An Important Day for Palestinians in Lebanon

This past June, Palestinian refugees marched from the Bourj al-Barajneh refugee camp near Beirut to the steps of the Parliament. They united under the slogan, "Civil, Social and Economic Rights and Living in Dignity are an Essential Step in the Journey of Return."

As observed by Harry Hagopian, the Lebanese parliament began discussing the possibility of:

legislation that could grant Palestinian refugees born in Lebanon and registered with the Ministry of Interior a number of ‘basic civil rights’ including access to work or social services such as pensions and medical benefits as well as the demonstrable ability to file cases before labour courts. In addition, and if adopted later this month, the bill would crucially also amend inter alia a law that has banned Palestinians from owning or inheriting property.

Today, the Lebanese parliament passed legislation granting part of those rights under consideration -- the employment prohibitions have been legally overturned for the 400,000 Palestinians who descend from those forced to flee Palestine in the lead up to and during Israel's foundation, and wars since then.

The "Parliament approved a bill lifting former restrictions on employment for Palestinian refugees, who will now have the right to work in any field open to foreigners with benefits including social security from their own special fund," a Lebanese official told AFP.

The ban on property ownership was not repealed, however. Opposition came from Christian MPs who feared that granting refugees property ownership rights would lead to permanent refugee settlement and eventually full-fledged citizenship, thus impacting the precious ethno-religious demographic balance that serves as the basis for the Lebanese polity. The Lebanese constitution expressly bans the naturalization of the refugees for such reasons.

The legal overturning of employments bans was not completely unforeseen. It followed several amendments that decreased the list of banned occupations from 77 until 2005 when Labour Minister Trad Hamadeh decreased it to 25 categories. As Hagopian pointed out, this decision was not truly implemented, however, since bias in hiring was ingrained socially. A change in the law does not always result in a change in fact. Without legal protections against discrimination, not much can be done beyond parliamentary provisions or decrees that bring about actual enforcement.

This important change will require implementation mechanisms to guarantee that de facto discrimination does not continue to effectively bar Palestinians from certain occupations. However, this change could represent a significant step towards the betterment of their livelihood.

Granting further equality of rights is clearly politically explosive. Given the frail Lebanese national compromise under-girding its confessional system, full equality, or naturalization, it is not in political sight.

However, keeping Palestinian refugees in limbo for the unforeseeable future will eventually lead to more problems. A people can stay on the margins for only so long; and Lebanon's decision today is letting out some steam. But how long before it builds up again, especially if the legal changes do not effect what happens on the ground?

Like so much of the refugee experience, they can only wait and see. Though occasionally, they can protest and act, and maybe something good comes along.

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Photo: Palestinian children play in Rashidiya camp, whose population was hard hit by the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah. (Serene Assir/IRIN/Electronic Lebanon)

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UPDATE: The Hassan Nasrallah Show

The eyes of much of the Middle East, including onlookers in Israel, turned again today to a speech by the Secretary General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah. In a long anticipated speech, Nasrallah said he would provide evidence to support the claim that Israel was behind the assassination for the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. ( A good synopsis was blogged live here)

Hariri was killed by a massive car bomb on February 14th of that year. The assassination led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon six months later and a string of murders and assassinations which followed threatened to send Lebanon back into the sectarian violence it had overcome after the end of the Lebanese civil war.

Despite presenting his case for an hour and a half, sometimes showing videos which featured the ominous type of music you might hear in a Ramadan soap opera, we are no closer to knowing who was behind the killing of Rafic Hariri and it is likely that we never will be.

