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The most likely reason for this is that zakat, the almsgiving that is obligatory for all Muslims, is generally not to be given to non-Muslims. Since there is nothing preventing this aid from being given to non-Muslims, they don't give it.
"A Gulf in Giving: Oil-Rich States Starve the World Food Program," by George Russell for FoxNews, May 9 (thanks to DMartyr):
[...] WFP internal documents show that the major oil producing nations of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) gives almost nothing to the food organization, even as skyrocketing oil prices and swollen oil revenues contribute to the very crisis that the U.N. claims could soon add 100 million more people to the world’s starving masses.The overwhelming bulk of the burden in feeding the world’s starving poor remains with the United States and a small group of other predominately Western nations, a situation that the WFP has done little so far to change, even as it has asked for another $775 million in donations to ease the crisis.
Donor listings on WFP’s website show that this year, as in every year since 1999, the U.S. is far and away the biggest aid provider to WFP. Since 2001, U.S. donations to the food agency have averaged more than $1.16 billion annually — or more than five times as much as the next biggest donor, the European Commission.
Click here to see WFP's donor lists from 2001 to 2007.
This year, the U.S. had contributed $362.7 million to WFP just through May 4, according to the website. That figure does not include another $250 million above the planned yearly contribution that was promised by President George W. Bush in the wake of WFP’s April warning that a “silent tsunami” of rising food costs would add dramatically to the world population living in hunger. Nor does it include another $770 million in food aid that President Bush has asked Congress to provide as soon as possible.
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, with oil revenues last year of $164 billion, does not even appear on the website donor list for 2008.
Click here to see the 2008 donor list.
And while Canada, Australia, Western Europe and Japan have hastened to pony up an additional $260 million in aid since WFP’s latest appeal, the world organization told FOX News, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the international oil cartel, tossed in a grand total of $1.5 million in addition to the $50,000 it had previously donated.
The OPEC total amounts to roughly one minute and 10 seconds worth of the organization’s estimated $674 billion in annual oil revenues in 2007 — revenues that will be vastly exceeded in 2008 with the continuing spiral in world oil prices.
The only other major oil exporter who made the WFP list of 2008 donors was the United Arab Emirates, which kicked in $50,000. UAE oil revenues in 2007 were $63 billion.
By contrast, the poverty-stricken African republic of Burkina Faso is listed as donating more than $600,000, and Bangladesh, perennial home of many of the world’s hungriest people, is listed as donating nearly $5.8 million.
Posted by Robert at May 9, 2008 10:17 AM
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Are these figures comprised of government contributions only, or do they include the amounts given by private citizens through private charities?
chsw
Posted by: chsw![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 9, 2008 11:23 AM
This article highlights two of the big lies about Islam:
1. All Muslims are Brothers together -- Racism, particularly Arab racism, is alive and well in the Muslim world. Arabs use the same word for "black" and "slave." Berber Muslims and South Asian Muslims are not considered equals with Arab Muslims. A well-written article on this subject by Jon Clay "Islam: universal religion or Arab tribalism?" can be found at
http://www.news.faithfreedom.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1879
2. One of the noble pillars of Islam is zakat or charitable giving -- The way this "tax" is administered, however, is a farce. The heavy burden is on poor farmers, but most of modern sources of wealth -- oil revenue, banking, and corporate equity -- are exempt from zakat because those enterprises didn't exist in Muhammad's time. Note how, selectively, the letter of the law or the spirit of the law is emphasized, depending on the situation. How convenient! A fascinating expose of the absurdities of Islamic economics can be found in the book "Islam and Mammon" by Timur Kuran.
It's no wonder that the oil-rich Muslim nations turn a blind eye to the human crises around the world -- even when other Muslims are involved. After all, it must be Allah's will that THEY are impoverished or struck with tragedy while the Arabs are rich.
Posted by: Chris at May 9, 2008 11:39 AM
Several years ago James Baker made a much-ballyhooed tour of the creditor nations owed money by Iraq. He managed to get nearly $100 billion in debt cancelled by non-Muslim nations, and "promises" from Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates. Of course, nothing has come of those promises, which are like all the promises made by the oil-rich Arab states, whose trillions are the result not of any hard work or industrial flair, or any intelligent economic organization, but merely the result of an accident of geology.
The Arab states have, however, used their money to pay for mosques, madrasas, and propaganda of all kinds, including the buying-up of armies of Western hirelings -- academics, journalists, former diplomats and intelligence agents, businessmen with contracts dangled before them. Saudi Arabia alone has spent nearly $100 billion in deployment of the Money Weapon that supports the establishment, the securing, of Muslim populations throughout the Western world, pays for campaigns of Da'wa, pays for propaganda that has prevented not only any sensible understanding of Islam, but not incidentally, has prevented -- ever since 1973 -- a sane energy policy, based most obviously on making gasoline and oil as expensive as possible, without any jerking up and down of the price, so that oil-consuming nations can make investments in other forms of energy, and in conservation, secure in the knowledge that the Saudis and others cannot jerk the price down.
