Support, What Support?

Wild, isn't it, that Muslim countries and Arab countries in particular simply are not given to philanthropy. Nor even humanitarian support of their own allied countries. Incredible that it has been Europe and North American that has seen fit to financially support the displaced Palestinian population in their "refugee camps". It's hard to even identify these places as refugee camps since for all intents and purposes they are now well established towns, villages and cities of modest size. Where life goes on as it likely always did when the Palestinians were living in their tribal villages.

Odd, that the dispersed Palestinians whose dispersal was encouraged in large part by their neighbours assembling to assault and shatter the new State of Israel, have not themselves been supported by these same neighbouring countries. Jordan felt them to be a direct and immediate threat to Jordan's own well being and sovereignty, and fought a war of dispersal with the Palestinians on its soil.

Lebanon was not all that happy about receiving and incorporating the Palestinians who surged into its territory and they lived there also in refugee camps in great poverty. Yet the PFLP settled in and developed its raider-niche there, spilling over the border into Israel from time to time, ensuring the ongoing corrosion of relations all-around.

Egypt might have embraced and brought these people into its large bosom but appears not to have been willing to do so. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Oil States with their vast wealth could have encouraged the Palestinians to remain on their "side" of the divide and invested in them the wherewithal to live comfortably, to prosper and become a thriving entity awaiting statehood. But they didn't.

Nor, it would seem, did Iran at that time see itself clear to supporting the refugees financially; nor Syria (itself somewhat impoverished, but not welcoming either) nor Iraq whose leader certainly did not welcome additional prospective trouble-makers. Through the auspices of the United Nations the west has continued to fund Palestinian refugees (as they like to term themselves) at the willing expense of the west.

Although the world is full of refugees from various countries in conflict and upheaval, none of these unfortunates have received the incredible financial boosts on an ongoing and unstinted manner that the Palestinians have. One wonders, is it because of a concerted intention to make certain that Europe and North America must pay unendingly for a situation they have unwittingly created in the State of Israel?

Now that Islamist Hamas, the jihadist entity controlling the Palestinian Authority adamantly clings to its mandate of advancing Islam's intent to destroy Israel, and as a result the cash cows have refused to hand over their cash installments, all cry foul. Funds will be restored and the resumption of peace talks initiated should Hamas agree to living side by side with its neighbour. But no.

Why should they, they crow, when the funds they require will be forthcoming from their Arab Muslim brothers? And what's happened there? Where are the promised funds from all those oil-rich countries? Only Saudi Arabia has forwarded the promised assistance in full, and it was hardly generous to begin with. The current $120 million promised by Iran and augmented latterly is but a trickle compared to the yearly aid given by the west.

In fact, the PA's annual budget is eight times what Iran has promised. And while western aid has not been entirely cut off, since it's being funnelled through UN humanitarian agencies, by-passing the Hamas-led government, the situation in the cash-trapped PA is desperate. Yet they remain intransigent and continue to boast of Arab aid. Aid which, though promised, has barely trickled through in reality.

So tell us again about all that brotherly support.