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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Opening the refugee file
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
During the visit by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien to Cairo a few days ago, Al-Ahram quoted an Israeli source as stating that Canada had agreed to take in 15,000 Palestinians in the context of the international effort to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem. In the same news item, Al-Ahram reported that Canada's Immigration Minister Eleanor Kaplan denied the Israeli statement, adding that "one should not believe everything published in the papers." On the other hand, the secretary-general of the Palestinian cabinet, Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, announced that the Palestinian Authority had "refused the Canadian offer."
Arafat himself, however, has maintained his traditional silence on the highly charged issue of the future of the Palestinian refugees, an issue he sees as a time bomb best left undisturbed. After all, he can hardly uphold their right to return to the Gaza strip, one of the most crowded places on earth where 70 per cent of the population still live on the aid from UNRWA.
According to Ha'artz one of the 'understandings' reached at the last summit between Clinton and Barak was that "Canada will lead an international effort to help the Palestinian refugees... Israel will contribute money to the effort, but will not take in any refugees."
Indeed Barak is adamantly opposed to the idea of allowing any Palestinians to return to their former homes in what is now Israel on the grounds that their presence would be too great a destabilising element. In this he is backed by Washington, which would like to see the Palestinians displaced in 1948 and 1967 assimilated wherever they are now living, or resettled in countries, Arab or otherwise, that are ready to receive them.
The demographic distribution of Palestinians now living in the Arab world is as follows: 773,000 in the Gaza strip, 555,000 on the West Bank, 356,000 in Lebanon, 366,000 in Syria and one million and 463,000 in Jordan. Washington hopes that both Jordan and Syria will agree to absorb the Palestinian refugees already living within their borders, but the thorny problem is that of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Sixty thousand Christian Palestinians have been granted Lebanese nationality. A few have received Canadian or French passports, but 240,000 Sunni Palestinians are still stateless refugees living at the expense of UNRWA and with no prospect of ever becoming naturalised Lebanese citizens.
Even if 15,000 Palestinians are resettled in Canada, this is a tiny figure compared to the third of a million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon with no place to go. But what is more important at this stage is not the quantitative aspects of the reallocation of refugees in different countries, but the fact that the refugee file has been opened and agreements reached concerning this key Palestinian issue between the US administration and the Israeli government, without even consulting the Palestinian Authority.
From the viewpoint of Tel-Aviv and Washington, it makes perfect sense to address the question of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon at a time Israel is preparing to withdraw from southern Lebanon, even unilaterally, without reaching an agreement with the other concerned parties. But this raises an awkward question for the Lebanese authorities. Until now, the Palestinian presence in Lebanon was perceived by the Lebanese as a temporary issue, an unfortunate but by no means permanent side effect of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now that a resolution of the conflict is in the offing, Lebanon must decide how to deal with the unwanted presence of about 350,000 Palestinian refugees (amounting to roughly 10 per cent of the Lebanese population) on its soil.
It is one thing to accommodate such a substantial refugee population on a temporary basis, quite another to accept it on a permanent basis. According to a well-documented article by Farid Al-Khazen which appeared in the Journal of Refugee Studies in 1997, a permanent settlement would destabilise Lebanon for a number of reasons. First, no sectarian group currently has a clear-cut dominant majority. The divide that has political significance in today's Lebanese politics is less the divide between Christians and Muslims than the sectarian divide within each of the two groups -- between Maronites and non-Maronites in the Christian community and between Shi'ites and Sunnis in the Muslim community. Post-war Lebanon remains highly factionalised. The Taif agreement has been violated. The Syrian presence is institutionalised and parts of southern Lebanon -- even outside Israeli occupation -- are still the scene of uninterrupted warfare. The rule of law is in continuous retreat as is government respect for human rights. That is why decisions imposed on Lebanon which will alter the demographic structure of the country will be greatly destabilising.
Permanent settlement will also have negative socio-economic repercussions. What was true in 1997 is still true today: the Lebanese economy has not yet fully recovered from the war. Post-war reconstruction has been very costly. Four years after the war, Lebanon's debt had grown from two to 14 billion dollars and 30 per cent of Lebanese families live below the poverty line. It is difficult to see how Lebanon can deal with the socio-economic burden of absorbing a large number of Palestinian refugees.
Opposition to the settlement of Palestinians by the Lebanese government enjoys wide popular support. Current Lebanese government policy toward the Palestinian refugees is aimed at maintaining the status quo. Government authorities have prevented the construction and expansion of existing Palestinian camps. Lebanon rejects permanent settlement and is not willing to facilitate the task of international organisations concerned in making Palestinian settlement a fait accompli by whatever means, direct or indirect.
Needless to say, the Palestinians themselves do not want to stay in Lebanon as refugees or as a people with no national status. They would like to be citizens of the Palestinian state they have been struggling to achieve over half a century. And if some would like to stay in Lebanon, they would like to stay as citizens of that Palestinian state, enjoying rights as legal aliens, not as refugees.
The Palestinian official in charge of the refugee issue in the Palestinian Authority, Asaad Abdel-Rahman, has asserted that there is full agreement between the Palestinian and Lebanese sides to refuse settlement. Expressing his complete appreciation for the stand adopted by the Lebanese government in this regard, he pointed out that the reason Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are still at point zero on the issue of the refugees is because Israel still denies the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return according to UN resolution 194.
While the Lebanese government has not formally elaborated an official platform toward the solution of the Palestine refugee problem, former Foreign Minister Faris Bueiz had suggested a four-track approach: (1) to call for the implementation of the right of return as stated in UN resolution 194. This, according to Bueiz, will accommodate 20 per cent of Palestinians in Lebanon. They would not return to Israel, but to the regions that are under the control of the Palestinian Authority. (2) to call for the return of Palestinians to countries where they have families and relatives, whether in the Arab world or elsewhere. Such family reunification will accommodate 25 per cent of Palestinians living in Lebanon. (3) emigration to countries such as Canada, Australia, and the United States should be facilitated by giving Palestinians priority over other immigrant groups. (4) Middle East countries, particularly those that are wealthy, should contribute to the settlement of the problem by giving the Palestinians employment opportunities and the possibility of settling in these countries.
We are not of course assessing Bueiz's plan, but simply using it as a guideline for possible arrangements not blurred by the inevitable overbidding of protagonists locked in difficult negotiations. It should be recalled that the civil war drove 450,000 Lebanese out of Lebanon, and it is hard to see how they could apply their right to return while Lebanon is overcrowded because of the presence of 350,000 Palestinians.
Hopes are pinned on the Gulf states to absorb a certain number of Palestinians. There are also projects for Canada, Australia, Holland, Norway, Sweden and Germany to take in as many as possible. But even so, there will remain the critical mass of some 150,000 Sunni refugees in Lebanon with no way out. There is talk of an American plan to send many of them to southern Iraq (which is predominantly Shi'ite) in exchange for reducing the present embargo and sanctions imposed on Saddam's regime.
Who will pay for the compensations? It seems that Europe will foot most of the bill. It is estimated that each refugee family will receive an average sum of $1000 as compensation -- a figure worth comparing to the 70 to 100 billion dollars required by Israel as a price for its withdrawal from Syria and Lebanon.
