For Palestinian refugees in Ain al-Hilweh, right of return not subject to negotiation
Source: IRIN, 24-12-2007
AIN AL-HILWEH, SIDON: Palestinian and "Israeli" leaders may have agreed at the US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis on November 27 to work toward a full peace deal by the end of next year, but in the tinderbox refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in Lebanon the lives of 75,000 Palestinians are defined by an intractable issue at the heart of the conflict: the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.
"No one can negotiate on our right to return to Palestine. There is only one country called Palestine and we will never return there except by resistance to 'Israel'," said Abu Youssef, a fighter with the radical Palestinian Islamist faction Ansar Allah.
The right of return polarizes peace negotiations between the Palestinians and "Israelis" like no other issue.
For most Palestinians, the right to return of the up to 6 million refugees who can trace their origins back to the exodus from Palestine that followed "Israel's" creation in 1948 is an absolute.
For "Israeli" officials - whose official historians dispute the figure of 6 million and also the reason for the mass exodus - the issue is existential: the sheer number of Palestinian refugees who can claim a right to return to their pre-1948 homes are seen as a demographic danger to the world's only Jewish state.
At the failed US-sponsored Camp David peace talks in 2000, "Israeli" negotiators proposed that a limited number of refugees would be allowed to return to "Israel" on the basis of humanitarian considerations or family reunification.
All other people currently classified as Palestinian refugees would be settled in their present abode, the Palestinian state, or third-party countries. An international fund would be set up - to which "Israel" would contribute along with other countries - that would register claims for property compensation and make payments within the limits of its resources.
UN Resolution 194, passed in December 1948, asserts the refugees' right of return to live in peace in their old homes or to receive compensation for their losses. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
But if the issue of the refugees' fate has largely been ignored in previous rounds of Middle East diplomacy the question has not been forgotten in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, on the outskirts of Lebanon's Southern port city of Sidon.
"I was born here in a small tent in 1958," said Abu Ahmad Fadel Taha, leader of the Islamic group Hamas in Ain al-Hilweh. "I have lived all my life here with my father, who is now 94, and my eight children. We live with hardship every day and we live the dream of return every day." From his office in the heart of the camp, Fadel Taha's staff broadcasts programs to camp households from Hamas-sponsored television channels called Al-Aqsa - named after the mosque in Jerusalem - and Reesala, (Message), on free satellite wavelengths. The message is often uncompromising.
"'Israel' wants the Palestinians to admit Palestine is the home of the Jews. It wants us to give up on the right of return," said Taha. "Palestine is for us and for our grandchildren and can only be liberated by resistance. The Oslo and Madrid [peace conferences] brought only shame. We don't believe in negotiations," he added.
Besides their dream of return, Palestinians in Lebanon face a unique array of hardships.
Unable to gain citizenship in this country because of fears such a move would upset its delicate sectarian power-sharing system, Lebanon's 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in a double limbo: refusing resettlement in their host country but demanding better rights, such as the right to work in over 70 professional jobs from which they are now barred.
According to UNRWA, the UN's Palestinian relief organization, Lebanon has the highest percentage of all Palestinian refugees living in abject poverty, and the worst of that is felt inside the 12 official refugee camps.
Under a 1969 Arab pact, Lebanese authorities have no right of access inside the camps, with Palestinians running an autonomous security system.
For many camp residents their arms signal their refusal to relinquish their refugee status.
"We maintain our weapons as a guarantee of our right of return to our homeland," said Sheikh Maher Oweid, commander of the radical Islamist Ansar Allah faction in Ain al-Hilweh.
The catastrophic destruction of the Northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in a three-month battle this summer between the National Lebanese Army and Islamists, many of them foreigners, who had holed up in the camp, further hiked tensions between Islamist radicals and secular moderates.
"Fatah have shot at us many times but our religion tells us we must protect our Palestinian civilians here in the camp," said Sheikh Abu Sharif, spokesman of Osbat al- Ansar.
The Sunni extremists Osbat define themselves as global jihadis fighting what they call "'Israeli' and American occupation" and for the establishment of Islamic rule across the world. They criticize both Hamas and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shiite Islamic movement, for their "narrow agendas" of only seeking an end to the "Israeli" occupation of Palestine and a disputed corner of southeast Lebanon.
Osbat al-Ansar, too, believe in the right to return, but not for peaceful means.
"We have succeeded in establishing a military wing inside occupied Palestine," said Abu Sharif, vowing to fight against any two-state solutions that could arise from Annapolis.