The Saudi rulers -- with their specially-outfitted 747s, and yachts, and solid-gold bathroom fixtures that they bring every year to be installed in the floors of suites they inhabit in Monte Carlo, and their gambling, and their armies of call girls (whose readiness to service them simply confirms them in their contempt for an Infidel West that allows "its women" to be used by Muslims in such a way)-- need to have their revenues, and videos of their exploits, at Crockford's in London, in Las Vegas, in Monte Carlo, their pleasure-palaces, their incredible decadence, all put up not only for the edification of Infidels, but to make their rule less secure.
A little potential blackmail, by the security services of the Western world, might do wonders to obtain, not something as silly and impossible and will-o'-the-wispish as Saudi (Kuwaiti, Emiratian, Qatari) "friendship" but rather, Saudi (Kuwaiti, Emiratian, Qatari) cooperation.
These are different things.
Posted by: Hugh at May 9, 2008 11:45 AM
Excellent story! This is the kind of thing that the free world needs to highlight, and keep highlighting, to expose the lack of compassion and double standards within the Islamic world.
By my calculations, using the table linked to in the article, the total 2007 contribution to the WFP by the Islamic nations* (pop. 1.5bn and including some of the world's richest oil exporters) was around $34.3m, equal to that of the Republic of Ireland (pop. 4.3m).
(*Note that Sudan's $55bn came from The Government of Southern Sudan, the semi-autonomous region populated by traditional religionists and Christians, and not from the Republic of Sudan, i.e the Muslim states of northern Sudan.)
Posted by: Matamoros at May 9, 2008 12:11 PM
A True Prophet declared that, "By their fruits you shall them." What more proof is there that the tree of Islam yields no love or mercy?
Posted by: John C at May 9, 2008 12:19 PM
A True Prophet declared that, "By their fruits you shall know them." What more proof is there that the tree of Islam yields no love or mercy?
Posted by: John C at May 9, 2008 12:19 PM
chsw:
"Are these figures comprised of government contributions only, or do they include the amounts given by private citizens through private charities?"
The table linked to in the article includes a category Private Donors, which I presume covers charities. It shows they contributed $49m to the WFP in 2007, $15m more than all the Islamic countries put together.
Posted by: Matamoros at May 9, 2008 12:21 PM
[Please note: my initial post omitted the word "know," rendering the quote unintelligible.]
Posted by: John C at May 9, 2008 12:23 PM
And the Democrats are waiving taxes of foreign goverment owned oil companies profits and trying to increase taxes on Western own oil companies profits.
at May 9, 2008 12:41 PM
Oil-rich Muslim countries DO generously give one thing out to the world in abundance: violence!
ps-all America haters are welcome to eat their obnoxious hearts out!!
Posted by: pythagoras at May 9, 2008 1:22 PM
Muslim's rarely give to their own. Consider the poor showing during the big Tsunami's whereby mostly Muslim countries received little from other Muslims until it came into the news.
Once Islam started looking bad, Saudi Arabia started giving. It was only out of embarrassment, rather than any solidarity to the Ummah that monies were given.
Muslims need to understand that they are merely fodder for the advancement of their religion, and aside from some genuine human community at the mosque level, their human dignity of Muslims is more respected by Christians and Jews (ironically) as demonstrated by global giving levels.
What this story leaves out is the Muslim countries disproportionately receive aid throughout the world. This is because Islam has failed to produce thriving human communities.
It will be interesting to see how much giving comes from Islamic governments for Burma and compare this to giving from predominantly Christian countries. There are 4% of Muslims and Christians in Burma. I am confident that Christians will come through again, because Christianity (despite its failings) has shown that it really does respect human dignity in a meaningful way.
Muslims must really question why their religion does not produce what the Koran promises. There is ample evidence that Islam produces chaos and suffering for those who practice the religion.
We anti-jihadists must remember that those who suffer most from this false religion are Muslims themselves.
at May 9, 2008 1:53 PM
James Martel:
I'm totally unable to buy the concept that Muslims are the greatest victims of Islamic doctrine, alas. Muslims for the most part know perfectly well what they're doing; the difference between the non-Muslim and the Muslim in fact is that the good-evil paradigms we are accustomed to are reversed: to the Muslim human life is no more than a bargainig chip rendered disposible via the decree of al-lah (kill the "unbelieving" no-Muslim and cash in for 72 virgins in Islamic 'paradise'); to virtually anyone else inhabiting the world today human life is a precious gift to be made the most of and prolonged. The Muslim WANTS death both for nimself and the "infidel" because al-lah promises a great recompense for the killing of the "infidel" through martyrdom by the Muslim.
