genuine commitment to a two-state solution”.“[Israel’s announcement] will draw a lot of condemnation, not just in the region from key actors such as Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, which are already trying to broker this undoubtedly tenuous ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, but also the European Union and the United States,” he told Al Jazeera on Monday.