"God had promised us that we will return to our homes. But we will never get Palestine without jihad."
AIN AL-HILWEH, SIDON: Palestinian and "Israeli" leaders may have agreed at the US-sponsored peace conference in Annapolis on November 27 to work toward a full peace deal by the end of next year, but in the tinderbox refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in Lebanon the lives of 75,000 Palestinians are defined by an intractable issue at the heart of the conflict: the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.
"No one can negotiate on our right to return to Palestine. There is only one country called Palestine and we will never return there except by resistance to 'Israel'," said Abu Youssef, a fighter with the radical Palestinian Islamist faction Ansar Allah.
The right of return polarizes peace negotiations between the Palestinians and "Israelis" like no other issue.
For most Palestinians, the right to return of the up to 6 million refugees who can trace their origins back to the exodus from Palestine that followed "Israel's" creation in 1948 is an absolute.
For "Israeli" officials - whose official historians dispute the figure of 6 million and also the reason for the mass exodus - the issue is existential: the sheer number of Palestinian refugees who can claim a right to return to their pre-1948 homes are seen as a demographic danger to the world's only Jewish state.
At the failed US-sponsored Camp David peace talks in 2000, "Israeli" negotiators proposed that a limited number of refugees would be allowed to return to "Israel" on the basis of humanitarian considerations or family reunification.
All other people currently classified as Palestinian refugees would be settled in their present abode, the Palestinian state, or third-party countries. An international fund would be set up - to which "Israel" would contribute along with other countries - that would register claims for property compensation and make payments within the limits of its resources.
UN Resolution 194, passed in December 1948, asserts the refugees' right of return to live in peace in their old homes or to receive compensation for their losses. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
But if the issue of the refugees' fate has largely been ignored in previous rounds of Middle East diplomacy the question has not been forgotten in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, on the outskirts of Lebanon's Southern port city of Sidon.
"I was born here in a small tent in 1958," said Abu Ahmad Fadel Taha, leader of the Islamic group Hamas in Ain al-Hilweh. "I have lived all my life here with my father, who is now 94, and my eight children. We live with hardship every day and we live the dream of return every day." From his office in the heart of the camp, Fadel Taha's staff broadcasts programs to camp households from Hamas-sponsored television channels called Al-Aqsa - named after the mosque in Jerusalem - and Reesala, (Message), on free satellite wavelengths. The message is often uncompromising.
"'Israel' wants the Palestinians to admit Palestine is the home of the Jews. It wants us to give up on the right of return," said Taha. "Palestine is for us and for our grandchildren and can only be liberated by resistance. The Oslo and Madrid [peace conferences] brought only shame. We don't believe in negotiations," he added.
Besides their dream of return, Palestinians in Lebanon face a unique array of hardships.
Unable to gain citizenship in this country because of fears such a move would upset its delicate sectarian power-sharing system, Lebanon's 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in a double limbo: refusing resettlement in their host country but demanding better rights, such as the right to work in over 70 professional jobs from which they are now barred.
According to UNRWA, the UN's Palestinian relief organization, Lebanon has the highest percentage of all Palestinian refugees living in abject poverty, and the worst of that is felt inside the 12 official refugee camps.
Under a 1969 Arab pact, Lebanese authorities have no right of access inside the camps, with Palestinians running an autonomous security system.
For many camp residents their arms signal their refusal to relinquish their refugee status.
"We maintain our weapons as a guarantee of our right of return to our homeland," said Sheikh Maher Oweid, commander of the radical Islamist Ansar Allah faction in Ain al-Hilweh.
The catastrophic destruction of the Northern refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in a three-month battle this summer between the National Lebanese Army and Islamists, many of them foreigners, who had holed up in the camp, further hiked tensions between Islamist radicals and secular moderates.
"Fatah have shot at us many times but our religion tells us we must protect our Palestinian civilians here in the camp," said Sheikh Abu Sharif, spokesman of Osbat al- Ansar.
The Sunni extremists Osbat define themselves as global jihadis fighting what they call "'Israeli' and American occupation" and for the establishment of Islamic rule across the world. They criticize both Hamas and Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shiite Islamic movement, for their "narrow agendas" of only seeking an end to the "Israeli" occupation of Palestine and a disputed corner of southeast Lebanon.
Osbat al-Ansar, too, believe in the right to return, but not for peaceful means.
"We have succeeded in establishing a military wing inside occupied Palestine," said Abu Sharif, vowing to fight against any two-state solutions that could arise from Annapolis.
"God had promised us that we will return to our homes. But we will never get Palestine without jihad."