Islam is responsible for more than 280 MILLION homicides and countless wars and conquests over the centuries. There is no reliable way to tell who is suffering more the infidels or the Muslims but I suspect the point isn't relevant anyway.
Those who comply with (or "submit" to) with al-lah's orders are liable for the horrors that al-lah has bestowed upon the world through those orders. And they know it. If only they understood that just because this is written in the Kuran doesn't mean it holds any validity and that life will go on if they disobeyed such teachings.
at May 9, 2008 2:43 PM
As it pertains to muslim states, jizya by any other name...in other words, let the kafir take care of it.
As it pertains to non-muslim states, apes, pigs and all other lower forms of human life merit no help from the superior muslim.
Posted by: mepeteart at May 9, 2008 3:36 PM
The take-away:
Islam isn't about GIVING, it's about GETTING.
Since ol' Mo lusted after women, slaves, war-booty, and power, Islam itself is dedicated to acquiring and maintaining possession/control of women, slavery/subservience, spoils-of-war, and power.
"Feed my sheep" is not a quote from the Quran. Could not ever possibly be.
Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at May 9, 2008 3:43 PM
James Martel:
"Muslims must really question why their religion does not produce what the Koran promises. There is ample evidence that Islam produces chaos and suffering for those who practice the religion."
=== === === ===
In the eyes of these dolts, the reason for the chaos is: the world IS NOT ISLAMIC ENOUGH! Despite all the hideous characteristics of Islamic nations today (and through the prior 1300-plus years), Muslims REALLY BELIEVE that once the whole world is Islamic and the Caliph-appointed-by-Allah reigns over all, all us Islamic brethren will get along swell and nobody will worry whether Ali or Abu Bakr was the correct successor to Mohammed; the world will be perfect, peaceful and productive, tra-la-la!
Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at May 9, 2008 4:00 PM
U.S. most charitable nation
All we get in return is hatred and vitriol.
Go to YouTube and read the posts, go to just about any international forum and read the posts.
It is all about how stupid and obese we Americans are.
If the US produces so many stupid people, why are we the leading country in the world?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7PQw4J3ilo
at May 9, 2008 4:09 PM
Well whatever the figures say, they are probably Jewish figures, thought up by some dastardly Zionist plot to bankrupt the Muslim nations by making them feed the poor. Sure sounds like Islamophobia to me.
In effect we are helping the poor of Muslim nations because their fellow Muslims can't be bothered. No wonder its such a success if the West bale out the corruption, incompetence, and sheer barbarism of the Arab nations.
The USA, biggest donor, no really. Well I'll expect to see that plastered all over BBC news tonight. Along with caustic interviews of Arab diplomats,and Muslim Clerics, putting them on the spot. They'll be squirming in the spotlight. What no? Really well there's a suprise.
Someone in Israel ran over a mouse, a Arab mouse, damn Zionists News At 10.
Posted by: Ian at May 9, 2008 5:06 PM
In the round table with Bret Baer on FNC, this topic came up, and Mort Kondracke and Charles Krauthammer both punted on this question, other than state that there was no way these countries could be shamed into donating more. From Krauthammer, however, I expected better - he could have touched on this Islamic aspect of charity the ways the others didn't.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 9, 2008 6:58 PM
Better not let Juan Cole find out or he'll freak out again. The last time someone brought up the fact that Muslim countries were at the bottom of the list in aiding Pakistan after a major earthquake Juan baby wigged out and blamed the Jews and American foreign policy for it.
Posted by: waltc at May 9, 2008 11:54 PM
The major food producing countries like US,Brazil,India should form a food cartel like OPEC and demand very high prices from oil exporters for their food supply.This will make make the food costly for muslim thugs,Venezuala and Russia.They depend on others for all their food supply.Muslim thugs and their allies Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez will be taught a lesson.This will increase already high inflation in these countries and make them more dependent on food exporting countries like they have made us dependent on oil.
Posted by: anti islamocommunist at May 10, 2008 1:28 AM
Here is an article on screwing OPEC
http://www.slate.com/id/2131024/
Posted by: anti islamocommunist at May 10, 2008 1:30 AM
anti islamocommunist:
Heck, I've been advocating this VERY idea for a long while now! These desert nations, in OPEC, are DEPENDANT on foreign imports to feed their own people!
Betcha we food-producing "infidels" can go longer, not driving our cars, than the "OPECers" can go not eating!!!
at May 10, 2008 2:24 PM
Forget about OPIC! Organize F-PEC; the FOOD Producing and Exporting Countries! (Why on earth hasn't our OWN country thought of this, DECADES ago???)
Posted by: NamFrank at May 10, 2008 2:34 PM
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