Nahr al Bared: Choose your Side

This past week, the news has featured reports of fighting between the Lebanese army and 'militants' in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al Bared. The Lebanese army is depicted as the legitimate representative of 'law and order' while the 'militants' are described as 'terrorists'. Statements describing Fatah al Islam as a group that is purportedly 'linked to Al Qaida' only serve to further marginalise the situation, making it appear to be no more than one of those nebulous threats that need to be eliminated by the righteous in their 'war on terror'.

According to an Associated Press report: 'The army is seeking to uproot a militant group called Fatah Islam, which arose late last year in the camp, on the outskirts of the northern port city of Tripoli. The group touts itself as a Palestinian liberation movement, but many view it as a nascent branch of al-Qaida-style terrorism with ambitions of carrying out attacks around the region.'

Another article states that: 'The group’s leader has been identified as fugitive Shaker al-Absi, a Palestinian in his early 50s who has vilified America in media interviews and admitted he supports the ideology of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. He is believed to have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.'

'Fugitive' at least is one step up from 'refugee'. 'Fugitive' describes a refugee who has taken the initiative to try to take steps that ultimately would lead him back to his homeland.

These articles do not describe the refugee camp or the situation that created it. They make no mention of the Zionist Occupation of Palestine. According to these reports, it is simply another group of 'terrorists' seeking to disrupt the harmony and order of the State.

In the tangled web of Arab politics, one will find groups like the pernicious Welch Club giving support to militias and resistance groups simply in order to weaken Hizb'allah, perceived by the U.S. as one of the greatest threats to its interests. The CIA and its equivalents from other nations always have used clandestine support of revolutionary and resistance groups on the basis of 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. In this particular case, however, it could be no more than an allegation designed to foment more sectarian hostility between Shi'a and Sunni.

On the other hand, whatever the truth about this particular group and its affiliations, one fact is clear: Palestinian resistance to the status quo should be unqualified.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that Palestinian expectations of support from the Arab Nation through the years have been met with every degree of betrayal, from oblique political repudiations of the unconditional right of the Palestinian people to the Palestinian homeland to the savage slaughter of unarmed refugees in camps throughout the Arab Nation. To live in a refugee camp for generations without resisting would be tantamount to accepting the role of lambs docilely awaiting their slaughter.

On Sunday, Fatah al Islam’s spokesman in Nahr el-Bared, Abu Salim, stated that the aim of the organisation was 'to liberate Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites and to protect Sunnis.'

For those who fail to grasp an elementary principle, I should make it clear that the liberation of Al Aqsa Mosque must be an aim of EVERY Muslim and EVERY Arab. It is not an aim to which Al Qaida can lay any proprietary claim!

As far as protecting Sunnis is concerned, the entire sectarian conflict between Shi'a and Sunni was created and nurtured by the foreign invaders of Iraq to further their own goals and Muslims must repudiate any attempt to further divide the Ummah. Rather than 'protecting Sunnis' or 'protecting Shi'a', Muslims must renew a common faith. Islam neither is a 'Sunni' nor a 'Shi'a' religion.

From my point of view, the membership of Fatah al Islam or its motivations are not the primary considerations here. It is the entire infrastructure of a system that has allowed Palestinian refugees to exist in appalling conditions of limbo for over half a century.

One can understand the conflict that is occurring at Nahr al Bared only if one is aware of the status of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

The hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are not allowed to work in many professions or to claim social security. They do not have the right either to own or to inherit property. Most of them struggle to survive, without means to obtain the basic necessitiies of life. They are denied citizenship in Lebanon.

Palestinians who attempt to find work outside the camps are subject to laws of discrimination. Many professions are restricted to Lebanese nationals. A policy of reciprocity with respect to work permits guarantees that no Palestinian will be allowed a permit: the right to a permit for foreign nationals is judged by the extent to which the foreign state grants that right to Lebanese nationals. As the Palestinian State remains under foreign Zionist occupation, there is no basis for reciprocity. Unemployment rates are at least 80%. The professions that are subject to this include those of accountant, cook, medical doctor, hairdresser, pharmacist, engineer, concierge and lawyer. Unemployment rates in the camps have been noted to be as high as 80%.

Living conditions in many of the camps are abominable. Open sewage is commonplace. Overcrowding has resulted in the creation of new unofficial refugee camps lacking even the basic services provided to the official camps.
Lebanese law prohibits Palestinians from owning real estate and bar them from inheriting property or from registering any property previously purchased. Although the law does not mention Palestinians explicily by name, it prohibits those who are not 'bearers of nationality of a recognised State', a description that applies primarily to Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon.

