(Political Commentary-Haaretz 22/3/2000)
By Zvi Bar'el
"If we could hold on to the Palestinian refugees until they get their compensation, let them spend their money in Lebanon and then send them on their way, it could have been the perfect solution from our perspective." It seems there is no more concise summary of the unofficial Lebanese position on the Palestinian problem than the above remarks made to Ha'aretz by a Lebanese representative in a neighboring country."There have been some good times in Lebanon with the Palestinians. Actually, during the difficult days when the Palestinians set up, under comprehensive Arab auspices, a state-within-a-state, they contributed their share to the prosperity in Lebanon. Around $2 billion changed hands in Lebanon annually (other estimates suggest the sum was 10 times that amount - Z.B.) thanks to the money injected by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). They fought against Israel and amongst themselves and we benefited from it. Today, the Palestinians have hardly any role in the Lebanese economy. The PLO left and along with it went all the organizations and funds. The refugees are a cheap labor force which competes with the Syrian laborer and their purchasing power is devoid of economic significance."
Approximately 350,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon. That is, at least, according to the official data of UNRWA, which is careful to maintain the fixed ratio whereby 10 percent of Lebanon's population is Palestinian. Only several tens of thousands have Lebanese citizenship, which was acquired during the first period of flight, after 1949. The others live in 14 refugee camps or around Beirut. More than 50 percent of them live below the Lebanese poverty line, which is an income of less than $90 a month. Unemployment is especially severe in the refugee camps, permits to work outside the camps are hardly ever granted and most Palestinians who manage to find work outside the camps do so illegally.
Lebanon enacted labor laws in the 1950s which allowed large companies to employ Palestinians at a ratio of one Palestinian for every three Lebanese. Since then, various orders and rules have been enacted that include long lists of professions which Palestinians are barred from working in, including law, medicine and engineering. Work in construction, home renovation and even digging sewerage tunnels also requires a special permit from the Lebanese administration, which usually does not grant it. No one in Lebanon even dreams of repatriation, i.e., granting the Palestinians Lebanese citizenship, and Lebanon's biggest fear in the peace process is of being stuck forever with the Palestinian refugees who may disrupt the ethnic fabric of society and become a financial burden on the economy.
Uncooperative Hezbollah
This month, when the Arab League's meeting of Arab foreign ministers was held in Beirut in a show of solidarity with a Lebanon that was being bombed, Prime Minister Salim Hoss made a point of stressing the Palestinian issue and the need to ensure the right of return. Hoss is not the kind patron of the Palestinians. He is a Lebanese patriot, who does not trust Syria not to abandon Lebanon at the crucial moment with the Palestinian problem and therefore he uses every platform, be it local or inter-Arab, to push the refugee issue. After all, if at some point it is decided that the refugees will be rehabilitated in Lebanon, receive citizenship and enjoy the right to vote and be elected to public office, then the new social and political order formulated and implemented by the 1989 Taif Agreement, is liable to be destroyed.
The Christians are certainly not interested in adding weight to the Suni Muslim population by granting the rights of citizenship to the Palestinians; the Druze may see the Palestinians as distant partners, but they will not exert themselves to obtain extra rights for them and the Shi'ites have no intention of losing their demographic edge by agreeing to the addition of another 10 percent to the Suni segment of the population.
This social and ethnic fabric of Lebanon also determines the rules of war with Israel. Hezbollah, for example, which is striving to expand the national base of its military struggle and even set up multi-ethnic units for that purpose, has refrained from demonstrating any cooperation with the Palestinians, both in the military sphere and in the extent of the aid it is willing to provide to Palestinians in need.
"When the question arises of whether to include the Palestinians in the fight against Israel or maintain the front as a purely Lebanese one, the answer is almost always unanimous: The Lebanese struggle against Israel is one matter, the Palestinians' struggle should be over the land of Palestine." The Lebanese representative who made these comments explains that the Lebanese memory of the injustices the Palestinians caused Lebanon is so deeply ingrained that even on such a shared issue as fighting Israel, it is clear to Hezbollah that it cannot include such a hated element as the Palestinians. "It would be enough if Israel were to bomb one Lebanese village because of a Palestinian operation to reawaken the fight against the Palestinians."