The presentation put together political analysis and circumstantial evidence that would lead one to believe that Israel could be implicated in the assassination. But this approach is not new. What is new, was the surprising revelation divulged by Nasrallah for the first time today, that Hezbollah compromised signals from Israel reconnaissance planes and has been doing so for years. He claimed that Hezbollah has a searchable archive of Israeli footage spanning space and time. It is from this archive, he claims, that Hezbollah was able to find Israeli aerial reconnaissance tracing the exact routes Hariri used in Beirut on a regular basis as well other potentially eye-brow raising clips. He then asks why, in the way a trial lawyer would in a closing statement, would Israel survey Hariri's daily route as well as spy on others who have no connection to Hezbollah.

This is not really interesting to me, though reading some initial reactions and watching some of the initial press coverage of this in the Arab world tells me many others are as intrigued as Nasrallah would like them to be. For those who are unaware, Israel considers Lebanon an enemy state, and it should not come as a surprise to anyone that Israel has footage of every square inch of Lebanese soil, or Syrian soil, or Jordanian soil, or even Iranian soil for that matter. Those in the Arab world who really question why Israel was taking this footage make the oft made mistake of underestimating Israel capabilities and use of information. As evidence this is at most circumstantial and, at the least, expected.

Yet regardless to that, the fact that Hezbollah was able to compromise Israeli reconnaissance for so long without being noticed shows just how adept and capable Hezbollah is. This is a feat that is probably beyond the capacity of the Lebanese Army. Israeli media, has not (as of this writing) acknowledged the hack. It's likely that the State has put a gag on this for a short period of time and will eventually confirm it.

This is precisely the sort of thing which has gained Nasrallah and his party their credibility. Unlike many Arab leaders who may talk a big game, when Nasrallah says he will do something, he almost always follows through, usually with some cost to Israel. With a mere militia, Nasrallah's party has been able to operate against the Israelis as well, or better than, any other Arab state often because of technological or strategic tactics.

This is reminiscent of the time during the war on Lebanon in 2006 when Nasrallah appeared on live television asking the audience to watch as an Israeli Naval vessel would momentarily be attacked. Sure enough, moments later Arabic satellite channels carried the images of an Israeli Naval vessel ablaze off the Lebanese coast. Israel would not publicly admit to this until hours later.

Nasrallah continues to be a master of presentation, media and messaging. I noted last week how he is also politically adept and used the border clash which took place last week to convey a message of unity.

In other news today, Rep. Howard Berman, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is putting a hold on the 100 million dollars in "security assistance" the US was to provide to the Lebanese Army.

This, along with a confluence of other factors including the seemingly warming ties between Lebanon and Syria over the past few years, the functioning of the current unity government, the increased aggressiveness of the domestic security apparatus to find Israeli spies, and the recent boldness displayed by the Lebanese Army to defend its territory suggests that Lebanon's armed capabilities today are under a far more serious and unified (though not yet united) command than they have ever been. Lebanon, even with Hezbollah at its disposal, does not constitute and offensive threat to Israel. It's increasingly clear however, that Lebanon will no longer be easy for Israel to push around.

To Israel, which has sought to divide and conquer Lebanon for decades (and it has often succeeded), this new yet fragile political reality must be cause for discomfort.

As much discomfort for Israelis as, say, watching a Hassan Nasrallah speech.

*UPDATE: Elias Muhanna, who live blogged the event, posted at the ME Chanel at ForeignPolicy.com today:

The short-term result of this new development will be the simple fact that the Lebanese will now have two different sources of authority on the question of who killed Rafiq al-Hariri. Just as the old binaries of the 2005-09 period were fading away (March 14 vs. March 8, loyalists vs. opposition, etc.), a new one has arisen to take their place. The questions the Lebanese will now ask eachother will be: "Do you believe the U.N. or Hizbullah?" "Which story is more convincing?" "Which evidence is more compelling?"

Public opinion on these questions is far more important than one would think. As Nasrallah himself suggested toward the end of his press conference, the political value of an indictment against Hizbullah members lies less in the potential for implicating senior officials or foreign governments than in the ability to tarnish Hizbullah's image in Lebanon and throughout the Sunni Muslim world. By presenting an alternative narrative to the version of events that will be laid out, presumably, in the coming months by the U.N. prosecutor, Nasrallah is attempting to paint the STL -- in the most vivid colors possible -- as an American/Israeli tool targeting the resistance.

