Palestinian refugees reject 'sell-out' deal
By Mahan Abedin
BEIRUT - The latest tri-lateral Middle East peace talks have been overshadowed
by the United Nations report by Richard Goldstone that accuses both Israel and
Hamas of war crimes in Gaza and the candid remarks by Israeli Foreign Minister
Avigdor Lieberman to the effect that there is no "solution" to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the region should learn to "live" with the
consequences.
But even before Lieberman's remarks, it was patently obvious that the latest
peace drive, like numerous ones before it, was doomed to fail, not least
because it made no determined effort to seek a solution to the plight of
Palestinian refugees. Putting together arrangements that go some way towards
meeting the Palestinian demand for a "right of return" is absolutely essential
to unraveling the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Without it, any
peace
effort - regardless of sincerity and the geopolitical weight behind it - is
stillborn.
Nowhere is the plight of Palestinian refugees more desperate and
heart-wrenching than in Lebanon where more than 400,000 refugees live in a
network of 12 camps spread all over the country, from Rashidiyah in the deep
south to Beddawi in the north.
This summer, I made a visit to a number of camps spread over the length and
breadth of Lebanon, most recently to the al-Buss, Rashidiyah and Beddawi camps.
The story that emerges is one of enduring Palestinian resilience and defiance.
If ever there was an obstacle to compromising core Palestinian demands, the
refugees in Lebanon would count among the main contenders.
Al-Buss: Institutionalized refugees
At first glance, the al-Buss camp in southern Lebanon does not appear to be a
refugee camp at all. With a population of about 10,000, the camp is more
organized, cleaner and more pleasant than the city of Tyre within which it is
situated. There is far less security surrounding the camp than at other camps,
in particular the nearby Rashidiyah camp.
Al-Buss camp is easy to enter and although in theory one has to get an official
permit from the Lebanese army, there are 18 access points into the camp (16 of
which are blocked by concrete barriers but still allow in people on foot)
making it easy to sneak in undetected by the Lebanese army checkpoints.
The veneer of normality can be misleading, though, since there are deep rifts
and worsening tensions between the Palestinian factions within the camp.
Indeed, the Islamist groups - in particular Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic
Jihad - boycott the local "popular committee", the body tasked with
administering the camps.
The popular committees are controlled by the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) and by extension Fatah, but in recent years their authority has been
steadily challenged by rival "Inhabitant" committees that are mostly run by
Palestinian Islamists.
For local barber "Essam", these rivalries mean little. In his mid 30s and born
in the camp, Essam has practiced his trade for 20 years. Like most Palestinian
refugees in Lebanon, Essam's family hailed from the suburbs of Akkah in
northern Palestine, in what is now called Israel. Essam charges US$3 per
haircut and says that most youngsters in the camp prefer "modern" styles worn
by professional football players in the West.
The jovial barber complains of a lack of electricity and bemoans the foreigners
who frequently visit the camp without achieving anything for the inhabitants.
He is referring to foreign personnel of the United Nations Relief and Works
Agency (UNRWA), the specialized UN body that was set up in late 1949 to look
after the welfare of Palestinian refugees driven from their homes by the
creation of Israel a year previously.
Ahmad Akawi - a middle-aged teacher at an UNRWA-run school - complains bitterly
about UNRWA's lack of respect for the history of the Palestinian people. He is
referring to UNRWA's refusal to teach Palestinian history from a Palestinian
perspective, thereby stunting the growth of Palestinian nationalism in the
education sector. More specifically, Akawi is scathing about the lack of UNRWA
resources which are "dwindling" year-by-year. For instance, he says his classes
are now packed with 40-50 pupils, which inevitably impacts negatively on the
quality of education. A battle-hardened soldier (Akawi was wounded in a
skirmish with invading Israeli soldiers in 1982 and imprisoned in Israel for
one year) he doesn't allow minor issues such as UNRWA inefficiency to distract
from the main goal of returning to the Palestine of his parents.
