Today's Stories

May 13, 2009

Brian M. Downing
The Road Out of Iraq

May 12, 2009

Gary Leupp
The Bomb Iran Faction

Richard Neville
The AfPak Blues: Corpses of the Kids by the Truckload

Wajahat Ali
Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship

Dean Baker
The Banker Boys Are Alright! Time to End the Bailouts

Franklin Lamb
What Palestinian Refugees Need From Lebanon's Elections

Norman Solomon
A Progressive Challenge to Jane Harman

Paul Craig Roberts
Beware the Hate Crimes Bill

Lisa M. Hamilton
Let's Grow a New Crop of Farmers

Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman:
Why Isn't Obama Turning to Credit Unions?

David Macaray
Wading Through the Grassroots

Website of the Day
Electronic Police States

May 11, 2009

Andrea Peacock
No Justice for Libby

Michael Hudson
Gordon Brown Spills the Beans on the IMF

Patrick Cockburn
Who Killed 120 Civilians?

Ralph Nader
The Single-Payer Taboo

John Kelly
Pseudoscience and Wrongful Convictions in the War on Drugs

Saul Landau
Cuba's Biggest "Crime"

Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Dead Victims

David Michael Green
Get Obama

Anthony Papa
Gov. David Paterson Does the Right Thing

Paul Krassner
Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal

Website of the Day
Generational Homelessness

May 8-10, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Dead Souls

Jeffrey St. Clair
Echoes of Amchitka: 40 Years After America's Biggest Nuclear Blast, the Damage Continues

Paul Wolf
Obama's Axis of Obedience

Steve Niva
Iraq: The Return of the Suicide Bombers

Neve Gordon
Jailed for Caring

Mike Whitney
Has Bernanke Pulled the Economy Back From the Brink?

Warren Hinckle
DiFi vs. Marilyn Chambers

Serge Halimi
In Praise of Revolutions

Gareth Porter
The Pakistan Conundrum

Sharon Smith
Something Stinks at Whole Foods

Andy Worthington
Obama's New Gitmo Policy: Back to the Bush Era?

Mark Weisbrot
Hillary and Latin America

Rosa Miriam Elizalde Cyber Command and Cyber Dissident: More of the Same?

David Macaray
Recessions and Labor Unions

Missy Beattie
The Real Housewives of War

Ron Jacobs
Mothers and War

Diane Farsetta
About Face on Pentagon Pundits?

Ramzy Baroud
War Without Context

Phelie Maguire
Living Next to Settlers

Robert Fantina
Party of Rush

Kevin Zeese
A Break From the Past in the Drug War?

Margaret Flowers, MD
The Baucus 8: Why We Risked Arrest for Single-Payer

Dave Lindorff
The Joke's on Us

Richard Rhames
Revenge of the Tundra

Ben Sonnenberg
Let the Right One In: A Vampire Visits a Welfare State

Kim Nicolini
Sin Nombre: Giving Faces to People Who Don't Have Names

Stephen Martin
The Riotous Action of the Complete Banker

Charles R. Larson
The Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

David Yearsley
Jean Ferrard, Organist Extraordinary

Lorenzo Wolff
Death Cab for Cutie: Surprisingly Familiar

Poets' Basement
G.S. Heiligschreib and David Farrelly

Website of the Weekend
Zombie Bank

May 7, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Criminalizing Criticism of Israel

Chris Floyd
A Full-Court Press for Pakistan War

Andy Worthington
Mixed Messages on Torture

Alan Farago
No Place Like Home: a Stress Test for Land Use, Not Just Banks

Ray McGovern
Deux ex Machina on Torture?

Dave Lindorff
Stain Removal: Impeaching the Torture Judge

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
Why is There Rampant Famine in the 21st Century?

Ana M. Malinow, MD
Why We Need a Single-Payer Health Care System

Jeff Armstrong
Freeing Leonard Peltier: What Would Warren Harding Do?

Norman Solomon
A Green New Deal

Website of the Day
The End of Lake Mead?

May 6, 2009

Doug Peacock
The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

Patrick Cockburn
Afghans to Obama: Get Out, Take Karzai With You

Richard Neville
The Torturer's Apprentice

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
To Power a Nation: Nuclear Bombs or Sunshine?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Of Pork and Baloney: Obama's Defense Budget

Deepak Tripathi
Pakistan in Crisis

Stephen Soldz
A "Natural Reaction": APA Ethics Policy-Maker Endorses Torture

Reuven Kaminer
Nice is Not Enough: Obama vs. Netanyahu and Lieberman

David Macaray
The Chrysler-UAW Deal

Kevin Zeese
Why We Were Arrested at the Senate Finance Committee Hearings

Marjorie Cohn
Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

Coalition for an Ethical Psychology
Investigate Psychologist and Health Provider Complicity in Torture

Website of the Day
Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown?