In addition to strong representations of Fatah and the rejectionist organizations, there are at least another 10 Palestinian fundamentalist organizations in Lebanon. Among them are some better known ones such as Islamic Jihad and a small Hamas faction which gained some momentum when 400 Hamas activists were expelled to Lebanon in 1993, and some lesser known ones such as the Ansar Group, whose leader, Abu Muhajin, is suspected of carrying out hostile actions against Lebanese targets; the Islamic Fighting Organization, which sees its task as promoting religious education and welfare services; the Association of Religious Scholars of Palestine and Lebanon and other organizations, all competing for control of the Palestinian population in Lebanon and for funds.
The Lebanese paper, Al Mustiqal, conducted a series of interviews with the heads of these organizations, all of whom, of course, stressed the need to continue fighting Israel, liberate Palestine and build an Islamic country. None of them spoke of continuing the armed struggle from within Lebanon. The leader of the Islamic Fighting Organization clarified that "the Palestinians dream of fighting against Israel at every opportunity they come across in order to liberate Palestine. However, there are some political obstacles blocking the Palestinians' activities. These are Lebanese political considerations. Therefore, if a peace agreement is worked out, all efforts should be enlisted in a cultural, economic, political and public relations war."
This is the formula that was uttered by all the representatives, and is identical to the statements made by Hezbollah leaders, with one difference: Hezbollah's war has been widely legitimized in Lebanon, whereas the Palestinians' struggle from within Lebanese territory is seen as a threat to Lebanon. Therefore, the official Lebanese response to every Palestinian military operation is one of warning and deterrence; the Lebanese army is immediately dispatched to every place where any Palestinian military action takes place or wherever such activity is suspected, i.e., when it occurs outside the boundaries of the refugee camps. Hezbollah, on the other hand, enjoys total freedom of activity.
Assad ordered restraint
"Today there should no longer be any talk in Lebanon about a Palestinian struggle, rather it should only be about Palestinian violence," a commentator wrote in the Lebanese paper, Al Nahar. It is violence, he wrote, which may undermine Lebanese support of the Palestinian problem. The killing of judges in Sidon, the bank robbery in Damor or the clashes in the Diniya region in the north, all of which were attributed to Palestinian organizations, sparked a wave of serious protests in Lebanon and denunciations that were reminiscent of the days of the Lebanese Civil War.
The antagonism that has built up against the Palestinian organizations in Lebanon even compelled President Assad to take an unusual step when he ordered the leaders of the rejectionist organizations "to focus on political activity," i.e., refrain from military operations. Recently it was even reported that the special transit documents that enabled them to travel freely between Syria and Lebanon were taken away.
"No one can guarantee you that during a unilateral withdrawal or after it, some Palestinian cell won't pull out some rocket launcher and fire a rocket at Israel. By the same degree, no one can guarantee that this won't happen in a withdrawal with an agreement. But there is such a dense net on top of Palestinian activity - ethnic, religious, nationalist, historical and sovereign - that it's hard to imagine that anyone in Lebanon would let them act," the Lebanese representative determines. "They don't even voice their opinions independently when it comes to the question of withdrawal. Their statements are determined by the consensus that is dictated in Lebanon either by Syria or by the formal leadership of the different groups. We live now in a different era. It's not just that the Palestinians are dependents in Lebanon; their problem has legitimate parents, Yasser Arafat no longer needs room to maneuver in foreign Arab countries and finally we can talk out loud about the fact that the refugee problem is a burden."
There are some in the Israeli intelligence establishment who differ with this view. They point to the cooperation between Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, the connections that Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas have with Iran and the severe economic situation of the Palestinians in Lebanon which may cause outbursts that become uncontrollable and gravitate toward Israel. But even the Israeli officials agree that the threat coming from Palestinians in Lebanon is as serious as the threat they pose to Lebanon itself.
In Lebanon, they understand that any Palestinian attack against Israel will immediately prompt an Israeli attack on Lebanon. Consequently, says an Israeli source, "when Lebanon suddenly talks of the need for a withdrawal with an agreement, it is also trying to absolve itself of responsibility for the Palestinians' behavior and transfer it to Syria.
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