4 - 10 January 2001
Issue No.515
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 4 - 10 January 2001 Issue No.515 |
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Lebanese anxiety
Last week's Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at hammering out a final peace framework accord have renewed Lebanon's fears of "suspicious deals" to force the settling of Palestinian refugees on its soil.
Knowing that the fate of over four million Palestinian refugees is one of the thorniest issues in the talks, Lebanon has decided this time to launch a pre-emptive campaign to reiterate its strong rejection of any project that would deny an estimated 350,000 Palestinian refugees living on its soil the right of return to their homeland.
Upon instructions from Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud recently summoned Arab and foreign ambassadors in Beirut to inform them of his country's objection to the Palestinian refugees settling in Lebanon.
Ever since their forced exodus from Palestine in 1948, some of the refugees have been hosted in Lebanon. Another wave of Palestinian refugees were forced to leave their homes after the 1967 war, in which Israel occupied the rest of Palestine, namely the West Bank and Gaza. While Israel has expressed readiness to allow the return of the "displaced" refugees who left in 1967, it has vehemently rejected the return of those forced to leave in 1948, saying this would undermine the "Jewish character" of the state of Israel.
Lebanese officials have repeatedly argued that, according to United Nations Resolution 194, the Palestinians have the right to return to their homeland and to establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital. They went a step further this week by denouncing proposals for financial compensation to any refugee who does not wish to return home.
Support for Palestinian rights is not the only, or even the most crucial consideration behind Lebanon's position on the refugee issue, however. Since 1948, consecutive Lebanese governments feared the effect the settling of mostly Sunni Muslim Palestinian refugees would have on the country's already shaky Muslim-Christian balance and internal stability. Right-wing Lebanese Christian parties have been the strongest opponents of hosting the Palestinians permanently, claiming their presence was one of the main reasons behind the country's long and bloody civil war (1975-1990).
However, several analysts viewed the Lebanese fears as unsubstantiated, since the refugees themselves also reject any US-backed plans to finally settle them in Lebanon.
Suheil Natour, a high-ranking official of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), said the Lebanese campaign was aimed at "guarding against all possibilities" that could arise from US-mediated peace talks.
According to Natour, Lebanon is strongly determined to refuse the Palestinian refugees their basic civil rights to send Israel the clear message that it was by no means ready to settle them in the tiny Arab country. The majority of those refugees live in deplorable conditions in shantytowns across Lebanon and are prevented from taking numerous jobs that would help them secure their daily bread. These desperate conditions prompt the refugees to leave Lebanon whenever the chance presents itself.
Referring to an "organised exodus," Natour said while some 800 of Lebanon's refugees migrated to Britain last year, Norway has this year resumed receiving an average of 15 young Palestinians each week. He accused Lebanon of encouraging the "greatest number of Palestinians to leave its territories and urging every other state to open its border to absorb them," not in the least caring if they never return to their homeland.
To calm Lebanese fears, outgoing US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright telephoned Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri and assured him that the Palestinian refugee issue would not be resolved at Lebanon's expense. She reportedly told Al-Hariri that the return of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon will be given priority in the final peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israel.
The Al-Hariri-owned Al-Mostaqbal newspaper quoted US diplomatic sources in Washington as saying that Albright acknowledged that the status of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was different "due to Lebanon's special Muslim-Christian structure."
According to proposals offered by US President Bill Clinton to settle the refugee issue, Palestinian refugees would be granted the right of return to a future Palestinian state in principle, while Israel would allow the "entry" of a limited number of refugees for humanitarian reasons.
Although Lebanon's refugees are officially estimated at 350,000, their number is now believed to be much lower -- perhaps not exceeding 200,000 -- after many of them were forced to leave.
Natour, like many other Palestinian leaders who opposed the 1993 Oslo peace accords, fears that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat might make further concessions over the refugee issue "in exchange for more land in Jerusalem."
But Mahmoud Sweid, director of the Beirut-based Independent Institute for Palestinian Studies, said it would be impossible for any Palestinian leader to relinquish the right of return for the refugees, especially after the Intifada and the large number of Palestinians killed so far. "Nobody can exchange Jerusalem for the right of return," Sweid said. "Even Arafat cannot do this. That's why the Lebanese position is exaggerated."
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