Before oil was discovered, the Arabs were nomadic people and literally have no industries. There's still people known as Bedouins who live as they used to, just changing tents across the desert every season.
Everything changed when oil was discovered, European, then Russian, then Chinese oil firms came in and literally with 0 investment of their own, they ended up with the world's largest oil industry and now they own all the ports in Australia with oil revenue. Who knows if aboriginals would've ended up the same path with iron ore investments by multinationals. All a big if.
