Posted on 11/26/2009 6:46:15 AM PST by SJackson
For all their talk of standing by the Palestinians, the Arab regimes sure have a strange way of showing it. Despite reaping an oil-driven windfall last year of unprecedented proportions, few Arab states seem willing to dig very deep into their own pockets to back up their concern with cash.
Indeed, the hollowness of their pro-Palestinian pronouncements was unambiguously on display last week in Amman, at a meeting of the Advisory Commission of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, better known by its acronym of UNRWA.
Among the central topics discussed at the gathering was the growing financial crisis confronting the organization, which relies on voluntary contributions from governments to fund its activities on behalf of Palestinian refugees.
In her remarks, Karen Abu Zayd, UNRWA's commissioner-general, bemoaned the group's financial state, describing it as "my most worrying preoccupation."
She told those assembled that the agency is facing a deficit of $84 million this year, and that it projects a budget shortfall of $140m. in 2010. "UNRWA's weak financial situation," Abu Zayd said, "hinders our ability to discharge our responsibilities to the standards Palestinian refugees deserve."
FOR THE past several years, it seems, UNRWA has been in increasingly dire straits. Indeed, on Tuesday of last week, the group's 16,000 employees in Judea, Samaria and Gaza held a one-day strike to demand better pay.
Why, you might be wondering, have the UN agency's troubles been mounting of late? After all, fuel prices surged last year, with oil peaking in July 2008 at a high of $150 a barrel, so the coffers of Arab treasuries throughout the region were hardly lacking for funds with which to aid their Palestinian brethren.
I wondered too, so I did some research and discovered a few surprising facts about the colossal gap between Arab rhetoric and Palestinian reality.
Consider the following: In 2008, 19 of the top 20 donors to UNRWA's general fund were from the West, with the EU contributing over $116m., and the US more than $94m. Others, such as Sweden and the UK, each gave over $35m.
Just one Arab country - Kuwait - appeared among UNRWA's top 20 benefactors. The Kuwaitis came in last on the list, having coughed up just $2.5m.
Given that Kuwait's oil revenues last year surged by 44 percent to nearly $78 billion, you would think that if they really, truly cared about the Palestinians, this would have been reflected in the size of their donation to UNRWA.
Nonetheless, when compared to the other five Arab states that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - the Kuwaitis come out looking generous.
In 2008, the combined revenues of the GCC states from oil production amounted to a whopping $575b. Yet their joint contribution to UNRWA's regular budget was a little more than $3.6m., signifying less than one one-thousandth of a percent of their total petroleum income! Bahrain gave a miserly $50,000, Oman forked over just $25,000, while Saudi Arabia coughed up zero.
I've been to Hadassah dinners where more money was raised in an hour than the Arab states seem willing to part with in an entire year.
In fact, over the past two decades, Arab regimes have been providing a steadily decreasing percentage of UNRWA's funding. In the 1980s, their contributions amounted to 8% of the group's annual budget, whereas now they comprise barely 3%.
As a result, Western states are currently providing more than 95% of the funds behind UNRWA's ongoing programs.
Now don't get me wrong - I am not shedding any tears over UNRWA's difficulties. The organization has long been a vehicle for perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem as a lever for pressuring Israel, and it has not shied away from working closely with Hamas in Gaza, or serving as a vehicle for anti-Israel and anti-Western indoctrination.
But UNRWA's woes lay bare the breathtaking hypocrisy of the Arab states. They lambaste Israel at every opportunity over the condition of the Palestinians, even as they themselves do very little to alleviate the problem.
Sure, some Arab countries have kicked in funds to various UNRWA emergency appeals, while others provide aid to Palestinians via other channels.
But the numbers above lead one to wonder: do the Arab states really care about the Palestinians?
If UNRWA's ledger is any guide, the answer is a clear and resounding "no."
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Abu Zayd said, “hinders our ability to discharge our responsibilities to the standards Palestinian refugees deserve.”
These standards are what? Palestinians are the most unproductive people on earth. One can prove this by comparing Gaza now with what is was before the Israeli's pulled out or just looking from one side of the Wall to the other. Everyone is wasting their money.
