35 Years after the Sabra-Shatila Massacre where’s “The Resistance”? - Page 2
True “Resistance” begins in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps
As the “Resistance” is acutely aware, Lebanon’s political sects of whom Hezbollah is by far the most powerful have prevented the emergence of an energetic and vigorous Palestinian community in Lebanon. The consequent pauperization, ghettoization, marginalization, broad deterioration of community health and growing sense of hopelessness by many in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps community is leading to the fragmentation of Palestinians. This is a factor undercutting their Full Return, a claimed raison d’etre of the “Resistance.”
Increasingly Lebanon’s Palestinians are insisting that it’s time to reverse these trends by giving meaning to the “Resistance” motto of “Moral and Religious Duty to Palestine.” What does the “Resistance” motto mean if not to help the Lebanon-hosted refugees from
Palestine gain elementary civil rights to aid their Return,” is a common camp expression these days.
One reason the “Resistance” has seemingly abandoned its claims to support the Palestinian cause in Lebanon by granting them elementary civil rights is partially clarified by referencing the regional expansion tasks assigned the “Resistance” by Tehran. Specifically orders for the “Resistance” to focus on more beneficial political objectives including the “Lebanization” of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and then Jordan and other Middle East countries.
Problematical for Lebanon’s Palestinians seeking their half century overdue civil rights, they are told by some “Resistance” sources that the war in Syria must first end before any consideration of the right to work and home ownership. Despite previous claims that it is essentially over, the war in Syria may end for years.
For decades without serious “Resistance” opposition, Lebanon’s Parliament and ministerial decrees have erected a series of legal and institutional barriers that deprive Palestinian refugees of the right to work, to social security, and to join Lebanese trade unions and many other elementary rights granted refugees globally. For example, Palestinian refugees are subject to all legal regulations governing foreign workers and visitors including the principle of reciprocity and the requirement to obtain work permits. Given that there is yes no state of Palestine with official diplomatic relations and reciprocity agreements with Lebanon these barriers are invoked to prevent Palestinian refugees from obtaining work permits, especially within professional associations. These discriminatory regulations are enforced in Lebanon to target Palestinians despite Article 7 of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which Lebanon has not signed, but which is binding on Lebanon by International Customary Law. The Refugee Convention specifically exempts refugees including Palestinians in Lebanon from the principle of reciprocity and allows them to work without a permit three years after they establish residence in the asylum country.
By outlawing Palestinians elementary civil rights to work or to own a home and depriving them of a host of other civil rights, unlike what any other refugee group on earth is granted at birth, Lebanon is also violating countless principles, standards, and rules of globally recognized international humanitarian law. Among the most notable are 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 September 1965 Casablanca Protocol on the Treatment of Palestinians in Arab Countries.
Shortly after the late summer 1982 PLO withdrawal from Lebanon, the movement to and from Palestinian refugee camps, particularly those in the south, have been subject to strict security measures. The Lebanese army maintains checkpoints at the entrances to most of the southern camps. In addition, the army strictly monitors — and restricts — building and renovation materials brought into the southern camps, especially in the Tyre region. In May 2010, Lebanese security forces also banned building materials from Beirut’s Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp based on orders from the Lebanese Ministry of Defense. Earlier this year, the Minister of the Interior and Municipalities requested the Directorate General of Internal Security Forces to investigate unlicensed centers and offices for humanitarian and social organizations in the destroyed Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, and required 23 associations to apply for licenses or risk legal sanction. The threat was issued even though the associations cannot obtain licenses under the Associations Law.
