UAE and the Saudis are desperately diversifying their economies and the royal families of those countries are desperately extracting wealth from those nations because they know their current approaches are fundamentally economically unviable without very high margin oil - and the market value, margins, and quantity available of that oil long term is highly suspect.

Israel is also investing heavily in knowledge work and other high margin industries, as well as investing outside the country, in an attempt to get high margin, high value income to offset the dangerous economic risks they have, in part due to limited and expensive water - and which for very strong and fundamental religious reasons still gives a very, very strong incentive for them to stay and stay functional. Israel in particular has a history of wars and armed conflict around the Jordan River (November 1964 to May 1967 and others).

There is a saying in the West - Whiskey is for drinkin', water is for fightin' - and it is very apparent how true it is if you watch how things develop over time. Water is life in the desert.

That’s not what I’m saying. I am saying that tax incentives will always create artificial conditions such that it’ll be cheaper to bring the mountain to Muhammad than Muhammad to the mountain (or ship a pair of sneakers half way a cross the world than to make them locally, or to build a water using plant in the desert than by the ocean).

Globally centralized allocation of resources would solve this, but that’s not feasible for a whole number of reasons, so instead it’s every desert for themselves.