[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] Muslim countries the biggest deadbeats on Gaza reconstruction

From IRIN:

Gulf Arab states and Turkey have spectacularly failed to fulfill their pledges to Gaza, contributing to a two-thirds shortfall in promised assistance to the beleaguered enclave, a new report reveals.

As of late April, donors had given only 27.5 percent of the promised $3.5 billion, or $967 million.

However, only 35 percent of the aid pledged - or $1.2 billion - was actually fresh, with the majority coming from reallocated donations and emergency funding delivered as the bombs were still falling. Of this new aid, just 13.5 percent - or $165 million - has come through (see chart below).

Qatar pledged $1 billion for Gaza and has delivered 10 percent; Saudi Arabia has given only 10 percent of its promised $500 million. Turkey and Kuwait both pledged $200 million: the former has produced only $520,000, and the latter none.

Other top pledges included the United Arab Emirates’ $200 million, which the World Bank said no data was available for, the United States' $277 million pledge, which is 84 percent delivered, and the European Union's $348 million, with a 40 percent delivery rate.

We've seen this many times before. Arab countries are happy to pledge money to their Palestinian brethren but won't pay up. 

Amazingly, the World Bank still blames Israel for the shortfall in building materials going into Gaza, and not the Arab nations that they document as having barely paid their pledges! Their report is in two parts, the first one is their normal report on how Israel is to blame for everything and the annex on how the Gulf states and Turkey aren't paying their pledges. The people who wrote the first part downplayed the statistics from the second part illustrated above, and they actually  say:

It is noteworthy that good progress has been made so far to fulfill donor pledges for Gaza reconstruction, but it has to continue and—most importantly—solutions have to be found to enable faster inflow of construction materials into Gaza. By mid-April, almost USD 1 billion of the USD3.5 billion pledged for Gaza reconstruction and recovery at the October 2014 Cairo conference have been allocated by donors. The reconstruction and recovery process will require that all donors fulfill their pledges. However, currently the binding constraint on Gaza’s recovery is not financing, but the limitations on imports of construction materials into Gaza.Therefore, taking into account legitimate security concerns of neighboring countries, ways have to be found to drastically improve access to construction materials in Gaza.

I can find no statistics saying that funded projects in Gaza are waiting for materials.

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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 5/26/2015 05:15:00 AM