In the eye of the storm is Saad al-Hariri, the victim's son and Lebanon's current Prime Minister, who has been the primary champion of the STL's mission to find and punish his father's killers. On the eve of an indictment, the tribunal that helped Hariri build the political movement that he leads today now threatens to place him in an impossible position. Far from strengthening his hand in Lebanon and promoting the interests of his international allies, Hariri is faced with the possibility that the multi-million dollar, five-year investigation will deliver a verdict that he must publicly denounce, or else risk losing control of the country.

**UPDATE: Good job, Howard Berman. I am sure this was precisely what was intended when the congress decided to cut off the $100 million in military aid to Lebanon. From Reuters:

Iran has offered support to Lebanon's army, a week after a deadly cross-border clash between Lebanon and Israel which prompted U.S. lawmakers to block funding to the Lebanese military.

The offer from Iran, which supports Lebanon's militant Shi'ite group Hezbollah, could fuel Western concern that Tehran is increasing its influence near Israel's northern border...

Iran's ambassador to Lebanon met Lebanese army chief Jean Kahwaji on Monday and said Tehran was ready to "cooperate with the Lebanese army in any area that would help the military in performing its national role in defending Lebanon."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to visit Beirut next month.

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Border Clash Follow Up

Lamis Andoni makes important observations about domestic political dynamics and the recent clashes along the border between Israel and Lebanon. She is right to note Nasrallah's political adeptness and ability to make something positive out of a crisis. Here is an excerpt:

Nasrallah, who is known for his shrewdness in adapting to developing crises, used Tuesday's scheduled speech, which was originally intended to celebrate the group's "victory" over Israel in the 2006 war, to undermine his opponents' argument that Hezbollah makes decisions regarding war and peace in lieu of the Lebanese government.

"We contacted the president and the army command and told them that the party is at their service," he said.

His announcement not only helps to restore some respect to the Lebanese army, which has been widely seen as impotent while Hezbollah has emerged as the sole power capable of confronting Israel in Lebanon, but may also help to defuse tensions over the expected STL announcement.

The editor of the Daily Star, Lebanon's largest English daily, calls for unity after the clashes in an editorial:

We do not know what Israel will do about Tuesday’s exchange of deadly fire; Lebanon should react with an unmitigated display of political unity to dampen the possibility for war.

Gideon Levy compares Israel's reaction to the border clash with its policies in the West Bank and Gaza. The hypocrisy in the air is thick:

True, Israel maintains that the area across the fence is its territory, and UNIFIL officially confirmed that yesterday. But a fence is a fence: In Gaza it's enough to get near the fence for us to shoot to kill. In the West Bank the fence's route bears no resemblance to the Green Line, and still Palestinians are forbidden from crossing it.

In Lebanon we made different rules: the fence is just a fence, we're allowed to cross it and do whatever we like on the other side, sometimes in sovereign Lebanese territory. We can routinely fly in Lebanese airspace and sometimes invade as well.

Daniel Levy writes about the border clash at the Middle East Chanel:

Tuesday's incident once again demonstrates that the alternative to a negotiated regional settlement is not the status quo but rather occasional convulsions of violence which sometimes do and sometimes do not ignite a wave of prolonged clashes.

He's right about outbursts of violence if the status quo perpetuates. It has perpetuated, of course, for years with little change in site.

An important collection of articles from the Institute for Palestine Studies discusses the future parameters of a settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. This is the type of out-of-the-box thinking that is necessary as the status quo perpetuates. Beshara Doumani, Azmi Bishara, Mathias Mossberg, Lev Grinberg and Mouin Rabbani weigh in.

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A Tree Grows in Israel...or is it Lebanon?

