July 2006
Middle East in crisis
Lebanon: the other Palestinians
As the world focuses its attention on the grave crisis in Lebanon and Gaza (see “A long week in Gaza City”), which risks being transformed into a regional conflict, it is time to listen to the Palestinians in Lebanon - in particular those still living in the refugee camps.
By Marina Da Silva
The current crisis in Lebanon has revived the debate about disarming Hizbullah and returned attention to the Palestinians, who mostly live in Lebanon’s refugee camps, forgotten by history and left out of negotiations. Now they are being pushed to the centre of the political stage and are trying to assert a right of return which they have never renounced.
Khadda, who lived in the biggest camp in Lebanon, Ein al-Hilweh, on the edge of Saida, so dreaded the tensions and armed conflicts in it that she left the camp, risking the cohesion of her family. Her husband, who runs a small shop, has stayed, and her children go back every weekend. She said: “The refugee camps, and Ein al-Hilweh in particular, are always described in the national and international press as no-go areas that harbour criminals and Islamic extremists. But we are the camp, more than 45,000 of us, and we cherish our identity and our history. It’s not those tearaways, at most a couple of hundred, who are the products of insecurity and political stalemate.” Even more than the violence, Khadda is weary of the sense of suffocation, of the poverty clearly visible in the narrow, filthy streets and crumbling houses, fertile ground for Islamic radicalisation.
The turning point came in 1982 with Israel’s invasion and the forced departure of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its fighters. The PLO had provided work for nearly 65% of the Palestinians, as well as funding for health and education (also open to destitute Lebanese). Lebanon’s Palestinians then felt forgotten by the Oslo agreements of 1993: the PLO concentrated its diplomatic efforts on the West Bank and Gaza, which also received international aid. The budgets allocated to Lebanon by international NGOs, Unrwa (1) and other UN agencies were drastically reduced. The refugee camps that bore the brunt of war and economic hardship have been passed over.
The Islamist movements, mainly Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), have touched the poorest sections of the population by providing much-needed aid. Hamas benefited from popular anger after Israel deported 415 Palestinians close to the movement from the occupied territories to southern Lebanon in December 1992; Hamas benefited again when Israel began targeted assassinations of Palestinian Islamist political leaders: Sheikh Ahmad Yassin in March 2004 and Abdelaziz al-Rantissi a month later, both in Gaza. Their portraits are everywhere. Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections in January has added to its strength.
Um Fadi, who is close to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was surprised “like everyone else” at the Hamas victory, but she was pleased with the result, a vote “against corruption and for Palestinian rights, including the right of return”. Ein al-Hilweh is not like it was when her children were born there: in those days the camps were the symbol of Palestinian political life and of building a society in exile. “Today,” she said, “the population is hostage to political factions settling internal scores. Often there are deaths and people are afraid. But they don’t want to leave, because the camp still symbolises our long wait for return and the struggle for our rights.”
On 1 May a member of Fatah was killed by a militant member of Usbat al-Ansar (League of Partisans), a Salafist group thought to have links with al-Qaida. The death was the latest in a long list of casualties. These confrontations, political as much as criminal, often go beyond internal rivalries: they are part of a strategy of tension orchestrated by the various organisations’ secret services and meant to confuse. Ein al-Hilweh retains its symbolic status as a political camp where all Palestinian parties are recognised and respected, a real capital of the Palestinians in exile.
Sensitive situation
“The situation is sensitive,” said Abu Ali Hassan, a former leader of Ein al-Hilweh who is now at Mar Elias, a small, mainly Christian camp in Beirut, where he is in charge of relations with the Lebanese political parties. “The disarmament of the Palestinian organisations, called for by resolution 1559 of September 2004, at the instigation of France and the United States, constitutes one of the issues in Lebanese political life (2). The national unity government in Beirut has formed a committee to negotiate the disarmament of the bases outside the camps and control the arms inside them. We’re working towards creating a united delegation and ensuring that this issue isn’t dealt with just from a security point of view, but that the outcome will advance our political rights and improve the humanitarian situation in the camps.”
Abbas Zaki, from Fatah, heads the PLO representation in Jnah, in the southern suburbs of Beirut. He believes that its reopening in May was a strong political signal: “The government doesn’t want to deal with this issue by force; it’s mainly armed Palestinians in a dozen bases spread out across the Beqaa valley and in the coastal town of Nahme, 15km south of Beirut, who cause problems.” The statement by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, in Paris last October, that Palestinians living in Lebanon had to “obey the law” and that they were there as “guests” was not welcomed.
