Donation fatigue?

A few months ago there were stories in the media commenting on the fact
that the donations for the victims of the earthquake in Pakistan and Pakistan-
controlled Kashmir were not coming in as expected. When compared
to the donations for the tsunami a few months earlier or the Katrina disaster
in New Orleans the donations for the earthquake victims were significantly
smaller. The situation was so serious that UN Secty. General Kofi Annan
issued a public service announcement asking for contributions. The issue
came to the fore again when the winter started to set in and it was estimated
that more tens of thousands of victims would die due to their lack of homes
and exposure to the freezing cold mountainous winter.
But, still the level of donations was very low. It was attributed to
"donation fatigue." I suggest that the people of the western countries, from
whom most of the donations for all disasters come, were showing their
preferences (or their biases if you are a liberal). They were prepared to
send millions of dollars to the countries on the pacific rim affected by the
tsunami, notably Sri Lanka, India, and even Muslim Indonesia and to New
Orleans. But, they were not prepared to send money to Pakistan. This
might seem contradictory, since Pres. Musharraf of Pakistan has been an
important friend of the US in the war against terrorism.
But, the fact that Osama Bin Laden and many of his top followers have not
been captured is widely attributed to their protection by the "tribal leaders"
in the northern-most region of Pakistan, precisely the region where the
earthquake occurred. These peoples, in Waziristan for example, when some
were attacked by US air forces, staged widespread anti-American
demonstrations because of the "collateral" deaths of some other Pakistanis,
who were most probably hosting the al Qaeda operatives who were killed in
the air raid.
Also, now the "cartoon riots" have spread to northern Pakistan. Yesterday in
the city of Peshawar three people were killed when local troops and guards
finally fired on the crowds carrying out anti-Western violence, destroying and
burning premises of Western countries, including those of Norway and
particularly the US. Seen in this context, the Pakistani Muslims are
virulently anti-Western, and so it seems inappropriate that the people who
they hate should be giving money to help them.
A similar situation has arisen over Israel giving tax funds to the PA. Now
that it will be dominated by Hamas, these funds will no longer be given. The
Israeli Government of Ehud Olmert gave about m$50 this month to the PA,
and this resulted in a lot of criticism, since this money will be used to pay
for security forces that will soon be under Hamas control. But, actually
Olmert has advanced the date for the cut-off of these funds from the date
that the new Palestine Legislative Council (Parliament) is installed this
Saturday, because he doesn't want to be seen as providing support for
Hamas. However, FM Tzipi Livni has announced that this cutoff will not affect
funds provided separately for purely humanitarian projects for the Palestinian
people, and this includes no cutoff of water, electricity (for which they owe
millions of dollars) and food. The EU has decided not to pay further
contributions from the time that the Hamas Government actually takes office,
and this may be about a month later. US Secty. of State Rice also
announced that aid to the PA will be stopped, but this will not affect funds
paid to UNWRA which provides mainly humanitarian aid. In any case,
money provided to the PA for humanitarian goals can be used to replace
other funds that can be diverted to terrorism. The US was not so meticulous
in such distinctions with funds for Saddam's Iraq, the Taliban-dominated
Government of Afghanistan and other terrorist-dominated enemies.