Anyone who has visited Palestinians in Lebanon, including youngsters in Lebanon's camps and gatherings knows of their "close and enduring connections" to Palestine. This observer will never forget young Mr. Hamid, a nine year old who last year in Al-Buss Refugee Camp near Tyre proudly recited to a delegation of visiting Americans the names of "214 of the more than 500 villages in my country that the Zionists destroyed during the Nakba. They must all be rebuilt so we must hurry up and go home to do it" Hamid articulately explained to his astonished visitors.
Palestinians who were expelled from any part of Palestine including the West Bank or Gaza Strip, along with those of their descendants who have maintained links with the area, can exercise their right to return. Meanwhile, granting interim basic civil rights to help them live in dignity in Lebanon will in no way interfere with their Return, but will likely expedite it as the refugees in Lebanon gain the wherewithal to press their claim more effectively in the international arena.
"If Lebanon grants civil rights to the Palestinian Refugees, they may become too comfortable and seek permanency in Lebanon and Naturalization." This argument is one of the most flimsy being raised by a few in Lebanon on the issue of granting some civil rights to Palestine refugees. Virtually the whole of the Palestine refugee community as well as all Lebanon's confessions and political parties are in agreement that despite the history of Washington and Tel Aviv floating of "trial balloons", naturalization (Tawtin) is out of the question and will not happen. The refugees insist that their home is south of the border and nowhere else. Virtually all of Lebanon agrees with the Palestinian position on this. Yet this tired bromide still surfaces in the media from time to time. On March 3, 2010 even the hold-out American Embassy in Beirut, on instructions from the State Department and after years of waffling, announced that Washington no longer favors Tawtin for Palestine refugees in Lebanon, abandoning Israel as this chimeras only advocate.
"The Palestinian refugee population poses a security risk for Lebanon and before any civil rights are granted this danger must be resolved." The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah and Lebanon have held the consistent position that Camp arms are for camp security and would never be turned against Lebanon. The arms and fighters that turned up in Nahr al Bared Camp near Akkar in 2007 came from outside Lebanon and had nothing to do with the Camp inhabitants. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently expressed in Lebanon the communities' view that the national Palestinian leadership "supports the Lebanese Government decisions on Palestinian arms inside and outside refugee camps. We are with Lebanese authorities, with the Lebanese government and with Lebanese sovereignty. We as Palestinians are not above the law," Abbas explained in meetings with Lebanese leaders including President Michel Suleiman, President Obama, his Middle East envoy, George Mitchell as well as during a press conference on 2/22/10 with his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris.
Palestinian leaders in Lebanon regularly state the unified Palestinian position: "We are with everything that the Lebanese government says on weapons outside camps. Our stance is clear and won't change," Mahmoud Abbas stated. Palestinian leaders in each of the 12 Refugee camps and 27 "settlements' in Lebanon express the same assurance and a real, imagined or potential "security risk' does not justify the continuing deprivation of elementary civil rights for hundreds of thousands of Palestine refugees in Lebanon.
On the subject of Palestinian arms outside refugee camps, Druze leader Walid Jumblat on 4/20/10 called for "treating this dossier, which gained the consensus of the previous dialogue committee separately , without associating it with the issue of civil rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. These civil rights are urgent from the humanitarian point of view, and they must be acknowledged and implemented through legislative measures in Parliament," he wrote in an editorial in the Progressive Socialist Party weekly journal, al-Anbaa.
"How are Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon deprived of the civil right to work since some do manage to find a job "illegally'?" In principle, the Lebanese Labor Law and Social Security Law are applicable to both Lebanese and foreigners. Where Lebanese law treats Palestinians differently is firstly by restricting access to certain professions, and secondly where it concerns employment injury compensation, social security benefits including end of service compensation. Availability of these entitlements for Palestinian workers is strictly conditional on possessing a government Kafkaesque-issued work permit and again on the poisonous principle of reciprocity. Palestinian workers who find work pay social security contributions, but are barred from any benefits. The fact that some resourceful Palestinians have indeed found make-shift "illegal' jobs often at a much lower wage and without any employment benefits from an unscrupulous or even sympathetic employer is no solution or acceptable excuse not to grant morally and legally mandated elementary civil rights.
