The Prospects for the Palestinian Economy
Source: Middle East International
by Rosemary Sayigh
10 August 2001,
Though insecurity is an outstanding feature of Palestinian
life in most places where they live, from the Occupied Territories
to the Negev, Australia and Glasgow, yet their situation in Lebanon
is unique in degree of political, economic and social exclusion.
With 'implantation' (ie. final settlement) formally prohibited
by the Lebanese constitution, all Palestinians with refugee ID
cards face eventual transfer. And while waiting, their civic rights
are constricted by laws and practices aimed - though this is never
explicitly stated - at making life so unbearable that many leave.
The Intifada has produced change at some levels - for example the
media - but not at other more basic ones such as inhumane living
conditions in the camps. At the Amman summit in March, President
Lahoud vied with other Arab leaders in glorifying the Intifada;
yet army siege over the camps in the south remains as tight as
ever. It was ex-PLO representative Shafiq al-Hout who summed up
Lebanese contradictions best: "With Palestine, against the Palestinians".
Last week Israeli Palestinian poet Samih al-Qassem
was invited to a cultural festival in Beirut and decorated by the
president, whose personal intervention was required to enable Qassem's
entry. This is part of a sea-change still mainly manifested in
cultural events and in the Lebanese media, which give full coverage
to the Intifada, particularly Al-Safir among newspapers, and Hizbollah's
'Minar' among television stations (Berri's NBN also has a Jerusalem-based
correspondent). Palestinian speakers are more often invited to
participate in political chat-shows these days. The Intifada has
also had the effect of suppressing the campaign against local Palestinians
that reached a peak last year. The phrase 'islands of security'
used to suggest the lawlessness and danger of the camps has gone
out of fashion. Yet this media thaw has had no reflection at the
level of policies towards the refugees.
The most damaging constraints are those that prevent
refugees from the professions and a wide range of skilled and semi-skilled
work as well as public sector employment. Discriminatory labour
laws mean that Palestinian workers here experience higher un- and
underemployment rates than elsewhere, and more families live in
a state of 'ultra-poverty'. A diminished Palestinian professional
and trading stratum survives through sharing with a Lebanese 'partner',
accepting lower wages, or staying within camp boundaries. Though
Lebanese anti-Palestinianism is less violent today than it was
in the 1970s or 1980s, the refugees are still more socially excluded
than in any other Arab host country: a recent survey by political
scientist Simon Haddad found that 65% had no contact of any kind
with a Palestinian, while only 18% had a Palestinian friend. The
sample was constructed from Lebanon's six major sects, including
Sunnis, the sect to which most Palestinians belong.
With the Lebanese economy in crisis, Palestinian
unemployment continues to mount. An unpublished survey conducted
by the Norwegian research institute FAFO in 1999 found little difference
between Lebanon and Jordan in the level of Palestinian unemployment
(17% cf 16%). It is questionable whether the ILO measure of unemployment
used by FAFO gives an adequate measure of the refugees' work and
wage situation, but in any case the job market has tightened further
since then. On recent visits to camps in the North, South, Bekaa,
Beirut and Sidon I asked camp leaders for unemployment estimates,
and was given figures ranging from 60 to 70%. Men of different
generations gave work histories that revealed that most from the
generation that came to maturity after 1982 have never done work
for which they were trained. Casual jobs they get seldom last more
than a few weeks. One young man in Wavell camp with a BA in philosophy
had never worked in all of the ten years since graduating. It is
ironic and sad that this generation has had far better opportunities
for education and training than their grandparents - the 'generation
of the Naqba' - yet it is older men who managed to work and save
to educate their children. The point is made by Ziad, an engineer
living in Bourj al-Barajneh: "My father had no education, and he
was able to feed the family well, even to provide me and my brothers
with higher education. As an engineer, I cannot even afford to
live in a proper place, or to marry" (quoted by Bendik Sorvig in "Exile
Without Refuge, MPhil thesis, University of Oslo, 2001, p 66).
Is the state's reduction policy authorized, encouraged
or merely ignored by Damascus? Syria attempts to control Lebanon's
sectarian cauldron by avoiding creating the enemies that would
inevitably be provoked by permanent alliances. Its basic support
is a coalition of pro-Syrian politicians from the three major sects
- Maronites, Shi'ites and Sunnis. The Maronite component in this
combination is always on the defensive vis-a-vis its own 'street'.
