Palestinian Refugees´ Future is not in Lebanon
Dr. Joseph Hitti
November 29, 2008
The Lebanese continue to be the target of attacks in the media by Western and Arab governments and aid groups who claim that the Lebanese are not doing enough to help the Palestinian refugees integrate and improve their standard of living. Headlines such as "Lebanon is the worst place for Palestinian refugees" or "Palestinians in Lebanon suffer from complete lack of integration" are almost daily reminders of the pressure to which Lebanon is being subjected for the sole purpose of forcing a "final solution" to the refugees´ plight, namely to permanently settle them in Lebanon, close that chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, deny them their Right of Return and thus bring moral and material relief to Israel.
According to Zara Sejberg, Manager at Save the Children Sweden, and as quoted in the Daily Star of November 29, 2008, Lebanon "is the most difficult place to be a Palestinian refugee." Sejberg was speaking on Saturday ahead of the UN-designated "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People". Sejberg said that over 409,700 Palestinians living in squalid, overcrowded camps in Lebanon, suffer from a "complete lack of integration, inadequate services, harmful stereotypes, and discriminatory laws." Over 3,000 Palestinians in Lebanon do not even have formal documentation, meaning they are not recognized by either the Lebanese state or UNRWA.
Likewise, Haifa Jammal, Human Rights and Advocacy program coordinator at Norwegian People's Aid, which works with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, told The Daily Star that the Lebanese government was not working hard enough to improve the situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. "The government took the initiative to establish the LPDC (Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee), but that committee has not done nearly enough. Regarding the right of Palestinians to work or to own property, there has been nothing done yet."
According to UNRWA, refugees in Lebanon suffer from the highest levels of abject poverty of all Palestinian refugees, in contradiction to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951, which stipulates that all refugees must be given the right to work and to own property. But Palestinians in Lebanon do not enjoy those rights. Nor are they entitled to state health care. Their status has long been an issue of bitter dispute between Lebanese political parties, many of whom argue that Palestinians are temporary guests and vehemently oppose the possibility of Palestinian naturalization.
Aid groups such as the Save the Children Sweden and Norwegian People´s Aid have indeed become the mouthpieces for an international effort at pressuring Lebanon into permanently settling the refugees and thus helping Israel evade its historic responsibilities which consist in allowing the refugees to return to their homes and homeland in Palestine-Israel. These groups and their governments behind them are trying to impose a fait accompli on the Lebanese people and government by calling for "better integration" or "more humanitarian conditions" for the Palestinian refugees as a ploy to begin the process of the permanent settlement of the refugees in Lebanon.
In the opinion of this writer, this is a cop out designed by the international community to escape from its own responsibility in the genesis of the Palestinian refugee problem and to ultimately deny those refugees the basic right of any refugee, which is to return home and not be forced to stay in a foreign and alien country that does not want them. Lebanon has more than enough problems of its own between its diverse ethnic and religious communities to have to integrate yet another ethnic group into its complex society. Lebanon has been in economic disarray for years – primarily as a result of the armed Palestinian movement and its destabilization of the country in the 1970s and 1980s – and is itself surviving on foreign aid while it suffers from a public debt that is several times its own GDP. Lebanon cannot provide for its 500,000 Palestinian residents (or 15% of the total population) at the expense of its own people and welfare.
Also, the Lebanese War of 1970-1990 was essentially a war between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, represented at the time by the PLO and a horde of radical extremist groups (PFLP and others). Today, the situation is no better, since the Palestinian civil war between Hamas and Fatah has been transplanted inside the refugee camps of Lebanon where radicals on both sides have attacked each other and attacked and killed Lebanese civilians and military personnel. The latest episode in this bloody hatred between the Palestinians refugees themselves on one hand, and with the Lebanese on the other, was in 2007 when the Lebanese Army besieged the Nahr El-Bared camp in the north of the country and destroyed it completely in its effort to dislodge al-Qaeda affiliated Palestinian groups barricaded in it. Not surprisingly, the same countries and groups who attack the Lebanese government for not caring enough for the Palestinians have put down hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild the camp and thus force the continued settlement of the Palestinian refugees in decrepit and squalid conditions in a Lebanon that does not want them. A better solution for the Nahr el-Bared residents and all the other Palestinians in Lebanon is to re-settle them in Sweden, Norway and every other Western or Arab country that has the will, the compassion, the space and the wealth to properly care for them.
