Where are the Arab Muslims when Muslims really are refugees?

I have been watching with growing amazement how the Americans are being criticized for the disaster in the Indian Ocean. First, the UN (Americans are the largest financial contributor to the UN, with 3 billion dollars in 2003 alone) called America “stingy.” Then President Bush, who made a policy statement 72 hours after the disaster, while Kofi Anan was still on Christmas vacation, and the Swedes, who had thousands of citizens feared dead, had nothing to say. But no one has said a word about Saudi Arabia’s $10 million dollar aid package.

Wow! Considering the billions they have funneled into terror groups, that’s really big of them.

Almost exactly a year ago, on Jan 1, 2004, Americans also went to Iran to help when an earthquake killed 30,000 people, most if not all of them Muslims. According to CBS news, one Iranian cleric greeted the help with the following statement: “We hate the arrogance of the Americans and we are sure that they haven’t come for humanitarian reasons, but for other things like spying,” said Abdullah Irani, a mullah from Qum, the main center for Shi’a Muslim clerics in Iran.

And just try to Google Syrian aid for tsunami victims… See what you come up with. Zero.

Given the fact that Indonesia is 78% Muslim, and has lost more than 100,000 people, Sri Lanka is 8% Muslim, and India is 11% Muslim, one would think that Arab nations would now show an outpouring of support and sympathy. After all, isn’t that the excuse they always use for backing the “poor Palestinians” — that they are fellow Muslims and their solidarity is a given? And doesn’t the West tip-toe around Muslim sensibilities whether it be the Americans who are terrified of entering a mosque (even one being used as a shelter for terrorists), or Parisians who dare to ask girls not to wear Islamic head coverings to class, or British, who allow local imans to give hate sermons in London mosques? Isn’t the Western belief that that to hurt or offend one Muslim is to hurt and offend them all?

So, how is it, that the great solidarity of the Islamic world when it comes to their “pride” or their touchy religious sensibilities doesn’t extend to humanitarian aid when thousands of Muslims lay dead in the streets? Where are the much touted “Muslim Benevolent Funds” when you really need them for something other than guns to kill Israelis and blow up planes?

Makes one think, doesn’t it, that perhaps all these years their concern for the plight of the Palestinian “refugees” wasn’t based on purely humanitarian grounds. Let’s just see how charitable Muslims will be to the millions of Muslim refugees in Asia now, people who, unlike the Palestinians, really don’t have a roof over their heads or a way to earn a living. Let’s just see.