The boycott of the reconstituted PA, lead by the Quartet and Israel, has resulted in a
massive reduction in funds made available not only to the PA, but to the Palestinian economy as
a whole. This engineered impoverishment of Palestinian governing institutions is reverberating
througout the economy, threatening “one of the worst depressions in the history of capitalism,” in
the words of one international official intimately familiar with the issue. Starved of aid funds by
donors and tax transfers by Israel, having few remaining financial resources to collateralize, and
boycotted by commercial financial institutions fearing the legal implications of doing business
with organizations proscribed by US and EU laws, the PA may not be able to mobilize the
resources necessary to perform its core functions.