Amman, Jordan, February 23 – This week, as organizations on college campuses around the globe try to draw attention to what activists have labeled Israel’s “Apartheid” policies governing Palestinians, Palestinian refugees are emphasizing that the even harsher treatment they receive at the hands of neighboring Arab countries is, well, different, because, well, you had to be there.
Palestinians who fled the war over Israel’s creation in 1948, and their descendants, inhabit squalid camps in Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, with somewhat better conditions in Jordan. The host governments, including the Palestinian Authority, as a rule deny them citizenship and place severe restrictions on their employment, travel, and education. However, refugee leaders agree that this treatment must not be construed as anything but support for the Palestinian cause, because otherwise people might start asking awkward questions about hypocrisy.
“What the world might see as discrimination, we see as unequivocal endorsement of our aspirations to return to Palestine,” says Muhammad al-Bakri, 39, of the Ein el-Hilweh camp in southern Lebanon. “We can feel the love,” he added, eyes darting from right to left in case anyone unwelcome was listening.
That love has found even greater expression in recent years as Palestinian refugees join the factions battling in Syria and Lebanon. Syria had generously played host to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees when the civil war broke out three years ago, and questions over the loyalty of the camp-dwelling refugees have plunged them into conflict with fighters on both sides. The tension increased further with revelations that Palestinians had themselves participated in the fighting, including two suicide bombings in Lebanon aimed at Hezbollah’s strongholds in Beirut.
Hezbollah insists all Lebanese love the Palestinians unconditionally, and that any unpleasantness must be blamed on Israel no matter what. “We wish to see every Palestinian refugee lovingly repatriated, the sooner the better. We want not a single Palestinian to remain in Lebanon, we love them so much,” said the Shiite movement’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. “Which is why we will never allow them to be fully integrated into Lebanese society.” He explained that granting them citizenship would disrupt the delicate demographic balance in Lebanon, and of course it has nothing to do with any resentment or Shia-Sunni divisions, and what would ever give you that idea?
In the Palestinian-administered territories themselves, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has made it clear that for their own good, refugees would not be granted citizenship in the eventual State of Palestine, because that might imply acceptance of Israel’s refusal to be inundated with a population that would erase the Jewish identity of the world’s only Jewish State. It would be better for everybody, explained Abbas, to create yet another Arab country instead of somehow absorbing Palestinian Arabs into the 22 Arab states in the region.
“I know the surveys say only a minority of refugees are actually interested in returning to their ancestral homes,” concedes Abbas, “but do the refugees really know what’s best for them? I mean, we’re talking about people holding on to the house keys of places destroyed ages ago. Talk about unrealistic.”
Political experts point out that ironically, the Jewish experience is forming the model for the surrounding countries’ treatment of Palestinians. “It was only after thousands of years of persecution in exile that Jews were able to establish an independent state there,” explained Middle East historian Ismail Haniyeh. “So of course in order to equip Palestinian exiles with the necessary state-building skills, the Arab world has resolved to put Palestinians through a similar process.”
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