A debate is raging in the Lebanese government over new legislation that would grant civil rights to Palestinian refugees for the first time in 62 years. Key features of the historic bill, proposed by the Progressive Socialist Party, include the right to housing, employment, social security and hospital treatment.
The proposal has been greeted enthusiastically by human rights groups, who feel the 435,000 long term Palestinian refugees have been unfairly neglected by the state. Nadim Houry, director of Human Rights Watch in Beirut said “Lebanon has marginalised Palestinian refugees for too long and the parliament should seize this opportunity to turn the page and end discrimination against Palestinians.”
UNRWA have reported deteriorating conditions in the 12 major camps across Lebanon with increasing unemployment, poverty and disease. Housing is crumbling and, in a scenario familiar to ‘Area C’ Palestinians in the West Bank, residents are denied the freedom to build by legal loopholes. Problems are set to worsen as UNRWA, the camp’s primary source of aid, announced a $113 million deficit that will shrink its education and health programmes. They are also offering just temporary contracts to Palestinian employees.
Last week thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian activists, representing the nation from Tyre to Tripoli, marched on central Beirut in support of the bill. Under current law 25 jobs are off-limits to Palestinians (down from 77 in 1982) and only around 2% of camp residents have been able to secure work permits. Only around 40% of Palestinians work full-time, generally in semi-legal manual labour sectors. Only 11% have written contracts and under 10% have completed higher education courses.
Christian nationalist parties are arguing strongly against the bill, raising a host of objections. Phalange MP Sami Gemayal argued the state cannot afford it, “we can’t permit Palestinian refugees (these rights), given the deficit in the National Social Security Fund, a shortage in hospital services and a lack of job opportunities amid the state’s growing public debt.” The International Labour Organisation disagree, claiming any cost would be more than offset by the benefit of Palestinian workers contributing to the Lebanese economy. They believe the shortages in agriculture and construction industries could be plugged by allowing skilled Palestinian labourers the permits to fill these positions. The lack of social security for refugees has been a long held grievance as refugees pay taxes that subsidise the system, without receiving any benefit from it.
The current proposal would still deny refugees any voting rights, along with keeping the ban on public sector employment. Yet opponents of the bill are still wary that such concessions might pave the way for full naturalisation, despite refugees’ public campaigns to eventually return to Palestine. Similar reforms in Syria have not led to mass naturalisation.
Gemayal has claimed the bill would “undermine their right of return and fulfil an Israeli demand”. He has also suggested the camps are home to extremists who might be a destabilising influence if integrated into society. Critics of Gemayal and his Phalange party, responsible for the murder of several thousand refugees in the Sabra and Shatila massacres of 1982, have rubbished the claims, denying the threat of violence from refugees and questioning Gemayal’s sincerity in voicing concern for their future welfare.
At the time of writing it is estimated the bill has support from around 54 of 128 MPs. 65 are needed for it to pass into law. It has received backing from members of Prime Minister Hariri’s Sunni Movement of the Future Party, as well the Shi’a Islamist Hezbollah group, in a rare moment of unity between the two. A delegation from the PLO visited Lebanese MPs last week in support of the bill, praising its symbolic value in promoting solidarity between Arab nations, as well as recognising the worsening plight of Palestinian refugees. The parties who oppose it, led by a Christian minority who wield disproportionate power, have attacked refugees since they arrived on the agenda of preserving ‘balance‘ in society. If the bills founders on the rocks of protectionism, race and class tensions will sharpen inside the country but worse, a historic opportunity to restore the fractured unity between Arab nations will have been lost.
Kieron Monks is editor of the Palestine Monitor news website in Ramallah