In order to confuse the issue, the proponents of the permanent settlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon argue that the right to work, own property, access to health care and other benefits for the Palestinians do not amount to permanent settlement and/or naturalization. They say that the majority (no numbers or statistics cited here) of Palestinians themselves have no interest in becoming Lebanese. Indeed, they cite Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki as saying that "the naturalization of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon would not be tolerated." "I don't even know why we're bothering to talk about naturalization when that's not the issue," said Sejberg. "The issue is how to improve the life of these people who have been in Lebanon's backyard since 1948." Yet, these people want us to forget that more than half of the Jordanian population is of Palestinian descent, and because Jordan granted its Palestinians the right to work, own property and other social benefits, those Palestinian refugees essentially no longer make any claims to their rights in the homeland of Palestine. That is exactly what is being asked of Lebanon.
The better response to improving the conditions of the Palestinians in Lebanon should come from the international community, particularly the European countries – whose colonialism and anti-Semitism led to the creation of Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians – as well as from other Arab countries that are much bigger, wealthier, less densely populated than Lebanon, and more culturally and religiously related to the Palestinians, and also from countries of traditional emigration such as the US, Canada, Australia and Latin America. For Sejberg and others to demand that Lebanon bears the burden of integrating the refugees and relieving Israel of its obligations is criminally unfair, a violation of extant UN resolutions, a dangerous precedent that encourages future ethnic cleansing and atrocities, and a recipe for future wars and instability as the past three decades in Lebanon have shown. In fact, according to former Ambassador Khalil Makkawi, president of the LPDC, which since 2005 has been working on the issue of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, responsibility for the Palestinians lay "not with Lebanon, but with UNRWA and the international community."
Moreover, the Palestinian Authority itself continues to insist on the so-called Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees, and has lately reconciled itself with the idea of absorbing all the Palestinian refugees into the West Bank and Gaza, instead of demanding their return to the Israeli cities and the Galilee villages from which the refugees came. Israel has also indicated its willingness to accept this compromise.
Thus, there are several solutions – some temporary and some permanent – to the Palestinian refugees condition in Lebanon. Whichever of these solutions obtains in the end, temporary relief for the refugees in Lebanon consists in settling them under less crowded and more humane conditions than exist in Lebanon. Lebanon is the wrong country for the Palestinians to wait for a solution to their plight. Lebanon has opened its door since 1948 and has provided temporary shelter to the Palestinians who, sadly, abused that hospitality and attempted to topple the Lebanese government and seize the country in the 1970s (as they did in Jordan too).
Still, Lebanon is not responsible for the genesis of the Palestinian refugee problem and has no obligation whatsoever towards the refugees beyond temporary relief. Those members of the international community – Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, etc. – who feel otherwise should open their own countries for the re-settlement and absorption of the Palestinians who do not want to return to Palestine, or for those who hold on to their Right of Return, until a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reached. [Sources: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ and http://nopalestineinlebanon.blogspot.com]
According to Zara Sejberg, Manager at Save the Children Sweden, and as quoted in the Daily Star of November 29, 2008, Lebanon "is the most difficult place to be a Palestinian refugee." Sejberg was speaking on Saturday ahead of the UN-designated "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People". Sejberg said that over 409,700 Palestinians living in squalid, overcrowded camps in Lebanon, suffer from a "complete lack of integration, inadequate services, harmful stereotypes, and discriminatory laws." Over 3,000 Palestinians in Lebanon do not even have formal documentation, meaning they are not recognized by either the Lebanese state or UNRWA.
Likewise, Haifa Jammal, Human Rights and Advocacy program coordinator at Norwegian People's Aid, which works with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, told The Daily Star that the Lebanese government was not working hard enough to improve the situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. "The government took the initiative to establish the LPDC (Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee), but that committee has not done nearly enough. Regarding the right of Palestinians to work or to own property, there has been nothing done yet."
According to UNRWA, refugees in Lebanon suffer from the highest levels of abject poverty of all Palestinian refugees, in contradiction to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951, which stipulates that all refugees must be given the right to work and to own property. But Palestinians in Lebanon do not enjoy those rights. Nor are they entitled to state health care. Their status has long been an issue of bitter dispute between Lebanese political parties, many of whom argue that Palestinians are temporary guests and vehemently oppose the possibility of Palestinian naturalization.
Aid groups such as the Save the Children Sweden and Norwegian People´s Aid have indeed become the mouthpieces for an international effort at pressuring Lebanon into permanently settling the refugees and thus helping Israel evade its historic responsibilities which consist in allowing the refugees to return to their homes and homeland in Palestine-Israel. These groups and their governments behind them are trying to impose a fait accompli on the Lebanese people and government by calling for "better integration" or "more humanitarian conditions" for the Palestinian refugees as a ploy to begin the process of the permanent settlement of the refugees in Lebanon.
