THE PARADOX OF ARAB MONEY THAT DESTROYS AND REBUILDS GAZA

Sun 19 October 2025:

There is a tragic irony in the Palestinian genocide: the Zionists kill Palestinians with Arab money and now intend to rebuild Gaza with funds from the very same source. This brutal contradiction encapsulates more than seven decades of political and moral submission by Arab dynasties that prefer the stability of their thrones at the cost of occupation, apartheid, and the genocide of the Palestinian people.

Since 1948, Palestinian suffering has been fuelled not only by Israeli violence backed unconditionally by the United States, but also by the silent complicity of Arab regimes, especially the Gulf monarchies, the Saudi dynasty and the colonial kingdom of Morocco. These are governments that possess wealth, influence and diplomatic power to change the course of history, yet they have chosen the comfort of neutrality and the profit of inertia.

For decades, Arab oil and capital have financed the international system that sustains “Israel”. The trillion-dollar flow of petrodollars to Western banks, investment funds and military contracts has ended up strengthening the very centres of power that arm the Israeli army. Indirectly, the bombs that destroy Gaza are paid for with the wealth that should protect the Arab people.

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And when genocide pauses for a moment, the powers turn again to the wealthy Gulf monarchies to finance the reconstruction of the ruins — a reconstruction that, in practice, means new contracts for Israeli and Western companies. Gaza becomes a business: it is destroyed with Arab money, rebuilt with Arab money, and the profit returns to the corporations of the Zionist oppressor.

This perverse mechanism has been repeated for decades because the Arab dynasties have abdicated their role as leaders in the liberation of Palestine. Saudi Arabia, for instance, which proclaims itself the “guardian of the holy places of Islam”, maintains discreet yet constant relations with the Zionist regime.

The Kingdom of Morocco, which signed the Abraham Accords in 2020, exchanged the recognition of “Israel” for United States support for its illegal occupation, its crimes, and the plundering of the riches of Western Sahara — one colonial bargain for another.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain followed the same path, normalising diplomatic and economic relations with Tel Aviv without demanding any real guarantees for the Palestinians. Sudan, pressured by American sanctions, was also pushed into the same shameful agreement.

The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 under the mediation of Donald Trump’s government, were presented as a “new era of peace” in the Middle East. In practice, they served as a trap to legitimise the Israeli occupation, remove the Palestinian issue from regional agendas, and bury the already fragile two-state solution.

Instead of promoting a just solution, the accords consolidated the normalisation of the unacceptable. According to an opinion poll conducted for Arab News, published on 14 May 2023, 64 per cent of Palestinians oppose the Abraham Accords, considering them a betrayal of the Palestinian national cause. Diplomatic normalisation opened doors for trade, tourism and mutual investments, but closed the heart of the Arab world to Gaza’s pain.

While Palestinian blood flows through the streets of Rafah and Khan Yunis, Arab leaders meet in luxurious summits to issue vague statements of “concern” and empty “indignation”. No economic sanctions against “Israel”, no oil embargo, no diplomatic rupture.

The same monarchies that could use their wealth to pressure Washington and Tel Aviv prefer to maintain the status quo to preserve contracts, ensure internal security, and continue receiving military protection from Western powers. This is a conscious choice, not one of impotence. It is the choice of complicity with the Palestinian genocide.

The reconstruction of Gaza, sold as a humanitarian gesture, is merely the continuation of the same cycle. Arab resources will finance projects supervised by international agencies aligned with the West, with little or no Palestinian participation in decision-making. The people who lost their homes, families and future will once again be spectators of a process that excludes them. Gaza does not merely need to be rebuilt; it needs to be freed from the economic and political system that destroys and kills it and then offers to “help”.

History will exact a heavy price for the omission of the Arab dynasties. Out of cowardice, they allowed the Palestinian cause to be diluted in billion-dollar agreements and hollow summits. Out of ambition, they turned the suffering of a people into a currency of diplomatic exchange. And out of submission, they accepted that Zionism, backed by Washington, should dictate the limits of their own sovereignty.

As long as Arab money continues to feed the oppressor’s arsenal, the Palestinian flag will remain stained not only by the blood of its martyrs, but also by the shame of those who could have stopped the massacre and chose silence.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Independent Press.

Author:

Sayid Marcos Tenório is a historian, specialist in International Relations, founder and vice-president of the Brazil-Palestine Institute (Ibraspal). Author of the book Palestina: do mito da terra prometida à terra da resistência (Palestine: from the myth of the promised land to the land of resistance) (Anita Garibaldi/Ibraspal).

by Sayid Marcos Tenorio | soupalestina

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