"Abu Issa" (not his real name) is another teacher at yet another UNRWA-run
school. Although he is mostly based at the nearby Bourj al-Shamali camp, Abu
Issa spends some of his time in al-Buss. A strikingly handsome and physically
impressive man in his early 40s, Abu Issa is at pains to describe the failings
and shortages of the UNRWA-run health system. There are no specialist hospitals
in the camps and owing to widespread poverty, sick people or their relatives
have to beg in front of mosques to solicit the funds necessary for operations
and palliative care in Lebanese hospitals.
For all its superficial organization and cleanliness, al-Buss paints the
picture of institutionalized refugees; Palestinians that have been tutored to
accept the reality of their predicament in Lebanon, a country that denies them
residency rights and bars them from 72 professions. But despite the best
efforts of UNRWA and the Lebanese government, al-Buss residents have their eyes
firmly set on returning "home", which in most cases is Akkah in northern
Palestine, in what is now Israel. The defiance is most impressively expressed
by "Abu Issa", who echoes a rhetoric that I have heard repeatedly in the
Palestinian camps, "I am just as certain as returning as I am certain of seeing
you sitting here in front of me."
Rashidiyah: Sights of Palestine
Of all the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Rashidiyah is the one closest
to historic Palestine. In fact, it is too close for comfort, as I found out on
my visit there on Friday September 11, the day Israel shelled the areas close
to Tyre in retaliation for a rocket attack on northern Israel. Standing atop a
shabby house, I counted 15 artillery shells landing near the camp. My
Palestinian minder told me that the area resembled an "inferno" during the
Hezbollah-Israel war of July-August 2006.
Situated just outside of Tyre with a population of well over 20,000 (and
following the destruction of the Nahr el-Bared camp in 2007) Rashidiyah is the
second-largest refugee camp in Lebanon. At first glance, it is clean and
organized, but not to the same extent as al-Buss. Not surprisingly (given the
proximity to Israel) Palestinian Islamist groups have a strong presence here.
I met Abu al-Abid, the representative of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the
camp and the entire south Lebanon region, inside the large "Felestin"
(Palestine) mosque which is controlled by the PIJ. Blond with a European-type
complexion, Abu al-Abid is a handsome and disarmingly hospitable man. He is
also extremely security conscious, given that he is likely a top target for
Israeli assassins.
His ancestral home is the village of Zib (another suburb of Akkah), a point
that al-Abid stresses early on in the conversation. Given his hospitable
nature, al-Abid is at pains to describe an atmosphere of cooperation between
the different factions in the camp, but he can't help emphasize that factions
in favor of "resistance" are in the ascendance. This was an obvious (if
unintended) swipe at the local popular committee which, like elsewhere, is
controlled by Fatah.
Elsewhere in the camp I met Haj Ali, the local Hamas representative. A short
and tenacious-looking man, Haj Ali offers the routine Hamas rhetoric on the
situation in Palestine proper. However, it is his deputy, "Haj Marwan", who
provides a more impassioned narrative, one that connects the plight of refugees
in Lebanon to Palestinians the world over.
Jamal Kamel Suleiman is the head of the popular committee in Rashidiyah. In his
early 60s and a life-long loyal member of Fatah, Suleiman cuts a lackluster and
uninspiring figure. He makes it clear at the outset that he is unwilling to
answer "political" questions, which not surprisingly brings the interview to an
abrupt end.
But almost immediately, Khaled Deeb, the head of Fatah propaganda, intervenes
and delivers a blistering critique of UNRWA. It seems that there is life left
in Fatah after all. A thin and scrawny man in his late 40s, Deeb alleges that
UNRWA began to decrease its services just after Palestinian "resistance" began
to strengthen.
But in Rashidiyah, as elsewhere, the popular committee is on the decline.
Nowhere is the so-called "Inhabitants" committee as powerful as in Rashidiyah.
