How The Saudi Royal Family Benefits From Its Many Wars and Mass Migration

Increasing poverty, unemployment, and scarcity aren’t the only way Saudi Arabia benefits from mass migration. Indeed, some human rights activists and policy experts claim that another cause may be due to their funding of proxy wars and igniting regional conflicts. From its fledgling support of Palestinian causes against Israel to its U.S.-backed wars in Yemen and Syria, it shouldn’t be a surprise either that Saudi Arabia is the world’s second-largest source of jobs for migrant workers, followed only by the United States.

Although the recent announcement that the Saudi Royal Family was willing to abandon Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank to make a deal with Israel against their main adversary, Iran, the Saudi’s have funded Palestinians in their fight against Israel since its inception in 1948. The aid, ranging from developmental assistance to providing disaster relief, includes funding militant groups like Hamas, purchasing arms for rebels in Syria, and supporting several Palestinian uprisings and refugee camps.(1)

Meanwhile, the Saudis took advantage of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that fled the 1948 Arab-Israeli and every war since. Lured to Saudi Arabia because of Mecca and the promise of high wages, they’ve instead found themselves products of the kafala system, in which an employer sponsors a migrant worker by paying travel expenses and providing room and board. In many cases, the system was, and still is, abused, with the sponsor exercising tight control over the migrant worker.(2)

The Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen (backed by the U.S.) is no different. Indeed, more than one million Yemenis have fled their native homes to escape the Royal Family’s massive air strikes, economic, food and water blockades, and even the destruction of health centers resulting in famine and outbreaks of cholera.(3) The same pattern of migrant abuse has plagued the Yemenis as Palestinians, namely the abusive kafala system which human rights activists have documented.

Not only do sponsors confiscate and take control of workers’ passports, but newly arrived migrant workers face unsanitary living conditions, more hunger, low wages, a lack of healthcare, discrimination, and sometimes beatings or threats to families left behind. All too often, they become the victims of human rights violations, specifically with arbitrary arrests. Some critics moreover maintain that the system closely resembles slavery; female migrant workers, especially, are treated like property and repeatedly raped.(4)

Other migrant workers from the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and even as far as Indonesia and the Philippines, say they have few rights and are not protected under most labor laws. Along with working nearly 100 hours per week with little or no compensation for overtime work, few are given leisure time. Under the kafala system, they are indebted to their sponsors, who prevent them from leaving to visit family in their home countries. The workers are also prevented from seeking other employment.(5)

International groups like Amnesty International continue to pressure governments in the region to take action to crack down on human rights abuses. The United Nations is also investigating court rulings that have favored and empowered employers in labor disputes that involve migrant workers. Still, citizens of those nations that are aiding Saudi Arabia in its proxy wars or regional conflicts through military aid or by importing gas and oil and doing other kinds of business transactions should protest their own state’s complicity.

For now, there’s no end to how the Saudi Family benefits from mass migration and the suffering of others, some of it caused by their own disingenuous doing. To be sure, the backing of militant rebels in Syria’s ongoing civil war is reminiscent of its support of similar opposition groups in Iraq wanting to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Recall too that the Saudi’s were only too gracious to have invited a permanent U.S. military presence in the region, something that’s fostered even more mass migration and worker abuse.

For now, there seems to be no end to the kafala system in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States in the region. Given that a future war with Iran would only make things worse, some warn it’s time to remember that any displaced person must be considered of value, and that their issues are our issues. This is especially true for those living in the U.S., specifically since 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, and since there doesn’t appear to be an end to terrorist attacks on American soil.

In the meantime, and when it comes to mass migration, others wonder just how much longer can Saudi Arabia and the U.S., one which boasts to be the Islamic capital of the world and the other a Christian-oriented “City Upon a Hill,” continue to play the roles of massive business hubs and profit centers in search of a moral religion.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.

(1) www.wikipedia.com. See “History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”
(2) www.foreignpolicy.com. “Palestine Is a Victim of the Iranian-Saudi War,” by Kim Ghattas. December 22, 2017.
(3) www.wikipedia.com. See “Saudi Arabian-led Intervention in Yemen.”
(4) www.widipedia.com. See “Kafala System.”
(5) www.amnestyinternational.com. “Saudi Arabia, 2017/2018.”