[Editorâe(TM)s note: Stefan Christoff spent time recently in the Middle East where he visited refugee camps in Jordan and in Lebanon. This is his second report.]

The youths who play football on the small streets and narrow alleys ofBourj El Barajneh represent an entire generation of Palestinian refugeesin Lebanon who live in a day-to-day low intensity war. This is a war wagedagainst Palestinian refugees by the government of Lebanon. It is not wagedthrough military campaigns and guerrilla battles as in the Lebanese civilwar, but through policies and laws which are slowly choking the life fromLebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps.

This economic warfare is carried out through specific laws and regulationswhich attack Palestinian refugees’ ability to survive. They are forbiddenfrom owning property, working in over 70 professions, receiving properhealth care, and moving and traveling freely. They do not hold Lebanesecitizenship, which gives them little influence over the politicaldecisions of the country in which the majority of them have lived for over50 years. Most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in poverty-stricken,war-destroyed camps as non-citizens with the struggle for the right ofreturn to Palestine the only light shining in an otherwise dark future.

The lack of employmentopportunity has created devastatingeconomic conditions throughout the refugee camps. According to UNRWA(United Nations Relief and Works Agency) more than 60 per cent of Palestinianrefugees live below the poverty line.

As Souheil Natour, a Palestinian organizer in Lebanon with the DFLP,explained:

“Can you imagine a Palestinian refugee family who has lived in Lebanon forover 50 years living without the right to work? Palestinians often do nothave any means to support themselves or their families. This is why youfind so many Palestinian youths fleeing Lebanon, traveling to variouscountries in the hope that they will have the ability to work, so thatthey can send money back to their families to sustain them.”

It is not only economic tactics which are used in today’s war against thePalestinians. The Lebanese army maintains a constant presence on theoutskirts of the majority of the refugee camps. When attempting to enterrefugee camps throughout southern Lebanon, such as Ein El-Helweh, youencounter a series of Lebanese military check-points which control eachentry and exit point of the camp. These check-points essentially prohibitthe freedom of movement for Palestinian refugees living in the camps.

Jaber Suleiman, a Palestinian living in Lebanon, displaced in 1948, and anactivist with the international Al-Awad (Right of Return) Movementexplained:

“Palestinians in Lebanon are treated as a threat to Lebanon, so thereforethe Lebanese army attempts to contain the refugees in the camps. There isa process of ghettoization. The movement of Palestinians from the refugeecamps of southern Lebanon is controlled by the Lebanese army. Eachentrance and exit to the camps is controlled by the army. To enter or exitthe camp your car is checked, your documents are examined.”

Essentially today’s war on the Palestinians by the Lebanese establishment,has driven the ghettoization process of the camps, in which the refugeesare treated like criminals. The crime of which Palestinians are guilty,is being refugees, displaced people, forced from their homes in Palestineby the Israeli state into ghetto-like refugee camps. This criminalizationcontinues today. Each Palestinian born into a camp, each Palestinianchild born in Lebanon arrives in this world as a refugee, stateless andwithout any basic rights.

The refugee camps of Southern Lebanon are in reality large decayingprisons — refugee prisons, which remain in terrible disrepair from thecountless attacks of the Lebanese civil war. Buildings in each camp arelined with bullet-holes and all of the camps are filled with countlessbombed-out buildings. The camps remain in this state of disrepair, due toLebanese legislation passed shortly after the end of the civil war, whichprohibits refugees from entering the camps with building materials.

The Lebanese army check-points at the entrances of the camps enforce thisregulation. In concrete terms, Palestinians living in the camps have noability to improve the living conditions within the camps and live withconstant reminders of the tragedies borne by their communities during thecivil war.

Essentially there has been a war against the Palestinians in Lebanon sincetheir arrival after the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967. Throughoutthe Lebanese civil war the refugee camps became subject to countlessmilitary attacks from Israeli forces and Lebanese right-wing militias.Until the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Beirut had become thepolitical and military headquarters of the Palestinian LiberationOrganization (PLO). This created a political situation where the refugeesof the camps became deeply and directly involved in defining the broaderPalestinian struggle for liberation.

