Blair urges Congress to release blocked aid to Palestinians

Quartet Special Envoy to Peace, Tony Blair, Tuesday urged the US Congress to release $200 million in funds for Palestinian state building that it has currently placed on hold until the Palestinian application for membership in the United Nations is resolved, said Blair’s office.Blair, in an interview with the BBC Radio 4, said he was working to persuade lawmakers against the cut in funding on the basis that “even if you are completely opposed to the Palestinian bid in the United Nations, this is not the right way to respond to it, because it harms the Palestinian people and the very things we have most strongly supported over the last few years.”“Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, under the leadership of President Abbas, has actually made huge strides in security, economic infrastructure, all sorts of things to do with the growth of the economy, which have resulted in double-digit growth on the West Bank in the last few years, and actually a situation where this year the Prime Minister is asking for fewer amounts of funds than last year,” Blair added.He stressed that the  financial aid is not directed at the politics, but goes directly to support the very things that the entire international community agreed on, in the last few years, as good for the Palestinians.Describing the decision by Congress as “another difficulty to overcome,” Blair said the money that had been going into the Palestinian economy since the 2007 Paris donors conference “really has made a difference in Palestine, in the West Bank, and even to an extent in Gaza because half of the money the Palestinian Authority pays out actually gets paid into Gaza.”He called on the US Congress to release the money and “remove this difficulty and get on with building the process on the ground at the same time as I hope it is possible to get back into negotiations.”