Quote:
Originally Posted by Iggy City
Because the people there are too busy trying to survive with what little they've got. Quality of life between Saudi Arabia and Israel...night and day.
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Saudi men are hardly busy trying to survive with what little they've got. The state keeps them compliant with generous welfare payments, which is why so few Saudi men work, and almost all labour is performed by imported foreign workers. With its vast riches, Saudi Arabia could be a global leader in oil and gas technology. But it's not. It imports all of its technology, along with the people who use it.
And Israel was hardly rich for most of its existence. It wasn't until the 70s that its GDP and standard of living started to diverge from that of neighbouring countries like Syria and Lebanon.
The Arab world suffers under the handicaps of centralized command economies alongside explosive population growth. The former a product of a suspicion of free markets, the latter a legacy of a highly religious and conservative population with extremely low rates of female education.