May 5, 2009

William Blum
Torture and Mr. Obama

Uri Avnery
Netanyahu's Plan

Steven Higgs
Autism and Toxic Pollution

Dean Baker
Why Economists Should Learn Arithmetic

Daniel Wolff
The Education of Rachel Carson

Sibel Edmonds
The Broken Congress

Carole King Klein
A New Chance to Save the Northern Rockies

Fidel Castro
Giving One's All

Belén Fernández
Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadoran Elections

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Big Lie About Fish vs. Jobs

Website of the Day
"I Married Isis on the Fifth Day of May"

May 4, 2009

James G. Abourezk
The AIPAC Spy Case

Jeff Leys
Obama's War Budget

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Ayatollahs Press Marital Rape Law

Andy Worthington
A Start on Guantánamo, But Not Enough

Jaime Avilés
Mexico's Plague-Bringers

David Swanson
An Even Worse Bybee Memo

Paul Craig Roberts
Working with Jack Kemp

P. Sainath
Celeb Crusades and the Death of Politics

Eugenia Tsao
Canada's Obama and the Cult of the Prof

Benjamin Dangl
Protest and Rubber Bullets in Paraquay

Sami Al-Arian
Mourning William Moffitt

Website of the Day
"Soldiers Are Cutting Us Down": Kent State, May 4, 1970

May 1 - 3, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Game-Changers: Specter Jumps, Souter Quits

Gary Leupp
Dropping the AIPAC Spying Case

Peter Linebaugh
The Key to the Bastille

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank:
Half Life of a Toxic War: Iraq's Wrecked Environment

C. G. Estabrook
Minion of the Long War

Patrick Cockburn
Kabul's New Elite

Mike Whitney
Economy on the Ropes

Pierre Sprey /
Winslow Wheeler
What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon?

Andy Worthington
Al-Marri's Plea Deal: Dictatorial Powers Unchallenged

Mairead Maguire
Stand Up to Israeli Apartheid: a Letter to Obama From a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Nadia Hijab
The Israel Boycott is Biting

Diane Farsetta
Life, Death and Water Policy

Michael Calderón-Zaks
The Déjà Vu Flu: Why Much of the Discussion About Swine Flu is Racist

Richard Rhames
When Piggies Come Home to Roost: Swine Flu and the Industrial Meat Gulags

Russell Mokhiber
Inside the Beltway Baucus

Ramzy Baroud
Clinton's Unpromising Start

Rannie Amiri
Understanding Lebanon's June Elections

Deb Reich
No Talking, Dammit!

Steven Higgs
Indiana Criminalizes Dissent: Roadblocks on the NAFTA Highway

Brian Cloughley
Malice in Blunderland

David Michael Green
The Party's Over

Farzana Versey
Sex, Swat and Susan Boyle

Jim Goodman
Think Before You Eat: Agriculture and the Environment

Carl Finamore
New Prescription for a Healthy Union Movement

Christopher Brauchli
The Sounds of Silence: the Texas Option

Susie Day
The Real Cause of Unemployment: Employees!

David Yearsley
Nuts Over Beethoven

Lorenzo Wolff
Three Minutes of Perfection

Peter Stone Brown
Dancing with Dylan

Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate

Website of the Weekend
May Day Europe

April 30, 2009

Ellen Cantarow
Obama and "Two States": Seamless Continuity From Bush Time

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

Brian Downing
The Perils of Modernization in Afghanistan

Frank Snepp
Tortured by the Past

David Swanson
The Wrong Torture Question

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Asian Storm

Ron Jacobs
Not Dead Yet: an Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

John Goekler
The Only Path to a Middle East Picnic?

Jasmine L. Tyler /
Anthony Papa
An End to Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity?

Website of the Day
Emergency Petition: Stop Coal Industry Intimidation of Activists

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

May 13, 2009

Palestinian Refugees and the Lebanon Elections

Lebanon: From Perdition to Redemption?

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Al Buss Palestinian Refugee Camp, Tyre, Lebanon

“When I graduated from Medical School here in Beirut more than 20 years ago there were 80 students in my class. The top dozen or so were Palestinians. But they all had to emigrate in order to practice medicine. Why? We Lebanese have in our culture a saying that in order to get the best quality olive oil you must press the olives very hard. That is what we have done to Palestinians in Lebanon.”