Lebanese newspapers regularly report infiltrations of Palestinian militants from Syria into the western Beqaa, which have led the Lebanese army to seal off some 40 illegal crossing points between the countries and to tighten its control of Palestinian factions that are linked to pro-Syrian organisations based in Damascus, such as the PFLP-GC, Fatah-Intifada (a splinter group of Fatah, led by Abu Musa) and Al-Saiqa (the Palestinian wing of the ruling Ba’ath party in Syria).
“Because we’ve led the armed resistance to Israel and are still active and influential, we’re seen as obstacles to peace”, said Nabil, who heads the people’s committee in the camp at Beddawi, below Tripoli, in the north. Beddawi has less crowded houses, rebuilt roads and sewers, and is further away from the battle zone. It might seem peaceful, but to Nabil ,war remains a threat: “Israeli planes still fly regularly over Lebanon, north to south and back again, with total impunity. Sabra and Shatila will remain forever in our memory. We were massacred while we were under the protection of international forces. The arms in the camps are there to ensure our protection” (3).
The arms question conceals the Palestinians’ living conditions and their banishment. According to Unrwa’s March figures, there are 404,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, of whom 220,000 live in a dozen camps around the country. These include: in Beirut, Mar Elias, Burj al-Barajneh, Sabra and Shatila, and Dbayeh; in the south, near Saida, Ein al-Hilweh and Mieh Mieh; also in the south, near Tyre, al-Buss, Rashidieh, Burj al-Shemali; in the north by Tripoli, Nahr al-Bared and Beddawi; and Wavel in the Beqaa valley. There are also small illegal ghetto-camps, not recognised by Unrwa and therefore without aid.
The Lebanese army keeps up pressure around the camps, particularly those in the south which provide shelter for some 100,000 refugees; access to these is restricted and requires a permit.
Fatah remains the most powerful organisation here, while in the camps in Beirut, northern Lebanon and the Beqaa, the pro-Syrians have maintained a significant presence. Everywhere the increasing strength of the Islamist movements is noticeable: some think it now puts Fatah and Hamas on an equal footing.
According to Unrwa, 60% of Palestinian refugees live in poverty and as many as 70% are unemployed. Until recently there were 72 jobs they were unable to practise outside the camps; they were not allowed to bring construction material into the camps; and they cannot leave or re-enter Lebanese territory without a visa, which lasts for only six months.
In June 2005 the Lebanese minister of labour, Trad Hamade, who is close to Hizbullah, signed a memorandum in favour of Palestinians born in Lebanon and registered at the interior ministry, which partly lifts the ban on doing certain jobs. But this does not change anything for qualified Palestinians, who still cannot practise medicine, law or architecture. There is total silence about a 2001 law that forbade Palestinians to buy houses or property in Lebanon, which has led to legal confusion, particularly on inheritance.
Samira Salah heads the PLO’s department for Palestinian refugee affairs and coordinates the campaign for the rights of refugees in Lebanon and the right of return, in accordance with UN resolution 194. She sees Hamade’s measures as a step forward, though they will not change anything in real terms: “Proposals were already made in 1995 indicating that a Palestinian born in Lebanon had the right to work, on condition he had a permit; but this permit is still almost impossible to obtain and the minister’s proposal doesn’t include social security or insurance.”
The campaign for Palestinian rights was started in April 2005 by a collective that brings together 25 Palestinian associations, the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s refugee affairs department and members of civil society. The campaign includes workshops and training, and seeks to gain the support of the Lebanese population to create a broad movement of political pressure. Under the slogan “Civil rights until we return; together with the Lebanese we will resist settlement and naturalisation of refugees”, the campaign has four main demands: the right to work, to own property, to security and to free association. These are not new but they have never been answered.
There are now some 4 million refugees, about 60% of the Palestinian community, who were originally forced into exile in their hundreds of thousands when the state of Israel was created; 90% live in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries. Lebanon’s Palestinians crystallise the most sensitive issues in both Lebanese and regional politics. They are a reminder that any move in the Arab-Israeli conflict is linked to a resolution of the refugee problem.