Yesterday morning started with disturbing news from the Middle East. Cross-border fire left 3 Lebanese soldiers, 1 Israeli soldier and a Lebanese reporter dead. For months, tensions have continued to increase on the border between Israel and Lebanon as threats and allegations between Israel and Hezbollah have accelerated. This comes amidst months of rumors about Hezbollah's arms caches, alleged involvement in the Harriri assassination (a possible tinderbox for Lebanon's governing coalition) , the arrest of alleged spies on both sides and Israel's numerous border violations and infractions. Many anticipated a summer war.

So when the reports began to flood in yesterday about cross-border fire and causalities, many, including myself, experienced a sickening feeling while watching an eerily reminiscent scene. On the day Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was to give an anticipated speech, those watching the region experienced flashbacks to the moments when a cross-border incident sparked the 34-day war on Lebanon that resulted in immense human and infrastructural devastation in the hot summer of 2006.

And what was at the center of this incident?

A tree.

This may seem comical to some but keep in mind that the origins of contention in the Arab-Israeli conflict can be traced back to Hatfield-and-McCoy-style grazing rights disputes in the coastal plain of Palestine. Nonetheless, this now infamous picture seems to show the Israelis crossing a fence using a crane to remove a tree.

So is this tree in Lebanon, or is it in Israel? Well, this would seem like an easy question to most. One just has to look at a map, determine where the location of the tree was, and determine which side of the border said tree was located in. This is where the problems start. It's impossible to point to a single, unified and mutually agreed upon border between Israel and Lebanon. You're probably wondering what the 'Blue Line' is that you keep hearing about. In this NY Times story, which ran with the headline "U.N. Supports Israeli Account of Border Clash" the Times states that the location of the incident was "in a gap between the so-called Blue Line, the internationally recognized border, and its security fence".

The problem here, lost on the scrupulous NY Times reporters, is that the Blue Line is not "the internationally recognized border" dividing Lebanese territory from Israeli territory, but rather a jointly acknowledged demarcation of the Israeli Army's withdrawal points after its two-decade occupation of Southern Lebanon. The actual border, from which the 'Blue Line' deviates in a number of places, is based on a demarcation put in place in 1923, before Israel's existence. One spot where the 'Blue Line' infamously deviates from the actual border is in the area between the Israeli Kibbutz of Misgav-Am and the Lebanese Village of Aadessieh (this is the area where the Israelis insisted on landscaping yesterday). There was controversy over the location of the 'Blue Line' in this area when it was being drawn in 2000 because Misgav-Am was encroaching on Lebanese territory. This was a calculated move to secure strategic high-ground overlooking Lebanese territory. In an effort to appease the Israelis, the UN's 'Blue Line' adjusted to avoid cutting through Misgav-Am like, say, a wall in the West Bank would cut through a Palestinian village. Also, keep in mind that Lebanon's southern border, established in 1923, was then with mandatory Palestine and the Kibbutz of Misgav-Am was then the Palestinian territory of Shuqief-an-Nahla.

So was this a Lebanese tree or an Israeli tree (or a Palestinian tree)? In looking through various maps, going back to as early as 1922, the territory where this incident seems to have taken place would fall clearly within Lebanese territory even though it is south of the blue line. The space in question seems to be a couple hundred feet.

What should we make of all of this? Well, it's unclear to me why this tree just had to come down and why, in a historically and recently disputed slice of territory Israeli soldiers had to be involved in its removal during one of the most tense periods in that border's history. Or why, if it truly was in Israeli territory, they didn't just open a door in the fence and walk to the other side as they have done in the past. This is not the first time disputes have erupted over 'routine maintenance', so you would think someone would have learned from a previous teachable moment.

Ultimately, this underscores a significant problem on the border between Israel and Lebanon. UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force charged with stabilizing Lebanon south of the Litani River, is only operating on the Lebanese side of the 'Blue Line'. Given that it is Israel that occupies Lebanese territory, and has done so for decades, it makes no sense that there is no presence of this peace keeping force in a buffer zone in the disputed territory south of the 'Blue Line'.

