The Palestinian people should take satisfaction from Israel's latest bit of bluster, because it reveals growing alarm over the world's steadily growing support for Palestine.

To be sure, there is nothing pleasing about the threat, made on Saturday by the Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, that Israel will stop collecting taxes on the PA's behalf, and withhold money already collected, if the Palestinians persevere in their effort to take a step, via the United Nations, towards statehood.

And the PA is doing just that: last week PA diplomats published a draft resolution calling for the UN General Assembly to upgrade the PLO from its current "observer entity" status to the level of "observer state". The measure has mainly symbolic significance, but symbols matter: as Israel under a hardline government keeps building settlements in the West Bank, the weight of world opinion is shifting against them.

Mr Steinitz has made threats like this before, and indeed Israel has previously cut off the funds transfers temporarily. This time Israel has compounded the insult: the strategic affairs minister, Moshe Ya'alon, called the UN push "a flagrant violation of the Oslo agreement", and claimed that it was "geared toward avoiding entering talks" with Israel.

This is hypocrisy on a breathtaking scale. For years Israel has systematically manipulated administration of the 1994 Paris Protocol, the economic addendum to the previous year's Oslo Accords, to its own benefit. In September, in fact, the PA was talking about revisiting the Paris pact.

And as for talks, Israel has stalled and stalled, all the while industriously building new settlements and expanding existing ones, to change the facts on the ground in the West Bank.

As we have argued before, the UN process promises to bear fruit for the Palestinians. But, as we have also noted previously, the persistent Palestinian disunity is the biggest drawback for the cause.

Israeli media reports this week said PA President Mahmoud Abbas is now considering delaying the UN proposal yet again. It's a tough decision: the money, about $100 million (Dh367m) per month in taxes and customs duty on good entering the Territories, is vital to the payment of government salaries.

Whether the PA goes ahead or not, the world will take note, once again, of Israeli ruthlessness and hypocrisy.