[News] Palestinian refugees - Can Lebanon Clean Up Its Act?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/lamb04122010.html
April 12, 2010


Can Lebanon Clean Up Its Act?


Hiba's Story

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Ein el Helwe Palestinian Refugee Camp, Lebanon.

More than six decades after their expulsion from 
Palestine, Lebanon’s unwanted refugees just might 
be granted some basic civil rights. Granting even 
the most elementary and normally taken for 
granted civil rights to Palestinians in Lebanon 
won’t be easy and it may not be pretty. Yet there 
is undeniable and growing Lebanese and 
international resolve for Lebanon’s politicians 
to end a dark bleak chapter in Arab brotherly relations.

The disturbing paradox of Lebanon depriving its 
refugees of the most elementary civil rights, 
some of which are even granted Palestinians by 
their arch-nemesis, the Zionist occupiers of 
their own country, is increasingly being 
condemned in Lebanon. In addition, there is the 
gaping contradiction between the sweet words and 
the clarion trumpeting calls by groups wanting to 
liberate Jerusalem and all of Palestine and 
enforce the internationally mandated Right of 
Return (UNSCR 194), while at the same time 
appearing to avert their eyes from the very ones 
seeking to return and who exist in abject 
squalor, humiliation and indignity, thus 
appearing to tolerate their brothers and sisters’ 
degradation. These contradictions are motivating 
an expanding panoply of Lebanese leaders, civil 
society organizations, side by side with local 
and international NGO’s, to demand civil rights 
legislation from the current Cabinet and 
Parliament. What civil rights advocates seek is 
compliance with basic international law and 
indeed Lebanon’s Constitution, both sources of 
law mandating civil rights for Palestine refugees 
including the right to work and to own a home.

In plenty of Lebanese neighborhoods, polite 
society often avoids the subject of ‘haydoulik’ 
(‘they’) when a foreigner mentions the teeming 
and squalid Palestinian camps, or brings up the 
subject of yet another local media or NGO’s 
report detailing the alarming and accelerating 
deterioration of the world’s oldest and largest 
refugee population. Close to half of Lebanon’s 
Palestinian refugees are crammed into 12 camps 
and 27 unofficial ‘gatherings’. Of the original 
120,000 who were forced across the full length of 
the Palestine-Lebanon border during the 1948 
Nakba, their offspring now number close to 
450,000­some 425,640 of whom are registered with 
the United Nations Refugee Works Administration 
(UNRWA) as of April, 2010, and some also with the 
Lebanese Ministry of Interior. Since 1948, 
roughly 22 per cent of the refugees in Lebanon 
have left loved ones and family members to seek 
jobs abroad so as to remit their foreign earnings 
back to the fetid camps. Lebanon leads the world 
in the amount of per capita in bound remittances, 
a significant contribution to its Gross Domestic Product.

The Untouchables

According to a Sunni Muslim family in the Sanayeh 
area of Beirut who has a long history of support 
for the Palestinians, including two sons who 
fought with the PLO against Israeli forces in 
1982-83, a father who used to hide sensitive PLO 
documents inside his apartment walls as Israeli 
forces searched West Beirut house to house in the 
fall of 1982, and a mother who prepared home 
cooked meals during the summer of 1982 for ‘Abu 
Ammar’ (Yassir Arafat) and ‘Abu Jihad’ (Khalil al 
Wazir) and their office staffs, between 90-95 per 
cent of Lebanese have never been inside a 
Palestinian camp. A teen-age member of the same 
Beirut family snarled to this observer, “Not 
since the ( 1982 ) Sabra-Shatila Massacre has a 
group of our Lebanese brothers visited a 
Palestinian camp!”, referring to the right wing 
Phalange Lebanese groups who conducted the camp 
slaughter after being egged-on and equipped by 
the occupying Israeli military leadership 
including Israel’s then Minister of Defense, Ariel Sharon.