Lebanon's discriminatory practices against Palestinians violate international human rights law; they are in violation of its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and Convention on the Rights of the Child. .

In many camps, new construction or redevelopment of any kind is prohibited. Cramped quarters and a lack of basic necessities, coupled with discriminatory practices that deny any hope of improvement to the Palestinian refugees, create a situation that is intolerable.

Lebanon claims that any offer of citizenship to Palestinian refugees would be a de facto admission of the Zionist pretensions to the Palestinian homeland. There is no excuse, however, for the legal discrimination being practiced by an Arab state against fellow Arabs.

Once again, instead of uniting against a common enemy, Arabs are determined to do the dirty work of their enemies for them. The Lebanese Army is involved in an operation against its own people rather than turning its guns and armaments against the Zionists who actually have invaded Lebanese territory more than once. Like the Lebanese murderers who participated with the Zionists in the terrible massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra, Shatila and Burj al Barajnah camps, the Lebanese Army now is operating to increase the 'security' of the Zionists against any threat to their continuing rape of Palestine.

From an eyewitness account of the situation in the camp: 'After three days of shelling and more than 100 dead and with no electricity or water, Nahr el-Baled reeks of burned and rotting flesh, charred houses with smoldering contents, raw sewage and the acrid smell of exploded mortars and tank rounds.

'Press figures of 30,000-32,000 are not accurate. 45,000 live in Bared! Contrary to some reports food and water still not being allowed in.

'15 to 70 percent of some areas destroyed. Some light shooting this morning and afternoon. Army shelling at rate of 10-18 shells per minute from 4:30 am to 10 am on Tuesday. Army will not allow Palestinian Red Crescent to move out civilians because they don't trust them. Only the Lebanese Red Cross is allowed. It is possible to enter Bared from the back (east side). The Army taking cameras of journalists they catch. The Lebanese government is controlling the information and don't want extent of damage known yet. Still unrecovered bodies. 40 per cent of the camp population have been evacuated. The rest don't want to leave out of fear of being shot or that they are losing their homes for the 5th time or more for some.'

Like the other Palestinian camps in Lebanon, Nahr al Bared is inhabited by Palestinians who were forced from their homes, land, and personal property in 1947-48 by the invading Jews.


Of the original 16 Refugee camps that were created to set up to house temporarily more than 100,000 refugees crossing the border into Lebanon from Palestine during the Nakba, 12 official ones remain. The camp at Tal El-Za`tar was ethnically cleansed by Christian Phalange forces at the beginning of the 1975-1990, Lebanese Civil War and the Nabatieh, Dikwaneh and Jisr el-Basha camps were destroyed by Zionist attacks and Lebanese militia and not rebuilt. Those remaining include the following which currently house more than half of Lebanon's 433,276 Palestinian refugees:

Al-Badawi, Burj El-Barajnah, Jal El-Bahr, Sabra and Shatilla, Ain El-Helwa, Nahr El-Bared, Rashidieh, Burj El Shemali, El-Buss, Wavel, Mieh Mieh and Mar Elias.

Again and again, rather than embracing their Palestinian brothers and sisters, factions in Lebanon have acquiesced or actively participated in the crimes committed against them, from ethnic cleansing to statutory descrimination.

Nahr al-Bared has the highest percentage of Palestinian refugees anywhere who are living in abject poverty and who are officially registered with the UN as 'special hardship' cases.

The general population of the refugee camp of Nahr al Baled ultimately will emerge as the worst victims in this 'clash' but they must recognise that the return to Palestine will not be accomplished by surrender to the dictates of the Lebanese Army or the U.S. It is only through resistance that hope will offer anything but a mirage.

When will the Arab Nation distinguish between shadows and substance, repudiate the temptation to embroil itself in sectarian clashes and embrace unity against a common foe?

When will the world reject the facile definitions of any resistance movement as a 'terrorist movement' and support the just aspirations of the dispossessed rather than acquiescing in campaigns of foreign occupation as it did in the war against Iraq?

When will the Arab Nation categorically repudiate the role of agent in the murky political battles fought for outside influences on Arab soil? It is time for the Arab people to refuse to act as pawns on the international chessboard. Arab fighting Arab... that is fantasy fulfillment for the Zionists and every one who desires an end to any possibility that a strong Arab Nation might emerge from the smouldering wreckage created by foreign invasions and occupations.