Simple measures like this would make sure that there are no misunderstandings, like those that may possibly occur when high-ranking Israeli officers are involved in 'routine maintenance', along a hotly disputed and increasingly tense border.

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Clashing Visions and Competing Interests: American, Israeli and Arab Approaches to Peace by Amjad Atallah, Daniel Levy and Michael C. Hudson (16 July 2009)

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A panel discussion featuring:

Mr. Amjad Atallah, Co-Director
Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation

Audio

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Mr. Daniel Levy, Co-Director and Senior Fellow
Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation


Dr. Michael C. Hudson, Director and Professor
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University
Audio:

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16 July 2009
The Palestine Center

This panel addressed similarities and differences in the approaches of the United States, Israel and the Arabs towards an end of conflict, whether coordination is possible, and what distinct roles each nation or group of nations should have in the peace process.

Amjad Atallah
Co-Director, Middle Task East Force, New America Foundation
Mr. Atallah is the co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation.

Prior to working at the New America Foundation, he headed the Strategic Assessments Initiative, an organization committed to providing legal and policy assistance to parties in conflict and post-conflict situations. He also advised the Palestinian negotiating team in peace negotiations with Israel on the issues of international borders, security and constitutional issues.

Daniel Levy
Senior Fellow and Co-Director, Middle East Task Force, New America Foundation

In addition to his work at the New America Foundation, Mr. Levy is a senior fellow and director of the Prospects for Peace Initiative at The Century Foundation. He was a member of the Israeli delegation to the Taba negotiations with the Palestinians in January 2001 and previously served on the Israeli negotiating team to the "Oslo B" Agreement from May to September 1995, under the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Michael C. Hudson
Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and Professor of International
Relations, Georgetown University

Michael C. Hudson is the Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies in the Walsh School of Foreign
Service at Georgetown University. He is regularly interviewed about Middle East issues in the news media, including the BBC, Arabic satellite channels and major newspapers. Among Dr. Hudson's publications are Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy and The Palestinians: New Directions.

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Halim Barakat Reads from 'The Crane' (12 February 2009)

Halim Barakat read from his 1988 book 'The Crane,' which has recently been translated from Arabic into English.

12 February 2009
The Gallery
The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development
Washington, DC

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2008 Conference Proceedings Published

2008 Palestine Center Annual Conference
"The U.S. and the Arab World: An Assessment of American Policy in the Middle East"

At the 2008 Palestine Center Annual Conference in October, "The U.S. and the Arab World: An Assessment of American Policy in the Middle East," a wide array of experts analyzed United States foreign policy towards the Middle East during the last eight years and the challenges facing the next U.S. president. Speakers included:

Mr. Chris Hedges (transcript)
Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox
Ambassador Mokhtar Lamani
Dr. Michael C. Hudson
Dr. Hamid Dabashi
Dr. Michael Dunn
Mr. Mark Perry
Mr. Anthony Shadid
Mr. Paul Findley

(For transcripts of Shadid and Findley's speeches)

The proceedings have been published on the website.[LINK down]

The website also features video of the speakers and panels. [LINK down]

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VIDEOS & TRANSCRIPTS: 2008 Palestine Center Conference

This year's annual Palestine Center conference, "The US and the Arab World: An Assessment of American Policy in the Middle East," was illuminating and provided attendees a comprehensive overview of US policy in the region. It was held at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC on 10 October, 2008.

Watch the conference videos.

Some transcripts are online as well. Former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges, discussed American foreign policy, Islamophobia and religious fundamentalism. Washington Post journalist, Anthony Shadid and former Congressmen Paul Findley wrapped up the conference with a discussion of the Bush legacy and where US foreign policy in the Middle East should go next.

More transcripts will follow soon.

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