Most Arab states won’t even allow Palestinians in their country. I believe they use them to keep pressure on Israel. If the Arab states don’t care about the Palestinians, why should the rest of the world?
I drove past the UNRWA Headquarters in Jericho a couple of weeks ago. The Refugee camp is exactly as it was in 1980, the first time I saw it (after billions of international aid.) The only thing that has changed is The UNRWA has a very nice administrative compound on the edge of the camp, and rich Palestinians from Jerusalem have built many winter mansions across the road from the camp, and the Casino is still there, but closed. A perfect picture of the UN solution to problems in Israel.
Frankly, I’m amazed that Kuwait gives anything... Remember that the palis were backing Iraq when they invaded Kuwait.
The only reason that the arab and muslim states “support” the palis is because they’re fighting Israel. The only people that the arabs and muslims hate more than the palis are Jews!
Of course, the so called palis have also destroyed every country they’ve settled in, and have been kicked out and denied access nearly everywhere else. Look at what they’ve done to Lebanon over the years. And if you want to talk about brutality, check out “Black September,” not the terrorist group, but the events for which the terrorist group took its name: When the palis tried to overthrow the government of Jordan, the Jordanians were just a little bit miffed... And they slaughtered tens of thousands of palis, and expelled many more. Never hear much about that event in the media, do we?
Mark
Sand Savage ‘nations’, A.K.A. Arab nations, use the Palisimians as a tool with which to beat the Zionist Entity.
In reality, the Palisimians are merely ex-Jordanians kicked out of Jordan for strutting around once too often with AK-47’s on their shoulders and trying to overthrow the King of Jordan.
Oddly, the Palisimians are the best educated of the assorted, sordid Arab clans, tribes, “nations”, whatever. One would assume that any rational group would want such a talent pool but such is not the case in the MidEast.
Why? Because it is true throughout the MidEast that is is my tribe against your tribe, my clan against your clan, my family against your family, and me against my brother.
Such is the result of centuries of living under ‘Islamic law’ and ‘Islamic culture’ (both terms used very casually).
ISLAM DELENDA EST - because Islam forces us to so do.
I believe that the phrase you're looking for is "cannon fodder."
Mark
True. Israel needs to accomodate them. Especially after all these years of putting up with being bombed by the Palestinians. But then again, by the time we pull out of Afghanistan we will have been at war with them for 20 years. Amazing how dumb we can be at times.
By the same token, if the Arab states ever get tired of the instability caused by the Palis, they can bring peace to the MidEast overnight.
In about 1974 King Hussein of Jourdan kicked the Palestinians out of Jourdan killing 27,000 of them but not Arafat unfortunately. As long as the terrorists don’t turn against the Arabs again the Arabs are happy.
Perhaps the dumbest question ever asked. Arabs hate everyone but their own tribe. It is a primitive value system that would be extinct by now except that the “west” decided to buy oil rather than take it.
They care every bit as much as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton care about the Black Man.
> The Arab world could give a crap about the Palestinians.
Arab states have been a thorn in the side of America since the founding fathers gave us our Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson had to send troops and put them down in the very early 1800s, Black Jack Pershing had to put them down when we took the Philippines in the Spanish American War and the were on the side of the Nazis during WW2. Arab states are nothing more than a perpetually dangerous plague on the planet and all peaceful beings. We should never consider any of them friends, because they aren’t and never will be. The only thing Arab states have any concern for is themselves.
They do not care about the actual Palestinians. They do care about using them for political leverage, which includes keeping them in refugee/statehood/citizenship/etc. limbo.
Of course they care about them! They are an important piece in the middle east chess game just as they are.
And the so-called muslim “charities” are constantly getting busted for providing money to terrorists.
Not my definition of “charity”.
Undisciplined, half-wild, even dangerous, but they intimidate the neighbors.
Feed them enough to keep them alive, but not enough to be complacent. Hunger promotes agression.
And never, ever, let them into your house.
Next question?
The Arabs don’t fund UNRWA.
The Arabs fund Hamas et al.
Just because they don’t give money to some UN organization (and who in their right mind would, after all), doesn’t mean that they don’t give anything to the Palis. I don’t have any numbers, but it seems to me the article might be misleading.
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