Relocating Outside Lebanon is Best Improvement to Palestinian Refugees Conditions in Lebanon
Dr. Joseph Hitti
November 11, 2008
A couple of weeks ago, the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Michael Williams, presided over a ceremony to initiate rubble removal at the old Nahr al-Bared camp, along with head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committe, Ambassador Khalil Makkawi, PLO representative Abbas Zaki and UN officials.
The heavily fortified Palestinian camp, which had become an Al-Qaeda stronghold like many radical Palestinian camps in Lebanon with support from the Syrian regime, was destroyed in several months of fighting during the summer of 2007 between the Lebanese Army and the radical Islamists dug out in it.
In his address, Williams said that the Lebanese cabinet, the Palestinians and the international community had prepared for the reconstruction of the camp. He noted that the necessary resources to fund the reconstruction were partially secured because of the international donor conference in Vienna a few months ago and said the project was off to an excellent start. He called on the international community to provide additional financial support, and the government to improve living conditions for Palestinian refugees in the other 11 camps throughout Lebanon, which he said will positively affect relations between both people on the basis of peaceful coexistence and stability.
All this discourse is consistent with the international community's attempts at forcing Lebanon to accept the permanent settlement of the Palestinian refugees, as a way to pave for peace with Israel, on the ground that by permanently settling the refugees, the latter would no longer have any claims to the "Right of Return". The latter is a claim by the Palestinians to the right of returning to their ancestral homes in Israel and the Palestinian territories from which they were evicted in the 1948 and 1967 Israeli-Arab wars. The Right of Return and the status of Jerusalem are the last two remaining obstacles to a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has rejected the Right of Return, claiming that a return of the million or so refugees would alter the demographic balance in Israel which is now to the advantage of the Jewish population.
Rebuilding the Nahr el-Bared with money donated by the international community (the US, the EU, the rich Arab states) is clear evidence that all these countries are working in Israel's interest, since they are paying the Lebanese government to ensure that the Palestinian refugees never leave Lebanon, either to return to Palestine or to go and settle somewhere else.
The principal arguments for opposing the rebuilding the Nahr el-Bared camp are:
No to forcing the Palestinian refugees to relinquish their Right of Return.
No to the coercive manner in which Lebanon is being asked to assume the burden of the half a million Palestinian refugees and to undermining Lebanon's delicate demographic balance.
This is a recipe for future massacres and instability in Lebanon. The Lebanese people, including the Sunni community of the northern city Tripoli where the camp is located, just don't want the Sunni Palestinians in their midst.
Why is the UN in cahoots with the US administration, Israel, and the Arab countries to force the Palestinians to give up their right to return to their homeland, in spite of dozens of UN resolutions that call for respecting the right of the indigenous population (i.e. the Palestinians) to their homeland? The UN should instead be working to implement its own resolutions and ensure the return of the refugees to their homes and country.
Lebanon (with a 3.5 million population) cannot absorb half a million people. This is equivalent to the US (350 million people) absorbing 50 million refugees in one sweep.
Lebanon has the highest population density among all Arab countries.
Why is Lebanon being asked to accept such a catastrophic increase in its population density?
Why aren't the Palestinian refugees of Nahr el-Bared and the other camps offered the option of emigrating, or temporarily re-settling among their Arab and Sunni brethren in the vast countries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria etc.?
Why doesn't the Palestinian Authority take them back to the West Bank?
Why is Lebanon, the smallest Arab country and the one with the highest proportion of non-Muslim population, being asked to absorb all these refugees?
The past four decades of wars, instability, massacres and ethnic cleansing in Lebanon were caused primarily by the PLO and other Palestinian movements who tried to take over Lebanon as a substitute homeland for Palestine. This is are ample proof that, should Lebanon be forced to integrate the Palestinians, the future will be replete with warfare, massacres and ethnic cleansing.
Why don't the bleeding hearts of the Swiss, Germans, Canadians, Americans, Venezuelans, British, French, Argentinians, and all the Western countries who so love the refugees that they are pitching hundreds of millions of dollars to keep them in the squalor of the camps in Lebanon, why don't they just offer some of the refugees the option to re-settle in their own countries where they can provide them with the comfort, the freedoms, the work, the dignity and all the amenities of modern life that Lebanon has failed to provide them and can barely offer its own people????
