Depriving Palestinian Refugees of Their Rights: A Crime That Threatens Lebanon

Khaled Barakat

Hardly a day passes without the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon being subjected to a new campaign of incitement and vilification. The racist right-wing media never stops portraying the camps as “security threats,” “drug hotbeds,” or permanent sources of danger, in a continuous attempt to transform the Palestinian refugee from victim into suspect, and the camp from a witness to a historic crime into a “problem” that must be isolated and monitored. Yet the truth is simpler and deeper than all these fabrications: the camp is not the problem. The problem is Zionist colonialism, accompanied by the official Lebanese policies that created this marginalization, together with fascist forces that demonize the camps and then, with utter shamelessness, accuse their victims!

The people of the camps did not choose their exile, nor did they choose poverty, unemployment, overcrowding, or deprivation. A people was uprooted from its land and prevented from returning to it, only to find itself, after long decades, confronting multiple forms of social, political, and economic exclusion. More than seven decades after the Nakba, Palestinians in Lebanon continue to pay the price of their uprooting from Palestine while simultaneously paying the price of policies of deprivation that restrict their ability to work and own property and deny them their most basic human rights.

Consider the results of UNRWA’s socioeconomic survey, based on data collected between late 2022 and early 2023: the poverty rate among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon reached 83 percent. In other words, four out of every five Palestinians in Lebanon live below the poverty line. Unemployment stood at 32.3 percent. Among young people, the picture is even harsher: unemployment reached 41.7 percent among those aged 15 to 19, and 45 percent among those aged 20 to 29. Inside the camps, unemployment rises to 34.9 percent. (The reality is even worse than what international reports indicate.)

More alarming still, these restrictions do not affect only those without education. Even people with technical qualifications and university degrees face high unemployment rates, reflecting the existence of barriers that go far deeper than a mere lack of education or competence. The message that must reach the authorities is this: You are besieging a generation that, before long, you may find yourselves asking why it rose up and rebelled against you. Do not close the doors to the future and then talk about security. Understand that siege and deprivation are a crime. They do not create stability; they create more anger and resentment. You are even responsible for the phenomenon of drug proliferation in some of the camps.

Human societies cannot live forever under the pressure of poverty, unemployment, and the absence of any prospects without tensions accumulating within them. Nor will deception and lies fool them every time: this is a social and political reality. Therefore, ignoring the causes of the crisis amounts to complicity and participation in the crime. The longer racism and discrimination continue, and the longer policies that drive people to despair remain in place, the greater the social and economic tensions will become. The Lebanese authorities must understand that rights are not a threat to stability; racism is the great scourge that threatens all communities. The right to work is a right, not a favor granted by anyone.

By political and legal decision, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are barred from working in a number of essential professions. They are also excluded from public-sector employment and face extensive restrictions on access to a number of professions regulated by professional syndicates. They have endured decades of segregation and social and economic exclusion.

It is absurd that a European or an American should have a greater ability to own property in Lebanon than a Palestinian. The issue of property ownership reveals one of the harshest contradictions: a foreigner who has just arrived in the country can, under the applicable legal rules, own real estate in Lebanon, while a Palestinian is denied this right. What logic accepts that a person can live in a country for decades, with generations of their family working there, yet remain deprived of their most basic rights? The use of the specter of permanent settlement (tawteen) to justify permanent deprivation must be rejected. The right of return is not protected by impoverishing refugees. It is not safeguarded by denying them the right to work, nor does it grow stronger the more miserable Palestinians become!

Lebanon’s security and independence cannot be separated from the struggle against the Zionist colonial project in the region. Lebanon is not made stronger by besieging Palestinians, nor is its security built by isolating the camps, nor is its stability strengthened by turning refugees into easy targets for racist incitement. Once again, we say: portraying Palestinians as an internal “problem” and isolating the camps from their surroundings serves only those forces that seek to divert the contradiction away from the real enemy.

But the most urgent question today is not directed solely at Lebanon’s racist fascist right. The position of this camp, which has Palestinian blood on its hands, is well known and longstanding. The real question is directed at the allies: at the Lebanese national forces, parties, and figures who speak morning and night about Palestine. (We exclude here the popular bases of the Resistance and those who are martyred every day on the battlefield in the South, defending Lebanon, Palestine, and the peoples of the nation.)

Where are you when it comes to the camps? How many times have you entered their alleyways to listen to their people? How many times have you sat with a young Palestinian looking for work? How many times have you listened to a student asking about her future? How many times have you discussed the conditions facing Palestinian workers, patients, or families confronting poverty and death every day? It seems that a kind of willful political ignorance has afflicted many of those who love to talk about Palestine.

The microphones in Lebanon work when Palestine is on the television screen, but the sound disappears when Palestine becomes an unemployed young man in Ain el-Hilweh, a family confronting illness in Bourj al-Barajneh, or a student searching for an opportunity in Shatila, Baddawi, or Nahr al-Bared. Here lies the difference between those who love Palestine and those who love talking about Palestine. The measure of solidarity with Palestine and its people, anywhere in the world, begins with one question: How do you treat the Palestinian refugee in your country?