Dr. Nizar Rifai, Lebanese Physician, in his Hamra Office (5/11/09)

Interviews with representatives of Lebanon’s political parties, as they make final preparations to get out the vote, reveal general agreement that for Palestinians here, decades of living in exile are made worse by the continuing discrimination found in Lebanon’s laws.

Most agree that for Palestinians waiting to return to their homes in Palestine, life is now a daily struggle for survival and fundamental Parliamentary redress is long overdue. A common response to inquiries from Party operative is: “We ourselves want to help the Palestinians but we have partners in government and we need to be sensitive to their wishes”. This could be about to change after the June 7th election and it is acknowledged by i Palestinians that Lebanon has paid a big price for hosting them and deserves the deepest gratitude and respect for its sacrifices.

The conditions of Palestinians in Lebanon are well known to foreigners who visit or live in Lebanon’s 12 Camps (of the original 16) and Gatherings housing a majority of the 409,714 Palestinians, who are registered with UNRWA. Approximately 20 percent of “UNRWA Palestinians” left Lebanon over the years to seek work aboard. Today, many are having to return for economic reasons (the Gulf) and Security and Political reasons (Iraq, Kuwait and the Gulf). Apart from the joy of seeing their loved one, there is not much to come back to as their families loose much needed foreign remittances.


Lebanon’s Non-ID Palestinians: the lowest of the lows

Space does not allow for more than a cursory glimpse at conditions for Lebanon’s Palestinians, but the most wretched are the NON-ID Palestinians.

The number of NON-ID Palestinians in Lebanon is subject to various estimates which range from fewer than 5000 (Danish Refugee Council) to 10,000 (International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) or more than 16,000 (US Committee for Refugees-World Refugee Survey, 2000).

The “NON-ID’s are the most abused Palestinians in Lebanon. The men, women and children are subjected daily to egregious treatment and deprivations of the most fundamental human rights enshrined in international humanitarian law.

Most NON-ID’s arrived in extremis from the West Bank via Jordan and Black September in 1970 or as a result of Israeli expulsions over a period of two decades. Many could have avoided their fate had they registered with PLO assistance before the organization suddenly departed in late summer of 1982 leaving behind much ‘unfinished business’. Consequently the NON-ID’s have had to fend for themselves.
Egypt and Israel have insisted over the years that it’s not their problem because the NON-ID’s could theoretically have renewed their ID’s in Gaza or the West Bank. Their excuses are disingenuous since there was no way for these Refugees to return to Gaza or the West Bank to do so. Palestinians arriving with Jordanian ID’s have not been able to get them renewed and Lebanon won’t recognize expired ones.

A bleak existence for Lebanon’s Non-ID Palestinians

Palestinians without UNRWA or Lebanese ID have essentially no rights in Lebanon and every day they need avoid the increasing number of Lebanese army checkpoints, and various police agencies. If a NON-ID Palestinian is caught they are typically imprisoned as follows for being ‘illegal’ although the whole new generation was born in Lebanon:
First offense: one month. Second offense: three months. Third offense: Six months.

Some NGO’s have reported hearing of NON-ID Palestinians staying inside their Camp for as long as 16 years fearing that if they leave the camp ‘sanctuary’ they will be arrested and imprisoned by Lebanon’s Securite Generale.

The highly politicized SG is not answerable to Parliament or the Prime Minister’s office but only to the President. Traditionally Maronite, and much influenced by the wishes of the US Embassy, and known to carry out tasks on its behalf from time to time including arranging for the confiscation of American citizen Passports, (litigation is pending in the US and Lebanon on one such current case) has not been friendly to Palestinians. Recently SG has been headed by a Shia, Jimil Sayed until he was arrested in August or 2005 as a suspect in the Hariri assassination (released this month, Sayed claims his nearly four years incarceration was purely political and he plans to return to high office following next month’s election

Over the past quarter-century there were so many repeat NON-ID cases that it became a problem for the Parliament and SG. Jailers got to know the recidivists and it became embarrassing for Lebanon to be increasingly under international pressure from human rights organizations and the UN. The SG decided to release some of the NON-ID Palestinian “regulars” from prison and bus them into a 5 kilometer wide “no man’s land” along the Syrian border in the Bekaa Valley. The non-ID’s would be dropped off and told to “walk East and don’t come back!”. Some would try to sneak into Syria without documents. If caught they got locked up in Syria but at least were no longer in Lebanon and once out of jail their prospects improved dramatically. Some found jobs with a variety of employers in the Bekaa from Drug cartels (as hired guns), or in agriculture, on with Palestinian groups in the Bekaa such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, Salafists or others. On average many earn about $ 200 per month (and all the ‘red bud’ hashish or coke they can handle and still do their job from certain employers around North of Baalbec near Knessneh) but they can’t easily leave the Bekaa.