This is why those Maronites who are with the regime need the Palestinians
as whipping boy, to demonstrate their sectarian credentials. Weapons
in the camps create a 'Palestinian danger' that is used to justify
the presence of the Syrian Army to the 'Maronite street'. This
was made transparently clear by Michel Murr, ex-Minister of the
Interior, when he inserted into a speech supporting the Syrian
presence the "presence of 300,000 Palestinians in Lebanon"( L'Orient/Le
Jour , April 18, 2001). A week later Murr underlined the connection
again, arguing that Syrian withdrawal must be postponed until after
Palestinian resettlement (ie. transfer) ( Cyberia News Center ,
April 27, 2001).
Syrian policy towards them is a frequent theme of
Palestinian discussion: if Syria needs them in Lebanon as a 'card',
why does it not use its influence to improve their status and living
conditions? Salah Salah, ex-PFLP Central Bureau member, gives this
view: "There are two Syrian red lines: arms stay in the camps,
and the Lebanese Army stays out of them. Other than this, the Lebanese
government is free to do what it likes". This speaker believes
that Damascus has no particular interest in the conditions of Palestinian
in Lebanon or in the high level of their out-migration. Rather
he puts the responsibility on the Lebanese state which, in his
view, has always aimed at making life impossible for Palestinians "to
prepare them to accept any solution", whether towteen or emigration.
This is an analysis that minimizes the economic and political benefits
that Syria gains from its workers in Lebanon, whose freedom to
work and rights to social security come partly at Palestinian expense.
[Palestinian marginality is equally illustrated by
a recent Syrian tilt in favour of Arafat's Fateh, formerly excluded
from most of Lebanon except Rashidiyyeh camp. Damascus's desire
to build good relations with political Maronitism, and to keep
its ties with political Shi'ism sweet, generally rules out overt
support for Palestinians. However the ascendence of Sharon to power
closed the door to Syrian/Israeli negotiations, and gave a powerful
jolt to the regional chessboard. One of the resulting shifts is
the possibility of a Syrian/PLO/Lebanese strategic alliance. Though
this is a card in Arafat's hand rather than an imminent development,
it has already translated into greater freedom for Arafatists to
spread and mobilize in the camps in Lebanon. This tilt may further
alienate hard-core Maronites, but after Patriarch Sfeir's spring
speaking tour in North America, the Syrians may have decided that
courting the Maronites is a losing game. Under threat by Sharon,
they seem at last - and perhaps temporarily - to be playing 'the
Palestinian card'.]
["Whoever wins, Palestinians lose" is an apt summary
of a structural position in the Lebanese political arena that forces
upon the refugees the role of pawn or scapegoat. This is well illustrated
by their relationship with Hizbollah. Hizbollah cooperates with
Resistance groups it considers ideologically aligned with itself;
its welfare branch distributes aid in the camps; most importantly,
it counteracts Amal movement's anti-Palestinianism with the Shi'ite
'street'. Yet at the same time, for electoral and regional reasons,
Hizbollah cooperates with Amal leader Berri. The Palestinians have
nothing to offer Hizbollah, while the Party of God, whatever its
political and humanitarian impulses, is constrained by its relations
with Syria, Iran, and its own Shi'ite constituency.]
Constraints on the employment of Palestinians go
back to the beginning of exile in Lebanon, though they have never
bitten as deeply as now. But with the recent passing by Parliament
of revisions to Law 11614 (1969) concerning ownership of real estate
by foreigners, a new threshold of exclusion has been reached through
a clause forbidding "anyone who does not have citizenship in a
recognized state" from owning property (Qanun tamuluk al-ajanab,
text published by al-Safir, 23 March, 2001). The excluding clause
will mainly affect Palestinians forced by low income and need for
UNRWA services to live in the camps. This is because the majority
of upper and middle class Palestinians have acquired foreign or
Lebanese passports that shield them from the exclusion clause.
Because camp boundaries are non-expandable, and building inside
them is restricted, Palestinian families in camps accommodate their
expansion by trying to buy apartments or land plots outside. This
will now be illegal, and they will be forced to rent at a time
of deepening impoverishment, with the government preparing a bill
that will free rents completely within twelve years ( The Daily
Star , March 28, 2001.)
