America's "Dog in the Fight" Will Hezbollah leash "NABI"?

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Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut

For months as Lebanon's historic debate over basic civil rights for Palestinian refugees has unfolded, the Obama administration has watched idly along the sidelines. As hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees cough and slow-bake while inhaling rancid camp air in Lebanon's sweltering breezeless heat, the White House has now sent Lebanon's parliament a message. The United States will not support meaningful civil, social or economic rights for the World's largest and oldest refugee population and it wants them naturalized anywhere, anyplace -- except in Palestine.

Many had been hoping that President Obama would honor in Lebanon his calls for "American-style" civil rights for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, where daily US military actions betray American founding principles. They hoped that his administration would act to give some credence to Obama's June 2009 Cairo speech, or at least honor the pledges of Presidential envoy George Mitchell to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah that "the United States will work without rest until the inhuman conditions of Palestinians in all the refugee camps are ended."

The US Embassy media office in Lebanon advised Palestine Civil Rights Campaign volunteers last month -- referring to the Parliamentary debate -- that "The United States does not have a dog in the fight." An odd choice of words, one might think, given still fresh Lebanese memories of dogs in the fight from 18 years of Israeli troops brutally occupying 151 South Lebanon villages and using US-funded attack dogs to terrorize the population and employing dogs to desecrate dozens of South Lebanon's Mosques.

In fact, the Obama administration does have a dog in this historic civil rights struggle in Lebanon. Figuratively speaking, the cur is a cross between a Pit-bull-Doberman and rabid Rottweiler, and is known locally as "NABI" (Naturalization Anywhere But Israel).

The White House, and the Congressional Israeli lobby, intend that "NABI" will shepherd and corral Lebanon's Palestinians and resettle them permanently and painlessly (at least for their well-paid host countries) around the World. The further from Palestine the refugees end up the better. Perhaps as many as 100,000 Palestinians could be kept in Lebanon, even though they will be arrested if they travel south anywhere along the "blue line" or happen to rest at villages like Maron al Ras and gaze wistfully towards their former homes and villages near Akka or Safad.

The US also expects NABI to disembowel the Right of Return and has begun arranging for Arab oil cash to foot the bill for this US-Israel project. The Obama administration, colluding with Israel, is backing the gradual naturalization of the Palestinians wherever they are or can be embedded. In this context and, according to the information acquired by the Kuwait Daily, Al-Anbaa, "the State Department has formed a team of Arabs and Europeans, in order to pressure the Gulf States into financing a fund to support any country that will accept and nationalize Palestinians."

During her Congressional confirmation hearing last month, Ms. Maura Conelly, slated to replace Michele Sisson as US Ambassador in Lebanon, was asked by a Congressional AIPAC agent where the State Department stood on the issue of shipping Palestinians in Lebanon around the World.

Conelly replied, "Senator, the United States is opposed to forced naturalization," implying that using cash inducements and other incentives to settle Palestinians, rather than a spring 1948 Nakba ethnic cleansing operation would be okay. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman had assured Lebanon that the US was absolutely against naturalization of Palestinians in Lebanon, but that was during the run-up to last spring's Lebanese municipal elections when many US political promises were being made in the hope of buttressing the poll prospects of the anti-Hezbollah and anti-Palestinian voters, who today are, by and large, the same politicians opposing Palestinian civil rights.

MP Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah ally, (except on the issue of granting Palestinians even elementary civil rights), has been barnstorming this week warning of the US-Israeli project. On 7/26/10 Aoun declared:

"This (project to settle Palestinian refugees) is an issue that we reject, and we will not be subject to any foreign policy planning to execute certain plans. The US is not interested in assuring the security, stability and sovereignty of Lebanon, but only in solving Israel's Palestinian problem at the expense of we Lebanese."

Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel quickly added his voice to that of his rival Aoun and expressed his fears of the Israeli-US plan to naturalize Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. He revealed in an interview with Al-Jazeera that he has information "of an Israeli plan, backed by the American side, to naturalize Palestinians through the efforts of international institutions."

Amin has no problem with scuttling the Right of Return and is in favor of naturalization as long as it does not happen In Lebanon. This is 50% of the Israeli and American position -- the only point of contention expressed by the Lebanese right wing elements is that the US and Israel have no problem with Palestinians being naturalized in Lebanon -- the NABI concept.

The Obama administration reckons that the Lebanese government can be "induced" to cooperate and social services for the remaining Palestinian refugees can be paid for by allies, including some OPEC members, even as UNRWA is to be phased out which, Israel and the US favor in the interim.