Why can't the world community take the refugees and leave Lebanon alone?
The heavily fortified Palestinian camp, which had become an Al-Qaeda stronghold like many radical Palestinian camps in Lebanon with support from the Syrian regime, was destroyed in several months of fighting during the summer of 2007 between the Lebanese Army and the radical Islamists dug out in it.
In his address, Williams said that the Lebanese cabinet, the Palestinians and the international community had prepared for the reconstruction of the camp. He noted that the necessary resources to fund the reconstruction were partially secured because of the international donor conference in Vienna a few months ago and said the project was off to an excellent start. He called on the international community to provide additional financial support, and the government to improve living conditions for Palestinian refugees in the other 11 camps throughout Lebanon, which he said will positively affect relations between both people on the basis of peaceful coexistence and stability.
All this discourse is consistent with the international community's attempts at forcing Lebanon to accept the permanent settlement of the Palestinian refugees, as a way to pave for peace with Israel, on the ground that by permanently settling the refugees, the latter would no longer have any claims to the "Right of Return". The latter is a claim by the Palestinians to the right of returning to their ancestral homes in Israel and the Palestinian territories from which they were evicted in the 1948 and 1967 Israeli-Arab wars. The Right of Return and the status of Jerusalem are the last two remaining obstacles to a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel has rejected the Right of Return, claiming that a return of the million or so refugees would alter the demographic balance in Israel which is now to the advantage of the Jewish population.
Rebuilding the Nahr el-Bared with money donated by the international community (the US, the EU, the rich Arab states) is clear evidence that all these countries are working in Israel's interest, since they are paying the Lebanese government to ensure that the Palestinian refugees never leave Lebanon, either to return to Palestine or to go and settle somewhere else.
The principal arguments for opposing the rebuilding the Nahr el-Bared camp are:
No to forcing the Palestinian refugees to relinquish their Right of Return.
No to the coercive manner in which Lebanon is being asked to assume the burden of the half a million Palestinian refugees and to undermining Lebanon's delicate demographic balance.
This is a recipe for future massacres and instability in Lebanon. The Lebanese people, including the Sunni community of the northern city Tripoli where the camp is located, just don't want the Sunni Palestinians in their midst.
Why is the UN in cahoots with the US administration, Israel, and the Arab countries to force the Palestinians to give up their right to return to their homeland, in spite of dozens of UN resolutions that call for respecting the right of the indigenous population (i.e. the Palestinians) to their homeland? The UN should instead be working to implement its own resolutions and ensure the return of the refugees to their homes and country.
Lebanon (with a 3.5 million population) cannot absorb half a million people. This is equivalent to the US (350 million people) absorbing 50 million refugees in one sweep.
Lebanon has the highest population density among all Arab countries.
Why is Lebanon being asked to accept such a catastrophic increase in its population density?
Why aren't the Palestinian refugees of Nahr el-Bared and the other camps offered the option of emigrating, or temporarily re-settling among their Arab and Sunni brethren in the vast countries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria etc.?
Why doesn't the Palestinian Authority take them back to the West Bank?
Why is Lebanon, the smallest Arab country and the one with the highest proportion of non-Muslim population, being asked to absorb all these refugees?
The past four decades of wars, instability, massacres and ethnic cleansing in Lebanon were caused primarily by the PLO and other Palestinian movements who tried to take over Lebanon as a substitute homeland for Palestine. This is are ample proof that, should Lebanon be forced to integrate the Palestinians, the future will be replete with warfare, massacres and ethnic cleansing.
Why don't the bleeding hearts of the Swiss, Germans, Canadians, Americans, Venezuelans, British, French, Argentinians, and all the Western countries who so love the refugees that they are pitching hundreds of millions of dollars to keep them in the squalor of the camps in Lebanon, why don't they just offer some of the refugees the option to re-settle in their own countries where they can provide them with the comfort, the freedoms, the work, the dignity and all the amenities of modern life that Lebanon has failed to provide them and can barely offer its own people????
Why can't the world community take the refugees and leave Lebanon alone?
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