The comment of DFLP spokesman Fethi Khleib on the
recent property law is not exaggerated: "The only rights that remain
for Palestinians in Lebanon is the right to residence and the right
to die". The right to die - but not the right to be buried. The
Palestinian Human Rights Organization recently raised an alarm
over the lack of new burial space for Palestinians. Moreover death
has revealed another damaging aspect of the law excluding Palestinians
from owning property. Whereas formerly after a death Palestinian
refugees simply obtained a certificate from a religious court naming
a deceased person's heirs, and then registered it with the government,
such transactions are no longer legal. One of the first institutions
to protest has been the Sidon Chamber of Commerce, in anticipation
of the problems likely to arise from the fact that some 60% of
property in Sidon is 'owned' by Palestinians. Much Palestinian
property has remained unregistered because fees for non-Lebanese
were until recently.
Though the requisite twelve parliamentarians signed
a request to the Majlis al-Dastouri to review the exclusionary
clause because of its inconsistency with those parts of the Lebanese
constitution that ban all forms of discrimination, the Majlis affirmed
the clause. This prompted from one Lebanese the comment that nothing
in Lebanon is independent of the state, least of all the judiciary.
As the implications of the exclusion clause sink in, Palestinians
will be more than ready for a planned series of protests that began
in 'Ain al-Helweh camp on July 26. Further camp demonstrations
are likely before a special parliamentary session on August 13
for which discussion of the property law has already been tabled.
A new property law that would negate the exclusionary clause is
being drafted and has been promised support from Hariri's block,
Hizbollah and the national progressive parties. This would give
it a simple majority. But no one is predicting how this issue will
play out between the Troika, the parties, Damascus and other external
actors when the time for voting comes.
Between now and the next parliamentary session, however,
Lebanese support for the Intifada may begin to spread to attitudes
to the Palestinians. Several important political groupings, such
as Hizbollah and Habib Sadek's Mimbar Dimukrati, Hizbollah support
civic rights for Palestinians; Nassib Lahoud's Democratic Renewal
Movement may include this in its platform. Expressions of disgust
at conditions in the camps by political leaders are becoming more
frequent, and parts of the Lebanese public are beginning to echo
Sayyed Nasrallah who called conditions in the camps "a smear on
Lebanon's forehead" ( Al-A'hed , April 9, 2001). Even
though neither Nasrallah nor any other Lebanese politician can
make civic rights for Palestinians a priority in a country riven
with economic crisis, it is possible that the state's policy of
repression and exclusion of the refugees will become increasingly
costly in terms of local and foreign public opinion.
One option open to the Palestinians is international
legal action. A recent graduate paper by Petter Aasheim at the
University of Lund (Spring 2000) puts Lebanese laws and attitudes
vis-a-vis the refugees in a context of international laws and covenants
concerning the right to work of refugees and stateless persons.
For example, Article 6 of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (1966) affirms the right of Palestinian
refugees to work as foreigners staying on a non-temporary basis.
By denying them this right, Lebanon is also violating article 26
of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aimed
at preventing discrimination. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights - ironically drafted by Lebanese philosopher Charles Malik
- affirms the right to work, and is applicable to non-citizens.
Non-citizens as well as refugees are protected in several international
covenants, eg the Convention on the Status of Refugees (1951) and
the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Lebanon has not signed several of these conventions, so that raising
a case would not be easy, especially as complainants should be
states. Yet there's a loophole in the '1503 procedure' which allows
individuals or organizations to submit complaints of human rights
abuses to the UN, and if the complaint proves "a consistent pattern
of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights" the
UNHCR can send a rapporteur or mission of enquiry. Such proof should
not be difficult in the case of Lebanon's laws and practices vis-a-vis
Palestinians.
It is however precisely their insecurity in Lebanon
that makes Palestinians averse to taking such a radical step. They
are acutely aware that they survive - barely - on sufferance, and
that 'going international' would only increase Lebanese hostility.
On the other hand, the current combination of Intifada-rekindled
nationalism and anger as the new property law begins to bite may
will transform the dominant mood from passive despair to active
challenge. The more likely form that challenge will take, however,
is protest action in alliance with Lebanese sympathizers, challenge
within the system. Such a strategy would find resonance at a time
of mounting Lebanese hostility to Israel and the USA.
Rosemary Sayigh is the author of Too
Many Enemies: Palestinians in Lebanon (London: Zed Books,
1994) |