"Lebanese women also are deprived of civil rights. They must get theirs before Palestinian refugees are given any." The two problems have become politically related and among the most ardent supporters of women's rights are the Palestine refugees. Among the strongest supporters of Palestinian civil rights in Lebanon are women. Both are illegally and immorally denied basic civil rights. It often requires International Women's Day and Land Day for Palestinians to generate some hand wringing in Lebanon about the need for civil rights for both.
Those opposed to amending the draconian 1962 and 1969 laws (Presidential Decree) restricting the right of Palestine refugees to work, often but not always, reject woman's rights and oppose changing the archaic 1925 law that bars Lebanese women from giving citizenship to their child and husband. To the chagrin of most Christians, strident opponents of civil rights for both groups are often from the minority extremist Christian camp. Lebanese holding this view argue that granting women the right to pass on their citizenship would upset the country's delicate demographic balance and the same would happen if Palestinians are granted civil rights.
Since Palestine refugees and women in Lebanon share a legal limbo quite naturally they commiserate to some extent. Given the key role of women in resistance movements, from heroines represented by the likes of Mairead Farrell and Martina Anderson in Ireland, and Albertina Sisulu and Helen Sussman in South Africa to Leila Khaled and Dalal al Moughabi for Palestine and Laure Moghayzel, a founder of leading women's groups in Lebanon, it can be expected that the support of women may be the best hope for their Palestinian sisters and brothers to achieve civil rights in Lebanon.
"Lebanon needs more time to straighten out the "situation' with the Palestinians. Also, it should be remembered that Lebanon did issue Identification Cards to the 5000 plus Palestinian refugees who have never had either UNRWA or Interior Ministry registrations subjecting them to arrest at any time. So Lebanon is making solid progress." It is true that in August of 2008 the Ministry of Interior began issuing ID cards as part of a plan to improve the legal status of the non-ID Palestinians. On more than one occasion this observer witnessed the hot crowded yard and garden in front of the Palestinian Embassy in Beirut as well as the hallways and waiting rooms as hundreds of Palestinian refugees waited to apply.
Their spirits were soaring as they expressed the hope that could no longer be arbitrarily arrested and jailed for not having ID. It also would mean that for some of them they could now exit the Camp without fear.
Unfortunately, the euphoria was short lived as the Lebanese government stopped issuing temporary identification papers to Palestinians five months later, which meant that fewer than 750 cards were distributed before it stopped the process, citing "security concerns." In October 2009 the minister of interior announced that the process would soon resume, and indeed, the process has resumed. It remains to be seen when the "non-ID's" Palestine refugees will obtain.
"Lebanon is a very small country and we cannot afford to allow refugees to own a home, given our limited available housing space." There has been no probative evidence offered from any quarter in support of this proposition. Approximately 1/3 of Lebanon's residential building are empty, with many owners seeking tenants or buyers and would be happy to rent or sell a home to Palestinians, either without conditions or the condition that once they are able to return to Palestine the lease would end at the beginning of the next year and a reversionary future interest in real estate might be considered assuring that the mandatory vacation of the residential dwelling would be available for Lebanese if they are interested in living in it.
"If Sunni and Christian Palestinian refugees are granted civil rights, including the right to work and to own a home, this will "upset Lebanon's delicate confessional balance' among Christians, Sunni, Shia, and Druze and plunge Lebanon into dangerous internal sectarian conflicts." Frankly, more than civil rights for Palestine refugees regularly "upsets the delicate confessional balance" in Lebanon and this may ever be the case. One recent example. On April 13, 2010 the 35th anniversary of the start of the Lebanese Civil War, the two opposing political camps in Lebanon March 8 and March 14 -- chose to remember this day in a friendly football game in a show of solidarity at Beirut's Damil Chamoun Stadium. Thanks to 29 year old Phalange party member Sami Gemayel "s two goals late in the "unity' match the result was a victory for the Saad Hariri-led March 14 team.
Savoring his team's win, Sami gloated that his opponent, Hezbollah's MP Ali Ammar's "defense strategy was very weak'. While his comment may have been meant as a joke it caused raised eyebrows among some confessions, such is sectarian sensitiveness these days. Wearing the wrong clothes, forgetting to observe one of the other confessions holidays, celebratory gunfire during or after a favored confessional leader's speech, violations of employment shares inside ministries (in Lebanon each confessions gets a share of government jobs and one can be sure that each confessions staff "nose counts" in ministerial offices to be sure the list is what it should be.
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