Although Abu Mohammad Nimer (the main representative of the Inhabitants
committee in Rashidiyah) is keen to de-emphasize rivalry with the popular
committee by stressing division of labor (popular committees look after
electricity while the Inhabitants committee concentrates on health and
education), it is clear that a deep political rift divides the two sides. In
effect, the Inhabitants committee represents the militant and Islamist
factions, while the popular committee is the bastion of the old guard in Fatah
and the wider PLO.
Barely in his 40s and heavily bearded, Abu Mohammad Nimer is a member of Fatah
Intifida, an Islamist group that is blamed by some analysts for spawning the
much more militant and Salafi-orientated Fatah al-Islam that fought the
Lebanese army in the northern Nahr el-Bared camp in 2007. Focussing on the
future, Nimer explains that the Inhabitants committee are a growing phenomenon
with local chapters in seven other camps, including Ein al-Hilweh, the largest
camp of all.
Beddawi: Shadow of Nahr el-Bared
Beddawi is one of only two camps in the north of Lebanon. The camp's population
(which is usually about 16,000) swelled by 10,000 during the fighting in nearby
Nar el-Bared in May-September 2007. Samir, a grocery seller, was dislocated
from Nahr el-Bared. However, he is in no hurry to return since the camp still
lies in ruins, with both UNRWA and the Lebanese government seemingly uncertain
as to how to proceed with reconstruction.
There are more armed young men in Beddawi than any other camp I have visited. I
was told that many of the young men belong to Ahmad Jibril's Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and Nayef Hawatmeh's Democratic
Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Both organizations are part of the local
popular committee.
While Beddawi is shabby and disorganized, it is not as bad as the Shatila camp
in Beirut. But the shadow of Nahr el-Bared looms large over the camp. Many
residents are alarmed by the growing Lebanese army presence just outside the
camp and fear it may fall victim to the same set of unexplained events that
destroyed Nahr el-Bared.
Despite the camp's distance from historic Palestine, local residents echo the
same defiant calls that are heard in the southern camps. Abu Mohammad, a
middle-aged paint shop owner originally from Akkah in northern Palestine,
points decidedly southward when he discusses the future.
Key to peace
The narrative that emerges from the camps is remarkably cohesive and
far-sighted, if not over-ambitious. Despite more than 60 years of destitution,
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have defied all - including Israel's best
efforts to consign them to the very margins - and are just as much an
insurmountable obstacle to a "sell-out" deal now than they have ever been.
Even the intense Hamas and Fatah feud which has split the Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza has been eclipsed in the Lebanese camps by a narrative
revolving around the "right of return".
While the Lebanese state and society are nowhere near to granting the
Palestinians their basic rights, the refugees themselves have shown a far
greater propensity to organize their affairs and pursue their rights, both with
regard to UNRWA and Lebanese society. Recent years have witnessed the emergence
of specialist organizations run by Palestinian refugees.
Arguably the most important is the "Witness Association for Human Rights", a
Beirut-based organization that conducts extensive field research projects in
the camps. Its executive director, Dr Mahmoud Hanafi, is anxious to showcase
his organization's latest effort, an exhaustive 200-page report on the medical
and health situation in the camps. While sharply critical of UNRWA, Hanafi is
at pains to explain that far from being opposed to UNRWA, his organization
wants to apply pressure on the agency to the point where the UN feels compelled
to discharge its duties towards the Palestinians.
Beyond Lebanon and at a greater political and ideological level, the defiance
of the Palestinian refugees is the surest sign that there are no easy solutions
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the "right of return" remains a
hopelessly optimistic aspiration as long as Israel endures as a state, any
sincere and realistic effort at conflict-resolution must look beyond a
two-state paradigm as the outcome of peace negotiations.
Mahan Abedin is a senior researcher in terrorism studies and a consultant
to independent media in Iran. He is currently based in northern Iraq, where he
is helping to develop local media capacity.
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