With the exception of Druze leader, MP Walid 
Jumblatt, and a couple of Hezbollah members of 
Parliament, and one from the Saad Hariri Future 
Movement, not one member of the 128 member 
Parliament or the 30 Member Cabinet has 
acknowledged visiting a Palestinian refugee camp 
in the past five years, according to a March 2010 
survey taken by the Sabra Shatila Foundation and 
the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon. For 
some of Lebanon’s population the very idea of “ 
going inside” a camp in enough to produce an exaggerated grimace.

As shocking as it is true, Lebanon by refusing to 
even allow Palestinians the right to work in 
dozens of professions or to own homes, stands in 
clear violation of no fewer than 43 international 
legal obligations contained in treaties, 
conventions, the 1948 Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights, which Lebanon played a major role 
in drafting, international customary law, and indeed its own Constitution.

The arguments against granting civil rights to 
Palestine refugees are numerous, with some as 
imaginative as they are spurious. They vary 
widely depending on who from which of the 18 
confessions is discussing the subject.

Some arguments for the status quo currently being 
heard by advocates working to change Lebanon’s 
right to work and home ownership laws include the following sampling:

“If we grant civil rights to our Palestinian 
Refugees it could interfere with their Right of Return!”

“How are Palestine Refugees in Lebanon deprived 
of the civil right to work since some do manage to find a job illegally.”

“The Palestinian refugee population poses a 
security risk for Lebanon and before any civil 
rights are discussed this must be resolved.”

“Palestinians are Sunni Muslim and giving them 
civil rights will interfere with the fragile 
sectarian balance among Christian, Druze and Shia Muslims.”

“Why shouldn’t Lebanon take more time considering 
civil rights for the Palestinian Refugee 
families? At least their children are being 
looked after in UNWRA schools and are fine. Their 
elders must be more patient and haven’t the 
Palestinians caused many of their own problems.”

“Lebanon needs more time to straighten out the 
“situation” with the Palestinians. Also, don’t 
forget, Lebanon is quietly issuing 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 aren’t we making solid progress?”

“Since all other foreigners need work permits, 
how has the requirement that Palestine Refugees 
obtain a work permit unfairly affected Palestinians right to work in Lebanon?”

“Lebanese women also are deprived of civil 
rights. They must get theirs before Palestine Refugees are given any.”

“Palestinian refugees don’t contribute to 
Lebanon’s economy so why should Lebanon allow them the right to work?”

“ Lebanon is a very small country and we cannot 
afford to allow refugees to own a home, given our 
limited available housing space.”

“If Lebanon grants civil rights to the 
Palestinian Refugees, they may become too 
comfortable and seek permanency in Lebanon via Naturalization (Tawtin)”

An analysis of these and other arguments against 
granting civil rights to Palestine refugees will 
be considered in a future instalment of this 
discussion but should any of these arguments 
prevail with Parliament, a least a quarter 
million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon will 
remain deprived of achieving much more than 
subsistence during their wait and struggle to return to Palestine.

Miss Hiba Hajj

One of the hundreds of thousands wretched refuse 
facing continuing condemnation is a gifted 15 
year old named Hiba Hajj, born and raised in the 
teeming 90,000 plus resident Ein el Helwe 
Palestinian Camp, in the 6000 year old town of Saida Lebanon.

Hiba, is a savvy, totally charming, hijabed 
Palestinian youngster who lives with her large 
family near the Sharia Bustan Yahoudi (Jewish 
Park Street) area of Ein el Helweh (‘Eye of the 
Beauty’ or ‘Source of sweet water’). Hiba’s 
neighborhood is named after the Jewish community 
that used to live in the quarter before Zionist 
colonials invaded Palestine. Most Jews who stayed 
in Lebanon after 1948 left during the 1982 
Israeli invasion and the subsequent 18 year 
occupation-fewer than 30 are thought to remain in the country today.

To this foreign observer, when Hiba (‘gift from 
God’) relates her story of dreams defered, she 
becomes every Palestinian Refugee in Lebanon and 
her personal and anguished narrative embodies the 
urgency and historical imperative for Lebanon to 
immediately grant the most elementary civil 
rights for her and Hiba’s close to 450,000 fellow Palestinian refugee.