Even in Syria, the “Resistance” stands accused of ignoring the rights of Palestinians and the fact that Islam calls upon all Muslims, regardless of their race or nationality to see themselves as brothers and sisters in faith. One Sheik at the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque’ in downtown Beirut recently expressed the view of many in an email: “The killing of another Muslim is strictly forbidden but given Iran’s strategy of breaking governments in this region one by one and then controlling them, Tehran has ordered its “Resistance” to pit Arab Muslims against one another and especially to “Resist” Sunni Muslims. One way to achieve Iran’s hegemonic project is to find a loophole in Islamic law whereby Iran’s theocratic leadership labels Sunni Muslims apostates or Kafirs (non-believers). Hence the creation of the “Takfiri” canard as a weapon for conducting a hegemonic war in this region labeling Sunni Muslims, and increasingly Sunni Palestinians as “Takfirs” claiming that these and Sunni Muslims are impure.”
By training and often commanding more than a dozen Iran funded Shia militia from half a dozen countries, Lebanon’s “Resistance” was organized starting in 1981 by Iran’s newly established Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on orders from Ayatollah Khomeini has its interests far from Lebanon’s Palestinian camps. According to the New York Times of 8/28/2017 Hezbollah has evolved into a virtual arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, providing the connective tissue for the growing network of powerful militias.”
A Russian military source in Palmyra emphasized to this observer a while back that the “Lebanese “Resistance” takes orders from the Iranian IRGC commander Qassim Solemani who, he claims, Vladimir Putin considers the second most powerful man in Syria today. Taking heavy combat losses with more than 4000 reportedly killed and approximately 9350 wounded and busy with Iran’s regional agenda, the “Resistance” is accused of having little if any interest beyond speeches to honor its claimed “Moral and Religious Obligations to Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees” according to a majority of Palestinian camp leaders interviewed recently.
Hezbollah claims that its interventions across the Middle East are merely an extension of the “Resistance” against Israel. However, the “Resistance” is increasingly accused in Lebanon of benefitting Israel by avoiding “Resistance” to Israel in order to apply its “Resistance” targeting Muslims across the Middle East. According to the New York Times of 8/28/2017 the “Resistance” has become the mercenary “Blackwater” of the Middle East.
Below are proposed some essential “Resistance” Palestinians civil rights actions Iran, Syria and Russia and other Members of the global community should support by all means at their disposal. This while Palestinians in Lebanon try to convince the Lebanese
“Resistance” to use its dominant political power in Parliament to enact legislation fully implementing these elementary civil rights.
These elementary civil rights have, since the 1982 Massacre at Shatila, been increasingly ignored by the “Resistance” due largely to sectarian politics. Yet, they are fully and quickly able to be enacted by Lebanon’s Parliament if the Hezbollah-led “Resistance” will finally act.
What specifically needs to be done is well known in Dahiya South Beirut and Tehran from countless petitions communicated by supporters of Palestine including the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign (PCRC) founded in 2008 in Washington DC and Beirut Lebanon. They include strengthening the Palestinian civil rights initiatives that have been proposed and one or two that in a weak form were actually adopted but as was predictable they were quickly shown to be largely ineffective.
One of the latter was the 2005 Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC) with a mandate to address matters related to the social and economic well-being and security of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and to formalize relations between Lebanon and Palestine. This initiative did result in the reopening of the PLO office in 2006 it also led to some Palestinian political factions engaging in dialogue. But it has to date failed to achieve its other basic goal which was to improve the humanitarian situation of the Palestinian refugees by achieving any elementary civil rights for Palestinians. The main factor is judged by many including this observer as being indifference from the “Resistance”
Another positive initiative was taken in early 2009 when the Lebanese Parliament’s Committee on Women and Children offered a draft law to amending Article 15 of the Lebanese Nationality Law of 1925. Article 15 entitles every child born to a Lebanese father to obtain Lebanese nationality. The proposed amendment would have allowed children born to Lebanese mothers to obtain nationality. However, the Committee’s bill blocked children born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese mother from the right to nationality. It also excluded children born to fathers from countries that do not grant Lebanese children reciprocity. Both proposals are a flagrant violation of Article 7 of Lebanon’s Constitution, which states that all Lebanese are equal before the law and enjoy civil and political rights without any distinction. They also violate the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racism, to which Lebanon is a signatory. The “Resistance” sat on its hand during these proceedings and did not oppose the decisions taken.
