Shame on Arab petrodollars

By Khalid Amayreh
in Occupied East Jerusalem

Is Arab oil more precious than Arab blood?
This is a question that many Palestinians are
asking these days in light of the oil-rich
Arab states’ reluctance to help the
Palestinians withstand the
most ferocious onslaught ever being waged by Zionism against
the Palestinian people’s very existence.

Today, four Arab states, (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab
Emirates and Qatar) produce nearly 20 million barrels of crude
oil per day. Translated into dollars, these four states alone make
more than $2 billion dollars per day, or $60 billion a month,
nearly $720 billion a year.

Now how much of this colossal amount of money goes to prop
up Palestinian steadfastness in the face of diabolical Zionism,
which seeks to occupy, enslave and probably annihilate Arabs
and Muslims in the Middle East and beyond?

How much of it is used to enable the 1.5 million Gazans to
overcome Israel’s continuing Nazi-like blockade of the Gaza
Strip, which has already killed and mutilated thousands and
reduced the entire coastal enclave into a huge concentration camp?

How much of this money goes to help Palestinian college
students stay in their country and not leave because they
don’t have sufficient financial means to pay for their
education at Palestinian colleges and universities?

The Arab Sheikhs, Emirs and Kings won’t have to sacrifice
much of their oil and gas revenue for the sake of Palestine
and its suffering people.

A day’s revenue of Arab oil and gas can solve all the Palestinian
people’s financial problems. It can enable Palestinian authorities
to pay for the salaries of all civil servants and help poor college
students continue their education for an entire year. It can also
serve to subsidize basic consumer products such as bread, sugar
and cooking oil, especially for the most impoverished segments
of society.

Needless to say, a sincere effort on the part of these rich Arab
states would enable Palestinians to put up the most effective
resistance to Israel’s ethnic cleansing designs without having
to worry about providing a loaf of bread for one’s kids at the
end of the day.

It would also save a lot of Palestinian blood since many Palestinians,
desperately struggling to feed their children, often risk their lives by
crossing into Israel in order to find work.

More to the point, a meaningful Arab solidarity with the Palestinians
in their enduring plight would make it more difficult for the genocidal
terrorist Israeli state to blackmail the hopelessly weak Palestinian
Authority in Ramallah into surrendering to Israeli dictates and
perpetuating the national rift between Fatah and Hamas.

This writer knows of many college students who had to quit college
because they can’t pay their tuition. We are talking about intelligent
young men and women who want to stay put in their ancestral
homeland in order to consolidate and perpetuate Arab-Islamic
presence in this land.

But in order to do so, they need a real helping hand from their
supposed Arab and Muslim brothers, many of them are at a loss
as to what to do with the billions of dollars they have amassed.

What value do Arab billions have if they can’t help preserve the
Al-Aqsa Mosque from Israel’s nefarious designs?

What value do these billions or trillions of dollars have if they can’t
shield a Palestinian child in Rafah or Khan Younis from the real
specter of starvation, imposed by a Nazi state constantly
emboldened by Arab betrayal of the struggling Palestinians who
are made to pay in blood the price of Arab-Muslim weakness and
subservience to an evil empire called the United States?

What value does Arab money have if they can’t develop a potent
media machine to counter Zionist lies, propaganda and hasbara
against Islam, Muslims, the Palestinians and the Arabs?

To be sure, the oil-rich Arab states can do a lot to help the Palestinians
who are at the forefront of a historical confrontation against Zionist
expansionism and regional hegemony.

The Saudis, for example, can easily resolve the nagging salary problem;
the Kuwaitis can build three or four modern hospitals in Gaza and the
West Bank, which would help save the lives of thousands of Palestinians
who die of curable illnesses and treatable injuries inflicted by
Zionist terrorists.

The UAE can cover the college expenses of a few thousand university
students in Gaza and the West Bank. Qatar, which has good open
relations with Israel, can use its connections to help the Palestinians
have their own power-generating plants. Qatar, probably in cooperation
with other states, can pay Egypt to provide regular fuel and electricity
supplies to the Gaza Strip, thus enabling the tormented Gazans to
free themselves from constant Israeli blackmail.

And the four states combined can donate to Egypt the 1.5 billion dollars
which the US uses to emasculate the collective will of 80 million Egyptians.

So, why can’t these rulers do it? Do they believe that their billions are
more important than the blood and lives of Palestinian children? Or
more sacred than Arab-Islamic dignity? Shame on them if they do.

Do they think that the Almighty will forgive them for betraying the
Palestinians? They will die sooner or later and will be brought into
account by the Lord of the Universe.

Perhaps the real problem has more to do with their inability and less with
their willingness and inclination. But this is no excuse at all. In fact, it is
an excuse that is more obscene than a sin, because then surrendering
the national will to a foreign master borders on national and
religious apostasy.

The Palestinian people may forgive these rich Arabs for their
clarion failure to fight Zionism, the common enemy of Arabs and
Muslims, for reasons known to everyone.

But the rich Arabs can never be forgiven for accepting
enslavement by the evil American empire and for
squandering their billions on trivialities and excessively lavish
lifestyles while Arab children are starving to death in the Gaza Strip.

Shame on you. God will not forgive you, and history will not be kind to you.