`We will never give up the fight for Jerusalem`

Source: The Guardian, 23 February 2006
By Mouna Naim
Some 20m beyond the Lebanese army position the Palestinian checkpoint sports a makeshift triumphal arch, marked: "The Hamas Islamic resistance movement bids you welcome". It guards the entrance to the Ein El-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp, east of Saida, the main town in South Lebanon. Rust has eaten away the arch`s metal structure, barely two years old, but a green banner - the colour of Islam and Hamas - has been added recently. It proclaims: "The general election [in the territory governed by the Palestinian Authority] is a victory for the Palestinian people and for all resistance fighters, the wounded and the prisoners."
The main street is lined with ramshackle shops and workshops. Stagnant water fills the ruts in the road. A tangle of wire and cable hangs from the damp, dirty walls of adjoining buildings, plastered with the pictures of martyrs, some famous, others less so: Yasser Arafat, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas` former spiritual leader, and rank-and-file militants. Here, much as in the dozen or so other refugee camps in Lebanon, people complain about the PA`s corruption and poor management of the territories. But the prime concern is their "right of return". That is all they really care about. It makes little difference whether they support Fatah, Hamas or one of the other groups. Nor does it matter when or how they came here - some arrived in 1948, but most of them by far were born here; others arrived after 1967, as the "Israelis" pushed further into their land. They all want to return home or be compensated, as required by United Nations Resolution 194. Hamas has always made that demand a key plank in its platform.
All the Palestinian groups have offices at Ein El-Hilweh. At the end of 1999 "Damascus [then unofficially supervising Lebanon`s affairs] authorised Hamas to take over the religious networks that the Lebanese chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood had built in the Palestinian camps," writes Bernard Rougier in Le Djihad au quotidien (Presses Universitaires de France, 2004), a remarkable investigation of jihadi in the Palestinian camps of Lebanon.
Bringing Hamas on to the scene, he adds, served Syria`s local ends "hampering progress by Salafist jihadi and, if necessary, justifying their elimination by players whose religious and nationalist credentials were above reproach". Unlike the Salafist jihadi, who see themselves as an integral part of a global struggle against the enemies of Islam and condemn any form of nationalism, Hamas`s top priority, despite its religious inspiration, is to achieve Palestinian nationhood. For Damascus, Hamas has the additional advantage of sharing its hostility to the Oslo peace process.
Following Hamas`s general election victory in Gaza and the West Bank last month, its local representatives organised a gathering at Khaled bin al-Walid mosque. We talked to two sisters, aged 25 and 27, in their tiny shop where they sell an odd mixture of souvenirs, dolls and trinkets. They claim not to belong to any particular organisation, but make no secret of being pleased at Hamas`s election victory. "With them," says the elder sister, who like most of those we met, refused to be named, "Palestinians will be able to decide for themselves, countering "Israel" and the United States. The "Israelis" claim Hamas is a terrorist organisation, but they are terrorists themselves. We have a cause, rights and a fatherland, and we will defend them."
She blames the PA for agreeing to create a state on just the territory occupied by "Israel" in 1967. "That arrangement completely disregards all the refugees, like us, whereas the state is supposed to represent all Palestinians, upholding their right of return to their homes," the young woman explains. She was born in the camp but her family is from Safad, which was part of northern Palestine under the British mandate.
She deplores the Lebanese laws that deprive Palestinian refugees of their basic rights. Obtaining a work permit is a major undertaking. Access to about 70 professions is forbidden. They do not qualify for any welfare, nor are they allowed to own property. However, she adds that she would never accept being permanently settled here, as part of some final agreement depriving her and her people of their claim to their real home in Palestine.
Abed Maqdah is a member of the al-Saiqa organisation and a coordinator of the popular committees that cover all the Palestinian refugee camps. Setting aside the initial joy prompted by the Hamas victory, he acknowledges that, "some people are wondering what Hamas will do now it has come to power. Will it make a deal with Abu Mazen [as Mahmoud Abbas is known], who was elected on a platform of continuing negotiations with "Israel"? And what position will it adopt on further resistance to occupation?"
But, Maqdah says, one thing is clear: "They should never have organised an election in occupied territory, divided by checkpoints and a wall, with any number of hindrances. Worse still, the poll only involved a tiny proportion of the Palestinian people, the majority of whom are in exile. We will never give up the fight for Jerusalem. We want peace, but not with the status of slaves. We are prepared to accept a Palestinian state inside the 1967 borders, but it must uphold refugees` right of return."
Many refugees still think Fatah is important. It is the "mother organisation" of the Palestinian cause, says one of the camp`s orange sellers. Nearby a bunch of youths, tasked with the camp`s security, use their supposedly "military" status as an excuse for not commenting on the Hamas victory. One of them nevertheless admits: "Of course, we are appalled."
However deep their attachment to the organisation, many are glad to see Fatah beginning to take stock of its defeat, unleashing internal criticism of recent choices and above all the decision to give up armed resistance. This is certainly true of Abu Alaa, the head of the Palestinian security forces at Shatila refugee camp in the southern suburbs of Beirut. On the flaking walls of his office he has pinned posters of the founder of Hizbullah and Abu Ali Mustapha, a former Fatah leader, alongside a rough charcoal sketch of Che Guevara.
Alaa says he belongs to Fatah al-Intifada, a militant faction that turned against the official leadership in the territories. But he can understand why the leadership acted the way it did. Everything happened too quickly. The creation of the Palestinian state was so sudden "it left the PA no time to find its feet". He wishes Hamas good luck, convinced it speaks for Palestinians all over the world. But he asks: "Hamas was elected on a platform of armed struggle. Will they be able to keep their word or will they come to terms with the Oslo process? If they endorse the agreements reached by the PA, they will lose the support of the people. Otherwise they will lose aid and support from abroad. How are they going to pay the PA`s 70,000 officials?"
President Bush has warned that the US will cut aid unless the Islamist movement dissolves its armed wing and renounces its calls for "Israel"`s destruction. The EU, which has given more than $1.5bn in aid to the Palestinians over the past five years, said it would continue its funding as long as the new government remains committed to peace with "Israel".
Everyone swears they will not be drawn into internecine strife that plagued the Palestinian cause for so many years. Their current concern seems to be to negotiate the best possible terms with the Lebanese authorities to prolong their "provisional" stay in their place of exile.