Why Did Oil-Rich Arab Countries Abandon Muslim Refugees?

And where is the Arab action to rescue fellow Muslims and Arabs from the claws of ISIS?

Western media is reporting on the Muslim refugee crisis as a humanitarian problem that the West must deal with. But where are the media’s questions about the huge financial and land resources available to oil rich Arab and Muslim countries? Where are the Islamic solutions in this equation?

The world is often lectured to about the urgency of respecting Arab and Islamic brotherly love, but where is the Arab action to rescue fellow Muslims and Arabs from the claws of ISIS?

Where are Arab feminists, especially those who demonstrated against France for banning the hijab? They are silent and doing nothing to rescue thousands of women that are victims of Islamic jihadist rape and enslavement. The only compassionate women helping women in the Middle East are the Christian mother Teresas and Kayla Muellers of the western world.  

Where are the mighty Arab armies who waged dozens of wars against Israel? Why aren’t they fighting ISIS and building tent cities in the vast deserts of Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the wealthy Gulf States? They are all claiming they are “moderate” Muslims and that they are against ISIS. But is one substantive thing they have done?

Where are the thousands of Islamic human rights groups operating in the West, the likes of CAIR and ISNA, who are dedicating their energy and millions of dollars to stop discrimination against Muslims and “Islamophobia” in the West? This is the same West that their refugees are escaping to.

Where is the wealthy Arab League to coordinate safe cities on Arab land that extends from Morocco to Iraq and from Northern Syria to Sudan? 

It is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments have not prepared or planned for the consequences of Islamic turmoil all over the Middle East. The refugee crisis should have been expected and a disaster was waiting to happen ever since the Arab Spring failed to produce an Islamic State in Egypt and ISIS emerged in Syria. But Islamic countries have ignored the humanitarian crisis resulting from the barbaric behavior of the Islamic State.

Below are some of the reasons why Muslim countries rarely prepare for disaster to save lives of other Muslims and heavily rely on the West to rescue victims of Islamic jihad:

* Muslim countries know that the West will take care of their mistakes so they don’t have to avoid the negative consequences of their actions.

* Western countries quickly come to the rescue, open their wallets and land to prove to the world that they are not Islamophobes.

* Arab countries lack compassion and action to rescue each other despite the rhetoric of Arab/Islamic unity. Saudi Arabia and Gulf nations never open their borders to poor Muslims in distress. Even Egypt rejected the Darfur refugees who were later forced to go to Israel, which took them.

* Oil rich Arab countries make it very difficult for other Arabs to visit except for haj. They are very tribal and refuse to dilute their culture with influx of foreigners. Third world country workers are treated inhumanely and are rarely given permanent residency, citizenship or equal rights as citizens.

* Arabs would rather spend their petrodollars on expanding their influence in the West rather than making life better for their own citizens or supporting other Muslim nations who are financially less fortunate.

* Islamic groups believe that refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan will spread Sharia in Europe, which is the main goal of jihad.

* By clearing the area from the opposition and citizens who are not contributing to the empowerment of ISIS, clears the way for ISIS to expand beyond Syria and Iraq. Europe and America are absorbing the opposition to ISIS, so why stand in the way?

* Life and saving lives and avoiding human tragedy are not more important than jihad in Arab culture.

I hope the West will think twice before accepting the thousands of Muslim refugees from the Middle East.

Nonie Darwish is the author of “The Devil We Don’t Know; the Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East.”


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