Lebanese “Practical” Route for Palestinians

“The Impractical Route for Palestinians” 

Ibrahim Al-Amin, the editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar,  visited Jacques (not his real name), a christian Warmonger, in his  secluded apartment in the Dora area of Beirut,  Ibrahim Al-Amin, Ibrahim asked Jacques for help in getting fake “documents for members of a Palestinian family who fled from the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus… wanting to return to Palestine, and that this had now become possible via Egypt. After 60 years of displacement between Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, the family wants to live in historic Palestine, even as refugees.”

He (Jacques) knows they would not be returning to their original villages in the 1948 areas, but explained jokingly:  

“This is the best way to tell them I don’t welcome them in Lebanon. So I don’t need to fight them or hate them, nor am I prepared to be accused of racism if I call for them to be dealt with outside Lebanon. This way I’ll be rid of their burden, and they’ll return to their country… isn’t the right of return the main demand of every Palestinian refugee in the world? 

The operation is underway, and if all goes as expected, the plan should come to fruition within a couple of months.” 

So far nothing wrong in helping the family in returning to Gaza, But our commrade after storming his brain and consulting his commrades decided to raise funds and expand the operation   

While arranging this operation While arranging this operation – whose real value matches that of a thousand military operations against Israel – friends were quick to suggest an idea: the establishment of a fund to collect donations that would be used to finance similar ones. That is why this account is being published, presumably without jeopardizing it. 

But there is a question that worries me: How many Palestinian refugees would agree to embark on such an adventure in light of the sizeable risks?  

I ask because I was surprised, indeed maddened, at the way Hamas activists based in Lebanon and Egypt went into Gaza to congratulate the inhabitants on their victory a few weeks ago, and yet proceeded to come back out. Why?  

They say they have tasks to attend to related to the struggle. But in fact they have nothing to do except continue to fan the flames of the inferno in Syria in the name of supporting the revolution there or demand that Gebran Bassil be put on trial!

What minds and what hearts do such people possess?  

“How many Palestinian refugees would agree to embark on such an adventure in light of the sizeable risks? “ 

 

I hope his question does not reflect a hidden desire to get rid of Palestinians.

Actually I share with Ibrahim his astonishment and madness of the Hamas leadership and activists,

But I am and more astonished and outraged with his promotion of Jacques’s racism, and his claim that the return of one Palestinian, unaffiliated with any Palestinian political parties, “real value matches that of a thousand military operations against Israel “ and his call for “the establishment of a fund to collect donations that would be used to finance similar ones. That is why this account is being published, presumably without jeopardizing it.”

Moreover, the call for counter immigration objectively adverse intersect with the Zionist call to encourage the Palestinians in the West Bank to leave voluntarily for half a million dollars, The goal of both calls is cleansing, ethnic in the West Bank, and sectarian in Lebanon.

Related

• On the Palestinians Independent Decision, Yarmouk camp and Al-Akhbar Practical Route to Gaza – A comment censored by Al-akhbar
• Who is the benificiary of the displacing of the displaced Palestinian in Syria?
• The Third Birth (updated)
• Celebrations in Abbastan and Hamastan (Edited)
• THE PALESTINIAN SPRING: A New OSLO UNDER COOKING IN CAIRO

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On reading Commerade’s Ibrahims call I rememebered late Colonel Qadhafi. 

In 1994, after the signing of the Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel, Qadhafi sought to show its objection to the agreements by expelling the Palestinians residing in Libya. He Justified his deed to Ahmad Al-Hauni, editor in chief of Al Arab (an Arabic newspaper published in London) as follows:
 

“Arafat and the United States, Israel and others declare that the Palestinian cause has been resolved finally and exclusively. This is not true, as there are millions of Palestinian refugees who are still out of their homeland. And as I care about the Palestinian cause, and in order to achieve the best interest of Palestinians, I will expel the thirty thousand Palestinians who currently live in my land, and try to secure their return to Gaza and Jericho. If Israel would not let them in, while Egypt does not allow them to pass through its territories, then I shall set a great camp for them on the Egyptian-Libyan borders” Qadhafi also added that “all of what I will be doing is for their best interest. No matter how they suffer, and even if they remain in the camp for years to come, this would still be for their national interest. And the whole world would come to the conclusion that the settlement is a big lie, and that Palestinians are still refugees. I hereby call on all Arab states hosting Palestinian refugees to act likewise…”. 

 Badil Staff interviewed Professor Bassem Sirhan, one of the Palestinians living in Libya at the time. The full interview is here

Libya is not a host country for Palestinians (i.e. Palestinians are not refugees there), as is the case with Lebanon, Syria and Jordan; it is rather one which imports skilled labor in the technical, scientific and professional fields; therefore, the residency of any Palestinian in Libya is based on a personal or individual contract with the state and its institutions, or with Libyan companies or foreign companies operating in Libya. Libya calls itself “The Land of Arabs” and its leader has been referred to by the late President Jamal Abdul-Nasser, as “The Trustee of Arab Nationalism”; it does not require any Arab to hold an entry visa or a residency permit, regardless of the position he will be assuming or the purpose of his stay. As for residency permits, they aim to allow their holders to open bank accounts in order for them to be able to repatriate half of their income in hard currency to their country of origin. 

