Iran's Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi ,told visiting Palestinians that Iran would aid those suffering in the camps and spoke of "the need for Palestinian adherence to the basic principles of resistance as the key ingredient for their victory against Israel," as reported by the official Iranian PRESS TV news agency.
Evolving PLO-Iranian Relations
Before the Iranian revolution there was no Palestinian embassy in Iran. The Shah was much more interested in maintaining good relations with Israel and the United States than with the Palestinians or the Arab-Israeli peace process. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) developed close ties with the Iranian opposition by training Iranian dissidents at PLO camps in Lebanon.
The PLO backed the 1979 revolution, and several days after the revolution, PLO chief Yasser Arafat , leading a 58 member Palestinian delegation, became the first Arab leader to visit Tehran to congratulate the country's leadership on their success.The Iranian Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan hosted an official welcome ceremony for Arafat, where the keys to the former Israeli embassy were symbolically handed over to the PLO.
However, the leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, despite supporting the Palestinian cause , did not much warm to Arafat. During an intense two-hour meeting, on Feb. 18, 1979, the ayatollah criticized the PLO for what he considered its limited nationalist and pan-Arab agenda. He urged Arafat to model the PLO on the principles of the Islamic revolution. Arafat, an observant Muslim, told aides why he rejected some of the ideas of Khomeini. Arafat and Khomeini never met again
As with most countries in the region PLO- Iranian relations fluctuated, sometimes dramatically. The Iran-PLO relations deteriorated fast when Arafat supported Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and again when Saadam invaded Kuwait. Iran condemned Arafat in 1988 after he recognized Israel, renounced terrorism, and called for peace talks with Israel. In 1989 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Arafat a "traitor and an idiot" and, while the PLO maintained diplomatic relations with Tehran, Iran did not aid the PLO again until 2000.
Figuratively speaking; will Iran help fix the sewers in Lebanon's camps? And crucially; will the Iranian leadership ask their close Lebanese friends to enact the right to work and repeal the 2001 law that outlaws home ownership for Palestinians in Lebanon? Quite frankly, the absence of these very basic human rights in Lebanon negatively affects Palestinian lives, day after day, even more that the goal of liberating Al Aqsa on Temple Mount, however essential this may be to achieve.
No right to work or home ownership please, they're Palestinians!
"Miss International", Zeinab al Hajj, born and raised in Shatila camp, regularly explains to visitors from Iran,"If we are allowed to work and own a home our capacity to engage in the liberation of Palestine will grow fast. As part of an economic middle class we could do more than scavenging to put bread on our table for our children. We will have the energy and more time to resist the Zionist occupation of our country. Currently we are so forlorn who among us has the energy to do more than just try to survive, not really live mind you, but try to survive and barely keep our families together."
A bit more than words of solidarity are needed from the Iranian friends of Palestine to help them escape the sewers in which they currently exist, not far from where their Muslim sisters and brothers, and all foreigners in Lebanon, enjoy full civil rights.
During this 33rd Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and the 30th anniversary of the 1982 Massacre at Sabra-Shatila, if the Iranian government is to give meaningful achievement to its words it should facilitate for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon the right to work and to own a home. This decision would require only the cost of one phone call, or email, from Tehran to Dahiyeh.
A communication, from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Sayeed Hassan Nasrallah, Sec-Gen. of Hezbollah, to insist that Parliament meet its Lebanese Constitutional mandate and its internationally required obligation, would put this in motion. Additionally, they should immediately grant the basic human right to legally work ,and own a home, to Lebanon's quarter million Palestinian refugees until they are able to return to their own country, Palestine.
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