Like many of her friends, Hiba, reputed to be one 
of the best female teenage football players and 
long distance runners in Lebanon (she runs an 
approximate 5 minute 20 second mile on her slower 
days) is considering dropping out of school to 
help support her family , whose income has 
plummeted since the recent fighting between camp 
factions because, as she explains to an American 
visitor, people are too afraid to enter the camp 
to have their cars fixed at her father’s auto 
repair shop. The American Embassy has instructed 
the Lebanese army which has blocked off seven 
entrances to the camp and mans checkpoints at the 
four remaining entrances to Ein el Helwe, not to 
allow American passport holders inside the camp “for their personal safety”.

Hiba often spends her free time at her sister 
Zeina’s home, filled with four squirming babies, 
which is located in the explosive no-man’s-land 
known as Taamir, between the boundary of Ein 
al-Hilweh and one of the Lebanese army checkpoints that overlooks the camp.

Hiba’s peers consider her an expert on the camps 
factions, that range from the Saudi Wahhabi 
Takfiri groups who she says, “want to kill us 
Muslims and anyone else who don’t follow their 
Wahabist version of our religion”, to Osbat 
al-Nour (League of Light), Ansar Allah (Followers 
of God), Fatah al Islam remnants on the lam from 
the 15 week battle at Nahr al Bared in the summer 
of 2007, Jund al-Sham (Soldiers of Greater Syria) 
Islamic Jihad, Asbat-al-Ansar (League of 
Followers) seven or eight Palestinian factions 
including Fatah, Hamas, the Popular Front for the 
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Ahmad Jebril’s 
Syrian bankrolled Popular Front for the 
Liberation of Palestine-General Command, the 
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine 
(DFLP), the defunct Saiqa, along with some 
upstart secretive and well armed global jihadist 
cells sporting new heavy weapons from Iraq 
according to camp officials, courtesy of US military inventory “shrinkage.”

“Hiba acts crazy sometimes,” her older sister 
anguishes, “ and our family worries about her. I 
have seen her walk into the center of a gathering 
of young fighters, many of whom she knows from 
rival gangs while they are yelling and 
threatening to shoot each other. Just last month 
she grabbed a boy’s AK-47 from him just as he 
took aim at a rival and she screamed at the boys 
to go home and read the Koran!” And they left without firing one shot”

Hiba needs to stay in school where she is an 
excellent student but like so many Palestinian 
teenagers she sees no point because she can do 
nothing with an advanced education. For all her 
energy and ‘don’t blame others just make your own 
life the way you want it’ attitude Hiba grows 
introspective and seems sad as she explains to 
visitors what she would like to do with her life.

Like all Palestinian refugees born in Lebanon, 
Hiba is stateless and unprotected, brought up in 
the misery and hopelessness of a Lebanese 
Palestinian refugee camp. This sweet kid, like 
all Palestinian refugees, has no civil or 
political rights in Lebanon. She is barred from 
working in over 70 professions, cannot own or 
inherit property, is subject to I.D. checks every 
time she enters or exits the camp, and has no 
access to public healthcare or public education.

No Palestinian need apply

Her brother Ahmad explains: " To start off, if 
you are a ‘camp kid’ in Lebanon that is a big 
strike against you. For us we feel there is 
nothing here. Our country is there (he points in 
the direction of the Palestinian border 35 miles 
South). There is nothing to do here, maybe play 
games on the internet if you can find somewhere 
with a connection-if you go and play games at the 
internet place, you're happy that you did 
something for the day. Some of my friends accept 
a small salary and join a militia group."

Refugee-camp teenagers like Hiba once fuelled the 
anger and resistance to Israel occupying their 
land. “Not now” says Ahmad "Much of that anger 
has turned into depression, increasing drug use, 
gang violence, dropping out of school, domestic 
violence, feelings of hopelessness. "

“My sister wants to become an eye doctor”, he explains, “She has no chance”.

Today, Palestinians in Lebanon continue to suffer 
from draconian measures which the Lebanese state 
claims are needed to prevent them from becoming permanent guests.