Why UNRWA must be dismantled

For Israel and its American proxies in Washington, UNRWA, by the simple fact of its existence, is metaphorically Edgar Allen Poe's "Tell Tale Heart" that won't stop beating and, with each ever-louder beat, reminds the world of Israel's serial international crimes. The reason UNRWA must be mauled by NABI is that Israel has long believed that by its very name, The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA haunts people to inquire into its work and what happened in Palestine during the Nakba. Israel cannot abide the current maturing generation, especially in the West, but also in Israel, studying UNRWA's history of achievements for the Palestinians in the context of six decades of massacres, land grabs and ethnic cleansing.

The Tell Tale Heart of UNRWA must be silenced and its services assumed, at least for a few years, by Europe and the US using Arab money. The US-Israeli plan is that the naturalized refugees will be on their own wherever they end up and UNRWA can be permanently dismantled.

US Congressional sources close to Israel expect UNRWA to be abolished outright or at least financially gutted following Congressional Hearings and an Israeli lobby organized vilification campaign resurrecting the "terrorists in their ranks" and the false "anti-Semitic UNRWA textbook" paradigms of the recent past. A campaign similar to the never proven charges made by Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and others at AIPAC events that leveled charges such as raising terrorists in UNRWA schools, is what is under consideration.

In Lebanon, the fact is that UNRWA hermetically seals its 78 schools from Palestinian politics and history. Youngsters in the camps report to the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon (PCRC) that UNRWA is so afraid of criticism by Israel or the US Congress that it does not even allow them to wear the traditional keffiyeh or tee shirts, bracelets, necklaces or flag pins which might suggest (heaven forbid!) political support for their own country, Palestine.

The American brand

The US government strongly favors the draft law proposal of Samir Geagea's Lebanese Forces -- March 14th "coalition." This lowest common denominator, watered-down approach, currently scheduled for an August 17th Parliamentary vote, offers the Palestinians refugees some crumbs including adjusting Article 9 of the Labor code to make it easier to secure a work permit but does not allow home ownership, meaningful social security benefits or access to the more than 20 syndicated professions.

As currently drafted, the March 14 "consensus proposal" will achieve essentially nothing towards granting internationally mandated civil, social and economic rights for Lebanon's Palestinian refugees. The US government is backing the March 14th coalition proposal and will apply pressure to see it passed; at least, if it looks like the Jumblatt-Progressive Socialist Party or the Syrian Socialist National Party, it may have a chance of being adopted. Either of these two bills would be a huge improvement over the "scattered chicken feed" Lebanese Forces bill or March 14 "consensus bill."

If the American brand bill is enacted, the US administration will pressure its friends in the region to accept it and no doubt will announce the Palestinians civil rights mission accomplished. It will be a lie and pressure from the youth generation in the camps who are being denied dignity and any real opportunity in life will continue to build toward explosion.

The US-Israel worry about Palestinian refugees in Lebanon securing the basic right to work and to own a home has nothing to do with fears of al tawtin, (naturalization) or the loss of the refugees Right of Return, which is a huge concern of the Lebanese. Indeed, US-Israeli concerns are precisely the opposite. Both want Palestinians to become citizens in dozens of countries if necessary; to fade into the woodwork, and to forget about UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which mandated their unalienable Right of Return. Israel's problem is that the Palestinian Right of Return is gaining international momentum partly because of continuing Israeli crimes.

Despite sometimes mouthing support for the Right of Return, in a clumsy and transparent effort to avoid granting Palestinians civil rights in the interim, some US protégés in Lebanon could care less about refugees reclaiming their stolen homes and lands in Palestine. But, like the Palestinian refugees themselves, they are dead set against the refugees staying any longer than absolutely necessary in Lebanon. Consequently, the right-wing Christian insistence on "No Naturalization" (emphatically shared by the Palestinian refugees) is at odds with the American-Israeli project and this issue is making for some interesting bedfellows.

The only political force in Parliament that can defeat this latest US-Israel project, which also indirectly targets Hezbollah and Iran, is the National Lebanese Resistance with its broad-based public support and legislative allies. The Hezbollah-led resistance can marshal the 65 votes to enact an internationally mandated civil rights law instead of the current feel-good feeble gesture that US-Israel and their proxies are currently planning for August 17. It is better for all concerned that this vote be postponed for 60 days rather than facilitate the US-Israel supported project.

