Middle eastern counties only donate a fraction of what UNRWA needs. Why is there so little support of Palestinians when these countries have so much oil money? EU and NA contribute the bulk of the money…
In: Economics
Ultimately the premise of your question is wrong.
https://www.unrwa.org/how-you-can-help/government-partners/funding-trends/donor-charts
Has their donor info.
The Saudis, Kuwaitis, qataris, all give quite a lot per capita. For as rich as the Saudis claim to be, and to some degree they are, it’s a country of 35 million that is about half as rich as Canada per capita. They just concentrate the wealth in a small group who flaunt what they have.
But the Arab states also don’t necessarily need to give aid only the way the west does. They can invest (where possible), even if that’s something as simple as fruit trees, or apartments or the like, it gets them a return on investment, buildings whatever. The west generally can’t do that because of the Israelis but also all of these projects run through Hamas, and we can’t be seen to be giving money to Hamas linked entities, even though everything in Gaza is Hamas linked.
Now the Israelis also don’t want too much unaccounted for money flowing into territory they occupy. So there aren’t a lot of good options.
Because the Israelis control trade and capital flows in Gaza and the west Bank the opportunity for trade driven industry are very limited, basically its smugglers and some minor agricultural and simple manufacturing products.
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