Since 2005, International pressure from Human Rights organizations and NGO’s working in Lebanon created more pressure for another solution. The mainly lugubrious Lebanese Palestinian Dialog Committee decided, after decades, to support the idea of giving the NON-ID’s, an Identification Card.

This it was claimed would solve dozens of problems from being able to register marriages, give children some kind of ID, reducing police harassment and unfair incarcerations and a long list of problems this observer has heard about over the past two years while visiting Lebanon’s camps, including cases of young Palestinian girls who were engaged to be married only to have their fiancées family cancel the engagement when they learned she was a NON-ID and suspected that she may just want to gets ‘rights’ from the marriage--- to the recent case of a reputedly exemplary Palestinian student and member of society who was stopped late at night returning to his Camp by hostile police demanding to check his ID. He panicked, not wanting to get locked up and ran toward the safety of his camp. The police shot him dead.

This observer was very impressed last fall when the “ID for the NON-ID” project was just getting under way and he happened to have an appointment at the Palestinian Embassy and noticed the front garden, entrance and waiting room were packed with former PLO fighters and others with their families seeking ID. They were optimistic and grateful to a person. The observer was happy for them.

Collapse of the Non-ID project?

The project to issue ID’s has yet to fulfill its promise.

So far only about 100-150 actually got an ID. To make matters worse, Securite Generale has decided to stop (‘suspend’) the program. SG told this observer it needs time for an “investigation of problems with forged documents and irregularities” Some NGO’s here question this explanation for stopping the ID project because the applicants admit they have no ID and the PLO is helping verify how and when the ID’s arrived in Lebanon. Some claim that after announcing the project, the Lebanese government lacks the political will to solve this problem. Consequently, the NON-ID Palestinians are unlikely to get help unless the Parliament approves mandatory legislation.

When government officials or political parties here are asked about the apparent collapse of the NON-ID Project and the lack of progress in aiding Palestinian refugees these past 6 decades the response is usually nearly always the same: “We ourselves want to help the Palestinians but we have partners in government and we need to be sensitive to their wishes”.

Discriminatory practices against Palestinians continue to breach Lebanon’s obligations under international law

Among international legal obligations that the government of Lebanon is flouting are the following laws that if enforced would directly and significantly ease the plight of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

· CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
· CERD Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
· CESCR Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
· ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
· CRC Convention on the Rights of the Child
FIDH Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de I'Homme
· ICERD International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
· ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Lebanon is bound to implement the last three Conventions as a State party. Lebanon is bound to implement the others under principles of international customary law. To date Lebanon has not honored any of them.


Fulfillment of Lebanon’s duty by adopting the Syrian Model?

There are probably not a lot of people in Lebanon who would debate the proposition that Syria’s efforts to play the “Palestinian Card” since the Nakba has caused untold misery for refugees in Lebanon’s Camps.

On the other hand, to its eternal credit, the Syrian Arab Republic gives its 440,000 Palestinians in ten official UNRWA camps and four unofficial ones, all the rights and opportunities that Syrians receive, except Citizenship. According to Lex Takkenberg, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Syria, the Palestinians in Syria are accepted and helped very substantially by the government. "Most Palestinians are well integrated in Syria and many even hold important positions within the government. If you have to be a Palestinian Refugee outside Palestine, I might recommend Syria"

Some from Palestine went North and others went Northeast…

There are similarities between Lebanese and Syrian Palestinian Refugees. Both countries received approximately 100,000 who were ethnically cleansed during the Nakba. Most trekked from northern Palestine areas including, Safad, Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, Nazareth, and from all across the Galilee. Some who first arrived in Lebanon’s Hula Valley and other areas in Lebanon moved on to Syria to join family members in deserted military barracks in Sweida, Aleppo, Homs, and Hama. Both countries received several thousand more refugees, forced to flee during Israel’s 1967 aggression, and today both countries have roughly 420,000 Palestinians, or approximately 15% of UNRWA registered Palestinian Refugees.

The similarities end about here.

While Palestinians in Syria are by no means living in good circumstances, Syria’s treatment of them is far better than Lebanon’s (but not Jordan’s which grants Palestinians citizenship and voting rights). The effects of Syrian law make clear why Lebanon’s Refugees are lagging behind in all the social indexes from health, income, education, stability, and general well being and highlights and the urgency of Lebanon’s next government taking action. Roughly 25 % of Syria’s Palestinians live below the poverty line. In Lebanon the number is estimated to be as high as 60%. Nearly 60,000 or about 15% of Lebanon’s Palestinian’s are considered to be ‘special hardship cases, (SHC) meaning they live in abject poverty without income, more than twice the number in Syria or pre-January 2009 Gaza. Indeed, UNRWA ,which provides services and aid to nearly 5 million Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, stated in 2008 that Lebanon, in comparison with UNRWA’s other areas of operation, has “the highest percentage of Palestine refugees who are living in abject poverty.”