As of February 10, 2010, the following dozens of 
jobs remain off limits to Palestinians in Lebanon 
per Ministry of Labor Regulation No. 10l1--either 
because they are restricted to Lebanese 
nationals, or are forbidden due to the 
Reciprocity requirements. Since Palestine is not 
recognized by Lebanon as a country it is 
impossible to fulfill the Reciprocity 
requirement, since the job seeker must be 
licensed in his recognized country and his 
country must allow a Lebanese to work at the same 
job. In addition, a Palestinian job seeker must 
have been a very expensive and difficult to 
obtain work permit by the Lebanese government.. 
The Minister of Labor can theoretically exempt a 
person from the laws for certain jobs if the job-seeker:

* has been residing in Lebanon since birth

* has a Lebanese mother

* has been married to a Lebanese woman for more than one year.

* or if he or she is from a recognized country 
that allows Lebanese nationals to do the same 
job, i.e. the barrier of Reciprocity again.

The jobs that Hiba and her fellow refugees are 
barred from include the following updated forbidden careers:

“Archeology Guide, Banking and administrative 
work of all kinds, particularly: 
Manager-Assistant manager-Staff 
manager-Treasurer-Accountant-Secretary Manager 
Clerk-Documentalist-Archivist, Computer 
worker-Commercial representative-Marketing 
representative-Forman-Warehouse 
keeper-Salesman-Jeweler-Tailor-Darning worker 
with the exception of darning carpets-Electrical 
installations-Mechanics and maintenance-Painters, 
Glass panes 
installer-Doorman-Watchman-Driver-Waiter-Hairdresser-Electronic 
work-Arabic food chef, All technical professions 
in the construction sector and its derivatives 
such as tiling, coating, plastering, installation 
of aluminum, iron, wood or decoration works and 
the like-Teaching at the elementary, intermediate 
and secondary levels with the exception of 
foreign language teacher when necessary, 
hairdressing, Ironing and dry-cleaning 
upholstery, publishing, printing, Engineering 
work in all specialties, Smithery and upholstery 
work. All kinds of work in pharmacies, drug 
warehouses and medical laboratories. In general 
all occupations and professions which can be 
filled by Lebanese nationals- money changer, real 
estate agent, attorney, physician, dentist, taxi 
driver or driver training instructor, registered 
nurse or assistant nurse, or other job in the 
Medical field, dentistry, health controller, any 
job in the engineering field, licensed health 
controller, medical laboratory worker, clinical 
health industry jobs, prosthetic devices fitter, 
certified accountants, dental laboratory science 
technician, jobs relating to nutrition and meals, 
topography, physiotherapy, veterinary medicine.”

The only four jobs listed by the Lebanese 
Ministry of Labor that are open to Palestinian refugees are:

1. midwife

2. financial brokerage firm owner

3. roving photographer

4. land surveyor.

All Palestinian job seekers for the “available” 
four jobs are required to have been issued the 
nearly impossible to obtain work permit.

“This scheme by Lebanon is among the most 
egregious easily preventable massive human rights 
violations imaginable, given what the largest and 
oldest refugee population on earth has been 
through”, according to Dr. Suoheil El-Natour, 
long time analyst of the Palestinian camp 
populations in Lebanon, and director of a Human 
Development Center (HDC) in Mar Elias camp.

Meanwhile, Hiba has promised her family and the 
Palestine Civil Rights Campaign-Lebanon that she 
will stay in school through the current academic 
year to see what Parliament will do about 
allowing Palestine refugees some basic civil 
rights. She has joined the PCRC from her camp and 
recently emailed her colleagues in Shatila Camp 
to get to work on the Petition drive to Parliament with the following message:

“Failure is not an option for us, our only choice is success.”

The online version of the hard copy Petition can 
be signed at: 
<http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html>http://www.petitiononline.com/ssfpcrc/petition.html.

Franklin Lamb is a researcher and volunteer with 
the PCRC in Lebanon. He can be reached at 
<mailto:fplamb at palestinecivilrightscampaign.org>fplamb at palestinecivilrightscampaign.org




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