As in the case with the presence of Palestinians in other countries in theMiddle East, the political organizing of the refugees in Lebanon for theliberation of Palestine led to a sense of solidarity between the refugeesand other disenfranchised elements of Lebanese society. Many activistswithin Lebanon refer to the beginnings of the civil war as the Lebaneserevolution.

Raida Hatoum, a Lebanese activist with the paper Al-Yasari(The Leftist) explained, “the Palestinian and Lebanese fought together inone front, not only with the aims of liberating Palestine but alsoliberating all oppressed people. We all know that they were fighting tochange the whole system into a more just one. This was a threat not onlyto Israel but to all of the Arab regimes including the Lebanese one. Theydid not want a revolution that could also reach their own people.”

During the civil war many right-wing Lebanese political movements tried tocrush Palestinian and Lebanese popular movements fighting for the basicrights of Palestinians in Lebanon and for the right of return. Socialmovements which fight for the rights of Palestinians in Lebanon continuetoday, as the situation of life within the refugee camps has improvedlittle since the end of the civil war. Elements of the Lebaneseestablishment continue to attack the rights of Palestinians and thosemovements which fight for their rights. The continued attacks on therights of Palestinians in Lebanon must be seen in this historical context.

Currently many important political positions within the Lebanesegovernment are controlled by politicians related to fronts within theLebanese civil war, which engaged in military campaigns aimed at erasingthe Palestinian social movements in Lebanon. Nabih Berri, the currentspeaker of Parliament, was the military head of the Amal militiasthroughout the civil war.

In 1985, the Amal militias led a full-scale military attack on variousPalestinian refugee camps in Beirut including Sabra, Shatila and Bourj ElBarajneh. This attack lasted through 1988, becoming known as the “CampWars,” which led to mass starvation at the camps of Beirut under militarysiege by Amal militia. Palestinian refugees at Bourj El Barajeneh andShatila camp were under siege at one point for a six-month period. Manyrefugees within the camps still speak about the Amal attacks during thewar. One refugee from Bourj El Barajeneh, who asked not to be named,recounted the siege at the camp:

“The children were starving, many people were dying each week and therewas little food. We were forced to eat cats and dogs to survive during thesiege of the Amal militias.”

So it is no coincidence that political figures like Nabih Berriconsistently back new legislation which continues the attack on the rightsof Palestinians. In 2002, the Lebanese Parliament passed an amendment tothe national property law, which forbids “non-Lebanese persons, who do notpossess citizenship issued by a state recognized by Lebanon, to inherit orbuy property.” So a family of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon cannot passdown ownership of their rudimentary housing within the refugee camps totheir children. Property is automatically handed over to the Lebaneseauthorities.

Nabih Berri dismissed the demands of a recent political campaign organizedby the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) aimed atamending elements of this property law, saying that altering it would“trigger strife” among Lebanese citizens. In reality, amending thisblatantly discriminatory law would “trigger strife” among only theLebanese political and economic elites. It is not within their intereststo establish laws which would give Palestinian refugees their basicrights. With the DFLP-proposed changes which would give Palestinians theability to legally own property in Lebanon, Palestinian refugees would bein a better social and economic position to fight for their rights inLebanon.

The national property law symbolizes the larger economic war being wagedagainst Palestinian communities aimed at erasing their presence fromLebanon. Essentially the regularization of the refugees in Lebanon woulderase an easy political scapegoat for the Lebanese establishment, as manyof today’s social and economic problems in Lebanon are unjustly blamed onthe Palestinian presence.

But the refugee camps also serve as an inspiration for thehuman spirit and the ability of people to struggle against injustice. Thecamps of Lebanon represent the living face of the Palestinian struggle forliberation and for the right of return. As Palestinians in Lebanoncontinue to endure the terrible economic and political conditions of lifein the camps they continue to organize and fight as part of the largerPalestinian movement.

From the edge of the Rashidiyeh camp in southern Lebanon, on theMediterranean, the mountains of southern Lebanon flow into a country whichis today called Israel, but to which the small children of the camp pointwith joy and exclaim “Palestine!”

Stefan Christoff

Stefan Christoff is a musician, community organizer and host of Free City Radio that airs weekly on multiple stations across Canada. X: @spirodon / Instagram: @spirochristoff