A number of expelled Palestinians left Libya by sea. Syria sent a ship to carry more than 600 expelled Palestinians carrying Syrian documents, after they got stranded on board a ship opposite the coast of Cyprus, which denied them the right to enter its territory and did not allow their ship to dock in its ports. Al-Hayat Daily newspaper reported that 608 Palestinians returned to Syria, while 13 of them carrying Jordanian documents returned to Jordan. Thirty Palestinians from the ship became trapped after being denied entry to Cyprus and were offered to be allowed to go back to Libya by Libyan authorities, which sent a ship for that purpose; however, they refused to board the ship, and preferred to stay where they were. Lebanon on its part turned back several hundred Palestinians who arrived from Libya on two ships in late August 1995. Their entry was made subject to obtaining an entry visa, even for those holding Lebanese travel documents. 

How did the crisis eventually end?  

In a surprise move in January 1997, the Libyan authorities offered to take back Palestinians refugees, and further dispatched a Palestinian delegation to the tent camp to convince the refugees to return.

Twelve years later, our friend, Dr. Franklin Lamb while covering the Brutal War on Libya wrote:

Some of the thousands of Palestinians who came here from Lebanon to escape the civil war, the post Sabra-Shatila Massacre reign of terror with which they were targeted from the US and Israel supported Amin Gemayel government, and it’s the Deuxieme Bureau (Lebanese Army Intelligence Force), asked the Beirut new Lebanese-Palestinian Coordination Commission to urgently intervene with the Lebanese government to let them depart Libya aboard ships and return to Lebanon.
They received no assistance or even a reply.  

Not even a reply to this request has been received five month later. This silence comes as no surprise given Lebanon’s deeply ingrained hostility toward its remaining 270.000 Palestinians, roughly half of whom remain trapped in 12 squalid camps, and not one of whom is granted even the basic internationally mandated right to work or to own a home.

Entry Denied to Egypt

 

Approximately 3000 Palestinians have tried to cross into Egypt since Monday 7 March, 2011, but the Egyptian military had received instructions to not let Palestinians refugees in. Many Palestinians who had travelled to the border returned home, to the Libyan cities of Benghazi and Tobruk and adjacent areas. On Tuesday March 8, 2011, 15 Palestinians were still in Salloum demanding to cross, while hundreds of other Palestinians refusing to go back to their homes, had chosen to wait in the homes of Libyan host families in a village near the crossing. It has been reported that Palestinians without national identity cards or valid residency in Egypt were not allowed to cross, whereas even Asian laborers without papers managed to get into the country. …

 However, this observer has been repeatedly assured by Libyan officials in Tripoli that Palestinians in Libya are welcomed, will retain all their civil rights (please refer to Part II) and will in no way be discriminated against or pressured due to some Palestinians presumably favoring the NTC. (on this subject and the current legal and social status of Palestinian refugees in Libya please refer to Part II)

A Practical Route to Palestine

Jacques did not dwell on the case for long. He said he’d do what he could. But then he surprised us by saying he would refuse to receive any payment if the family actually made it to the Gaza Strip. He added he’d be willing to provide a
thousand documents for free if that would help a thousand Palestinians return to historic Palestine.
He knows they would not be returning to their original villages in the 1948 areas, but explained jokingly: “This is the best way to tell them I don’t welcome them in Lebanon. So I don’t need to fight them or hate them, nor am I prepared to be accused of racism if I call for them to be dealt with outside Lebanon. This way I’ll be rid of their burden, and they’ll return to their country… isn’t the right of return the main demand of every Palestinian refugee in the world?”

The operation is underway, and if all goes as expected, the plan should come to fruition within a couple of months. There are three potential obstacles:

First, that a decision is made by Israel to block the return of Palestinians even to the Gaza Strip, and it takes prevention steps on the political, logistical, and even security fronts.

Second, that the Egyptian authorities bar this family from entering the country, which is unlikely on logical or legal grounds, but possible from a security standpoint.

Third, that Hamas authorities in the Gaza Strip prevent the family from entering and settling there. That, too, is presumably far-fetched, for moral, religious, and humanitarian reasons.

While arranging this operation – whose real value matches that of a thousand military operations against Israel – friends were quick to suggest an idea: the establishment of a fund to collect donations that would be used to finance similar ones. That is why this account is being published, presumably without jeopardizing it.

But there is a question that worries me: How many Palestinian refugees would agree to embark on such an adventure in light of the sizeable risks?

I ask because I was surprised, indeed maddened, at the way Hamas activists based in Lebanon and Egypt went into Gaza to congratulate the inhabitants on their victory a few weeks ago, and yet proceeded to come back out. Why? They say they have tasks to attend to related to the struggle. But in fact they have nothing to do except continue to fan the flames of the inferno in Syria in the name of supporting the revolution there or demand that Gebran Bassil be put on trial!

What minds and what hearts do such people possess?

Ibrahim al-Amin is editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar.

Posted by Alex on January 11, 2013. Filed under Human Rights,Palestine,Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.