If adopted, this current, regressive "consensus" and fake "Palestinian refugee civil rights law" will fail to meet Lebanon's internationally mandated duty to her refugees and it will not even minimally comply with the requirements of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the Casablanca Protocol on the Treatment of Palestinians in Arab Countries of 11 September 1965. If passed in its current form, it will guarantee bleak prospects for Lebanon's Palestinian refugees, and quite likely for Lebanon and the region for years to come.

Franklin Lamb volunteers in Lebanon with the Palestine Civil Rights
Campaign. He is reachable c/o fplamb@palestinecivilrightscampaign.org

Authors Website: http://mealsforsyrianrefugeechildrenlebanon.com/

Authors Bio:

Since 2013, Professor Franklin P. Lamb has traveled extensively throughout Syria. His primary focus has been to document, photograph, research and hopefully help preserve the vast and irreplaceable archaeological sites and artifacts in Syria.

Like Iraq, Syria is the cradle of civilization, and as such it has been a rich source of our shared global culture and historic heritage. Already endangered from illegal excavation, looting, international trafficking and iconoclasm; the theft and destruction of these sites has greatly increased as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.

Many of the endangered archeological sites and artifacts are over 7,000 years old. The oldest remains found in Syria are from the Paleolithic era (c. 800,000 BCE). The most endangered artifacts and archaeological sites currently are in Tell Halaf, the north of Syria near the Turkish border with Syria. These archaeological sites date as far back as 5,500 BCE. They include archeological sites and artifacts of the Babylonian, Sumerian, Egyptian, Assyrian, Phoenician, Aramaic, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Ayyubid and Ottoman civilizations and empires.

Professor Franklin Lamb has also been working, sometimes under dangerous circumstances, to record and photograph the war damage done to religious icons, images, monuments, and ancient structures that span pre-Roman civilizations, and structures such as Islamic mosques, Christian churches and Jewish synagogues.

Professor Lamb is working tirelessly to record and photograph these sites and artifacts because they are in danger of complete destruction for religious, political and illegal trafficking reasons, especially due to the ongoing wars in the Middle East.

Professor Franklin Lamb's website and his latest book, "Syria's Endangered Heritage, an International Responsibility to Preserve and Protect" presents exclusive and never published before photographs, records, data, articles, and interviews from across the whole of Syria. His book can be purchased at his website http://www.syrian-heritage.com/.

In addition to Dr. Lamb's urgent archaeological work he is also deeply committed to rescuing and aiding refugee children in Syria. He is a volunteer with the Lebanon, France, and USA based "Meals for Syrian Refugee Children, Lebanon (MSRCL)", which seeks to provide hot nutritional meals to Syrian and other refugee children.

Lamb says that the goal of MSRCL is to be able to provide one meal a day to 500 children. More donors are needed in order for him to reach that goal. At $2.25 per meal x 500 children per day ($1,225), the budget for a month (30 days) requires approximately $36,000. Over 95% of each donation goes directly towards the cost of each meal. The MSCRL volunteer teams give their time, energy and even their own money to help the refugee children so that they will not become part of the "lost generation" of Syria.

Lamb's books and publications include "Pollution as a Problem of International Law"; "International Legal Responsibility for the Sabra Shatila Massacre"; "Israel's 1982 War in Lebanon: Eyewitness Chronicles of the Invasion and Occupation", "The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel's Use of American Weapons against Civilians in Lebanon in addition to the three volume set, "Palestine, Lebanon & Syria Palestine, Lebanon & Syria (Commentary and Analysis 2006-2016)." Due out during Fall 2016, in English and Arabic, is "The Case for Palestinian Civil Rights in Lebanon: Why the Resistance Sleeps."

Dr. Lamb's most recent book is "Syria's Endangered Heritage: An International Responsibility to Preserve and Protect". www.Syrian-heritage.com

Lamb's Academic Credentials include: BA, and Law Degrees from Boston University, Master of Law (LLM) Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from the London School of Economics (LSE); Diploma in International Air & Space Law from the University College of London; Post-Doctoral Studies at Harvard University Law School of East Asian Legal Studies Center, specializing in Chinese Law; International Legal Studies at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom; Studied Public International Law at The Hague Academy of international Law, at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague, Netherlands.

Lamb's Professional and Political Activities include Assistant Professor of International Law, Northwestern College of Law, Portland, Oregon and Assistant Counsel to the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, During the Administration of President Jimmy Carter, Lamb was elected for a four year term to the Democratic National Committee, representing the state of Oregon. Lamb served on the Democratic National Committee Judicial Council with California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as well as the Platform Committee on East-West Relations. Professor Lamb served on the presidential campaign staff for Presidential Candidate Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.