Lebanon's Palestinian Refugees Fear the Worst

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Built on the lush banana flats where a cold river flows from the Mount Lebanon range into the Mediterranean, the Palestinian refugee camp at Nahr al Bared could have been a nice place to live. But even in the best of times, the camp itself was a kind of purgatory for its 40,000 inhabitants, a concrete jungle for a people without a country.Now that a battle is raging inside the camp between the Lebanese government and a radical militant group, Nahr al Bared is a reminder that almost 60 years after the creation of Israel, the Palestinian refugee problem that accompanied its birth remains an ongoing source of tension in conflict-ridden Lebanon.

Many of the nearly 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon arrived in two waves — the first following Israel's war for independence in 1948, and the second following the six-day war of 1967 and quickly wore out their welcome in a country whose fragile sectarian balance their very presence potentially threatened. During the 1970s, armed Palestinian militias led by the PLO created their own mini-state in Lebanon, which sparked the civil war in 1976, and then, six years later, a full-scale Israeli invasion that forced the PLO leadership to flee the country. But the bulk of the refugee population continues to live in 12 camps in urban slum areas scattered around the country. Their fate is tied to the completion of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in which the future of the refugees is considered perhaps the most intractable problem.

While Lebanon rebuilt itself as a resort playground after the civil war ended in the early '90s — skiing in the winter, water-skiing in the summer — the country's impoverished Palestinian camps remained breeding grounds for radicalism. The Lebanese government denies citizenship to Palestinians, most of whom are Sunni Muslims, lest they upset the uneasy peace between Lebanese Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims. But Palestinians also lack many basic civil rights such as the right to buy property, and they are barred from working in 70 different professions. Unemployment in some camps can reach 65 percent. In the last five years, hundreds of radical Islamic educational organizations have formed in the largest Palestinian camp, Ain al-Hilwe, according to Qassim Saad, a director at Nabaa, a Palestinian development organization that works in the camps. The religious groups "come to teach children the holy Koran, but they have the same ideology as Al Qaeda," he said. "They want an Islamic state."

Foreign Islamist fighters have also filled the vacuum created by the lack of security in the camps. The Lebanese army is barred from entering the camps under the 1969 Cairo Agreement between the Lebanese government and the Arab League. But the Palestinian political parties that are supposed to provide security are now weak, prone to internecine squabbles, and open to manipulation by foreign powers. That's probably how Fatah al Islam — which is composed of fighters from throughout the Muslim world — set up shop in Nahr al Bared.

And though the conflict between the Lebanese army and Fatah al-Islam — sparked when the group robbed a bank outside Tripoli — would at first appear to have nothing to do with relations between Lebanese and Palestinians, the fighting has certainly opened up the old wounds. So far, 18 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the crossfire between Fatah al-slam and the Lebanese government. Some refugees claimed they were deliberately targeted. One 13 year-old boy said he watched as his father was shot in the head at close range by a Lebanese civilian whom he recognized from the neighborhood. "If you brought a hundred people here, I could still pick him out," the boy said. "I'll get revenge myself." Many of those who left the camp said they were afraid the Lebanese government would use Fatah al- lslam as an excuse to solve the Palestinian problem once and for all, by force.

Whether or not such fears are legitimate, what is clear is that the level of animosity in Lebanon against Palestinians is rising. News reports told of Lebanese civilians applauding when the army shelled the Nahr al-Bared in the opening days of the conflict, despite the fact that many civilians were still inside. "They should just destroy the camp," said a member of the local Lebanese municipal council recently. And tellingly, the national government, local governments, and Lebanese civilians have done next to nothing for the Palestinians displaced from Nahr al-Bared, who have been forced to take up residence in another, already overcrowded refugee camp nearby at Bedaoui.

With the Lebanese army now storming Nahr al-Bared — despite the fact that there are at least 5,000 Palestinian civilians still inside —Palestinians throughout Lebanon are seething. "Let me say something to the Lebanese politicians," said Jihad Loubnani, 38, a Palestinian English teacher with family from Nahr el-Bared. "We are not sheep; we are not cows." If there is an ugly ending to the conflict with many civilian casualties, the Lebanese government may face a longer term threat from angry Islamists and Palestinians. Already another Islamist militant group — Jund Al Sham — attacked a Lebanese army checkpoint outside Ain al-Hilwe Sunday, apparently in support of Fatah al Islam. "We don't know what will happen," said Ali Barakeh, head of political relations for Hamas in Lebanon. "We can't control our people who want to support their friends and family in the camp."