New legislation regarding Lebanon's Palestinian refugees

Last Thursday, Parliament introduced legislation that would significantly change the status of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees. The proposal would have increased Palestinian access to employment, social security, and land ownership.

A vote on the bill has been pushed back a month to allow time for negotiation and consensus building. It seems that the prospect of Palestinian land ownership has already been sacrificed in the negotiations.

Christians fear that the legislation is the start of full naturalization for the refugees. Lebanon’s Christian population has been in decline since the 1970’s, and the end of the Civil War in 1990 saw the end of their 6:5 domination in parliament.

Today, the Christian’s maintain a 1:1 share of MP’s, even though they are now believed to be vastly outnumbered by Lebanon’s Muslims. It is understandable that they want to protect their position, and how the possible naturalization of 300,000 Sunni-Muslim Palestinian refugees could threaten that position.

This issue also comes in the wake of the Flotilla raid that attempted to break Israel’s sea blockade Gaza. Turkey benefited greatly from the incident, in which nine people were killed, but Lebanon emerged with somewhat of a black eye for the way in which it treats its own Palestinian refugees. Perhaps the new legislation is meant to deflect some of that criticism.

Another possibility, as discussed in Foreign Policy, is that Syria may be behind the sudden renewed push for Palestinian rights. The line of reasoning is that supporting this particular issue would drive a wedge between the Christian and Sunni camps in the March 14 alliance, which it already has.

For a while now, Syria has attempted to create daylight between the Christians and Sunnis of March 14, but this move may prove shortsighted for Damascus in the long run, as it could have the dual side-effects of uniting Christians, while also empowering Lebanon’s Sunni politicians led by Prime Minister Saad Hariri.*

The last thing Syria wants in Lebanon is a powerful Sunni regime. Syria‘s Sunni majority (about 75% of the population) is ruled by an Alawite minority, and a strong Sunni neighbor could be a bad influence. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Jordan is the only Sunni-Arab-led country on Syria‘s borders.

On the other hand, Syria has shown support for armed militants in Lebanon, including Hizballah and the PLFP-GC. Encouraging this sort of legislation might be a way to curry favor with Lebanon’s militant Palestinian forces, with the possible goal of nurturing another militia of it’s own (without ties to Iran) in order to increase Damascus’ influence in Lebanon.

For Lebanon, the issue of Palestinian rights has been bubbling to the surface over the last five years. Before, the wishful thinking was that a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict (and with it, the so called “right of return”) would rid Lebanon of this problem.  But the events at the Nahr el-Bared camp in 2007 made it painfully clear that something had to be done.

*In 2007, members of Fatah al-Islam battled the LAF. At least 450 people were killed as a result, and the camp was razed, displacing its 30,000 residents.

This declining standard of living for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees, a population of roughly 300,000 to 400,000 (depending on who you ask) has been exacerbated by the deficits faced by UNRWA over the last few years. While obviously this is bad for the Palestinians, it is also bad for Lebanon, as hopelessness and frustration in the camps provide a ripe environment for which extremist groups to recruit.

Since Lebanon’s civil war ended in 1990, the country has teetered on the edge of instability. Today, the greatest threat to Lebanon’s security and stability is an attack from Israel, but the Palestinian issue is a close second. However, this is a problem that can actually be addressed by the Lebanese, and hopefully they will take the opportunity to act.