Rights of Palestinian Refugees in Syria

In Syria, Palestinians aren’t required to obtain work permits, are not precluded from any professions, can own businesses and can own their own homes. They have the right to join labor unions and to receive government social services the same as their host Syrian citizens whereas in Lebanon it is illegal to even apply.

Additional land has been made available by the Syrian government for its expanding Palestinian population, and while still crowded, it is a vast improvement over the situation in Lebanon. For the past 61 years the amount of land Palestinians in Lebanon were allowed to use in 1948 has not measurably increased while the UNRWA registered Palestinian population has increased more than 400% according to the UN.

Syria encourages self-improvement

Because they are granted substantial rights by the Syrian government, close to 75% of Syria’s Palestinian refugees have been able to become “self-settled” out of the refugee camps, whereas in Lebanon the figure is close to 30%. In Syria, Palestinian children attend government High Schools like all Syrians, but in Lebanon they are forbidden by law from government schools so UNRWA was forced to create another school system of High Schools only for Lebanon. Unlike Lebanon, the Syrian Government grants scholarships to many Palestinian university students to study at Syrian universities or abroad.

Both Syria and Lebanon are signatories to the 1965 Casablanca Protocol, which requires that Arab countries should guarantee Palestinian refugees rights to employment, residency, and freedom of movement, but Lebanon ignores its obligations.

In fairness to Lebanon, there are a few instances where, human nature being as it is, Palestinians can sometimes catch a break. For example, Palestinian friends have reported that at the State run Lebanese University (Palestinians tend to love this place!), the annual tuition fees amount to 180,000 LL or about $ 120 for Lebanese students. Bending the rules a bit, Palestinians can now pay this amount which they can usually come up with, as opposed to other foreigners who must pay 950.000 LL (around $ 630). Yet, by Lebanese law only 10% of student places can be filled by non-Lebanese, including Palestinians. This law can bend if a Palestinian has a professor who is willing to help. Still certain faculties are restricted to them including engineering and medicine. This some say, hurts Lebanon because nearly half of Lebanese Medical graduates leave to practice in the US or Europe whereas a travel restricted Palestinian would likely practice medicine in this society, if allowed by law.

Lebanon’s path from Perdition to Redemption: a simple solution for achieving human rights for Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugees.

There have been no shortage of proposals by human rights organizations and NGO’s to the Government of Lebanon on how to fulfill its obligations to those who were forced into its jurisdiction six decades ago.

Among the most commonly recommended legislative solutions have focused on proposals such as:

· “Regularizing the status of unregistered refugees”
· Constructing a legal system that “will ensure that all children within Lebanese territory, including the children of non-ID Palestinian refugees are registered and have access to education on an equal basis with Lebanese nationals
· Legislating equal access to human rights as Lebanese in accordance with its obligations under international human rights”,
· “Ensure that all Palestinian refugees are able to register their marriages in Lebanon”,
· “Ensure that all Palestinian refugees are accorded effective protection of their rights to enjoy just and favorable conditions of work, to adequate housing, and to an adequate standard of living”
· “Abolish all bureaucratic requirements impeding the effective enjoyment by Palestinian refugees of their rights to a name, education and marriage, among others
· “Ensure that all Palestinian refugees are accorded effective protection of their rights to enjoy just and favorable conditions of work, to adequate housing, and to an adequate standard of living”.

None of these recommendations has ever been voted on by Lebanon’s Parliament and critics inside the government explain that given the complex subject matter more time is required for study.

After studying the problem, and in consultation with human rights organizations including International Lawyers Sans Frontieres, and Members of Lebanon’s Parliament, the Sabra Shatila Foundation offers the following Draft Law to Parliament for its consideration. It is an uncomplicated Law, which if fully implemented, will erase, in one vote, decades of illegal and immoral treatment of more than ten percent of Lebanon’s population:

“Be it enacted by the Chamber of Deputies etc. that all Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon shall immediately acquire receive and enjoy the full faith and credit of all civil rights possessed by Lebanese citizens except citizenship or naturalization.”

A version of this Draft Legislation will be introduced in Lebanon’s Parliament in the first working session following next month’s election.

Franklin Lamb works with the Sabra-Shatila Foundation in Beirut. He is reachable at fplamb@sabrashatila.org

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