A major legislative initiative was attempted during Lebanon’s June 2010 legislative session. The Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) led by Walid Jumblatt introduced four draft laws that called for allowing Palestinians born on Lebanese soil to work, to benefit from pension plans, to receive an end-of-service gratuity and medical care for work-related injuries, to own one residential apartment and to own property through inheritance. The Parliament split across sectarian lines and opposition and loyalist Christian Parliamentarians united to block the proposed legislation. The “Resistance” essentially sat on its hands. During the sometimes heated debate, it was largely mute in order not to upset the anti-Palestinian Free Progressive Movement (FPM) led by Lebanon’s current President Michel Aoun. Had they applied their political power during the 2010 vote Palestinians in Lebanon today would have many civil rights.
The “Resistance” to gain credibility should assume some Parliamentary leadership by immediately proposing a “Ministry of Palestinian Affairs” to oversee and help implement civil rights for every Palestinians in Lebanon.
The “Resistance” can no longer justify marginalizing Palestinians in Lebanon for political purposes and hope not to face popular criticism in Lebanon and globally. Palestinian basic human rights which include the rights of Palestinians to work, social security, property ownership and inheritance, education, and freedom of movement and association are enshrined in international law and Lebanon’s Constitution. The “Resistance” is obliged to eschew sectarian politics and take the lead in their enactment. Thereby honoring its oft-proclaimed “Moral and Political Resistance duty” to support Palestine.
The “Resistance” should also encourage its political partners to end their verbal attacks on Lebanon’s Palestinians which encourages incitement. On 8/30/2017 Lebanon’s Foreign Minister, the anti-Palestinian FPM’s Jebran Bassil, yet again attacked Lebanon’s Palestinians in a call for the removal of any “terror hubs” in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps. “We must… reject the persistence of terror hubs in Palestinian refugee camps topped by the challenge of the Ain el-Hilweh camp.” He added, “The scheme of terrorism in Lebanon has fallen and the Palestinian naturalization schemes should fall next.”
Bassil knows, the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have never sought, nor do they today seek naturalization. What they seek is to return to their own country Palestine the very minute it becomes possible. But Bassil and his ilk frequently bash Palestinians to curry political favor from those holding similar views. The “Resistance” for the past decade has been political partners with Michel Aoun of the “Free Patriotic Movement”, the anti-Palestinian father-in-law of Bassil, for whom the very idea of granting civil rights for Palestinians is anathema.
Is there still a “Resistance” 35 years after the Sabra-Shatila Massacre?
Thirty-five years after the carnage of the 1982 Massacre at Sabra-Shatila the question remains, where is the “Resistance”? For the survivors of the massacre and loved ones of its victims, the “Resistance” appears nowhere to be found. The “Resistance” is in danger of becoming irrelevant to the Palestinian civil rights struggle in Lebanon and the Palestinian cause generally.
If still serious about its claimed “Moral and Religious duty toward the Palestinian cause” the “Resistance” should seize the opportunity to burnish the “Resistance” brand which the Party of God claims to lead. And it should recognize that “Resistance” means helping the Palestinian camp’s needs including infrastructure improvements. And crucially it means that the “Resistance” must become serious about immediately granting Palestinian refugee the most elementary civil rights that every other refugee is automatically granted when her or his foot touches Lebanese soil.
On 9/11/2017 according to Beirut’s pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar daily Hassan Nasrallah insisted that Hezbollah “won the war in Syria,” and that the party is “making history in the region.” “We are aware of our situation regarding the war in Syria…and writing the region’s history, not Lebanon’s.” Words that suggest that the “Resistance” has wider ambitions than supporting any fundamental rights for Palestinians in Lebanon.
Hopefully “The Resistance” will prove this tentative but rapidly growing conclusion premature by enacting via its political power in Parliament, civil rights for Palestinians in Lebanon, first among them being the rights to work and to own a home.
Franklin Lamb volunteers 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 in Lebanon.
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