In the opinion of this writer, this is a cop out designed by the international community to escape from its own responsibility in the genesis of the Palestinian refugee problem and to ultimately deny those refugees the basic right of any refugee, which is to return home and not be forced to stay in a foreign and alien country that does not want them. Lebanon has more than enough problems of its own between its diverse ethnic and religious communities to have to integrate yet another ethnic group into its complex society. Lebanon has been in economic disarray for years – primarily as a result of the armed Palestinian movement and its destabilization of the country in the 1970s and 1980s – and is itself surviving on foreign aid while it suffers from a public debt that is several times its own GDP. Lebanon cannot provide for its 500,000 Palestinian residents (or 15% of the total population) at the expense of its own people and welfare.
Also, the Lebanese War of 1970-1990 was essentially a war between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, represented at the time by the PLO and a horde of radical extremist groups (PFLP and others). Today, the situation is no better, since the Palestinian civil war between Hamas and Fatah has been transplanted inside the refugee camps of Lebanon where radicals on both sides have attacked each other and attacked and killed Lebanese civilians and military personnel. The latest episode in this bloody hatred between the Palestinians refugees themselves on one hand, and with the Lebanese on the other, was in 2007 when the Lebanese Army besieged the Nahr El-Bared camp in the north of the country and destroyed it completely in its effort to dislodge al-Qaeda affiliated Palestinian groups barricaded in it. Not surprisingly, the same countries and groups who attack the Lebanese government for not caring enough for the Palestinians have put down hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild the camp and thus force the continued settlement of the Palestinian refugees in decrepit and squalid conditions in a Lebanon that does not want them. A better solution for the Nahr el-Bared residents and all the other Palestinians in Lebanon is to re-settle them in Sweden, Norway and every other Western or Arab country that has the will, the compassion, the space and the wealth to properly care for them.
In order to confuse the issue, the proponents of the permanent settlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon argue that the right to work, own property, access to health care and other benefits for the Palestinians do not amount to permanent settlement and/or naturalization. They say that the majority (no numbers or statistics cited here) of Palestinians themselves have no interest in becoming Lebanese. Indeed, they cite Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki as saying that "the naturalization of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon would not be tolerated." "I don't even know why we're bothering to talk about naturalization when that's not the issue," said Sejberg. "The issue is how to improve the life of these people who have been in Lebanon's backyard since 1948." Yet, these people want us to forget that more than half of the Jordanian population is of Palestinian descent, and because Jordan granted its Palestinians the right to work, own property and other social benefits, those Palestinian refugees essentially no longer make any claims to their rights in the homeland of Palestine. That is exactly what is being asked of Lebanon.
The better response to improving the conditions of the Palestinians in Lebanon should come from the international community, particularly the European countries – whose colonialism and anti-Semitism led to the creation of Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians – as well as from other Arab countries that are much bigger, wealthier, less densely populated than Lebanon, and more culturally and religiously related to the Palestinians, and also from countries of traditional emigration such as the US, Canada, Australia and Latin America. For Sejberg and others to demand that Lebanon bears the burden of integrating the refugees and relieving Israel of its obligations is criminally unfair, a violation of extant UN resolutions, a dangerous precedent that encourages future ethnic cleansing and atrocities, and a recipe for future wars and instability as the past three decades in Lebanon have shown. In fact, according to former Ambassador Khalil Makkawi, president of the LPDC, which since 2005 has been working on the issue of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, responsibility for the Palestinians lay "not with Lebanon, but with UNRWA and the international community."
Moreover, the Palestinian Authority itself continues to insist on the so-called Right of Return of the Palestinian refugees, and has lately reconciled itself with the idea of absorbing all the Palestinian refugees into the West Bank and Gaza, instead of demanding their return to the Israeli cities and the Galilee villages from which the refugees came. Israel has also indicated its willingness to accept this compromise.
Thus, there are several solutions – some temporary and some permanent – to the Palestinian refugees condition in Lebanon. Whichever of these solutions obtains in the end, temporary relief for the refugees in Lebanon consists in settling them under less crowded and more humane conditions than exist in Lebanon. Lebanon is the wrong country for the Palestinians to wait for a solution to their plight. Lebanon has opened its door since 1948 and has provided temporary shelter to the Palestinians who, sadly, abused that hospitality and attempted to topple the Lebanese government and seize the country in the 1970s (as they did in Jordan too).
Still, Lebanon is not responsible for the genesis of the Palestinian refugee problem and has no obligation whatsoever towards the refugees beyond temporary relief. Those members of the international community – Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, etc. – who feel otherwise should open their own countries for the re-settlement and absorption of the Palestinians who do not want to return to Palestine, or for those who hold on to their Right of Return, until a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is reached. [Sources: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ and http://nopalestineinlebanon.blogspot.com]
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