Non-ID Palestinians in Lebanon limbo
By Mike Sergeant
BBC News, Sidon

Mohammed and his sister Maysa are Palestinians, but they have no passports and no identity cards.

They are not even given the status of refugees. Legally, they don't seem to exist at all.

They are among about 3,000 so-called "non-ID" Palestinians in Lebanon.

Many don't qualify for aid and have been unable to leave the refugee camps, find jobs or even get married.

"Last year the government prevented me from doing my exams," says Mohammed, a 21-year-old student.

"They arrested me because I don't have an ID. Without an ID, I can't do anything."

"We face many problems," says his sister Maysa. "No travel, no marriage, no work. We live in the camp like a prison."

Their mother Aida has lived a life of regret.

"It's my husband's problem," she says. "If I had known at the time what a big issue this would be for us, I would never have married him."

Late arrivals

Aida's husband is one of the original "non-ID" Palestinians who came to Lebanon in the 1970s. His lack of official status has been passed on to his children.

Their situation is very different from that of the majority of Lebanon's 400,000 Palestinian refugees. Most come from families who fled here when the state of Israel was created in 1948.

But the "non-ID" Palestinians arrived more than 20 years later via Jordan. Many of them came to Lebanon to fight for the Palestine Liberation Organisation after its expulsion from Jordan in 1971.

"They cannot move out of the camp. They cannot work officially. They cannot register their marriages, their births, their deaths.

"They cannot own a car or a motorbike. So they face a lot of problems," says Mireille Chiha of the Danish Refugee Council, an organisation which has been working with the families.

On a hill overlooking Ein al-Hilweh, the biggest refugee camp in Lebanon, I meet one of the original "non-ID" Palestinians.

Surrounded by chickens and almond trees, Ragheb Bitar looks every inch the proud former warrior. He fought in many wars against Israel.

But for the past 20 years, he hasn't been able to go beyond the camp's perimeter fence or see some of his children.

"People without IDs, we are all prisoners," he says. "I was forced to be a fighter. If this continues, I will tell my children and my grandchildren to be fighters too."

Promised liberty

That is a possibility that is worrying the Lebanese government. Relations with the Palestinians have a complex and turbulent history.

With hundreds of thousands of refugees already registered in this small country, the authorities have been reluctant since the 1970s to accept any extra burden.

But that could finally be about to change.

Dr Khalil Makkawi represents the Lebanese government. He says "non-IDs" will now get similar status to the others.

"They will be able to move freely from one place to the other," he says "They will have the liberty to do whatever they want just like other Palestinians in Lebanon."

The process of documenting the "non-ID" Palestinians will begin over the next few weeks. Why the change of policy?

It's partly an acceptance of the reality that these people are Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon, with nowhere else to go.

Dr Makkawi also says that there is a potential security risk, if thousands of people are living in the camps with no official identity.

Equality for "non-ID" refugees, though, won't help solve a much bigger issue.

The fate of all the 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon is still unsettled, after almost 60 years.

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Palestinians, despite the Israeli Occupation , still practice their normal life to express their strong link with their land…

Palestinian Lettuce Festival

The village of Ertas to the south of Bethlehem in the West Bank celebrated the 14^th. Annual traditional lettuce festival, stressing on the depth and deeprooted linkage between Palestinians and their land, and their insistence on never to remiss this link.

The festival was inaugurated by the Minister of Culture, Tahani Abu Dakka, who said that the festival represents a challenge to the occupier, it is sort of resistance, and a strong message expressing the strong message that Palestinians has a right in their land and shall never give up their right to it.

The celebration was organized by Ertas' center for cultural heritage, under the patronage of the ministry of culture in collaboration with the society of rural life, The Peace Center, RouadCenter for theatrical Training, Arab Educational establishment, Serah Center(Beit Sahour) and Jozour Health Development. The festival shall last for four days during which the following activities shall take place: Falk dancing, singing and theatrical activities in addition heritage exhibitions, and a popular souk for Lettuce.

Wafa (Palestinian Press Agency)

A Palestinian farmer distributing lettuce on the festival's visiters(A.F.P.)

Palestinians  are not a nation, Palestinians are part of the Arab Nation

April 11, 2008

by: Adib S. Kawar

As a student of political science who had been involved in the protection of the interests of his nation all his life, I would like to clarify few points regarding the definition of what is a nation, a people or a political entity.

There is a vast difference between a people or a nation with a special inherited characteristics and political entities that quite often had been created by colonialist powers and invaders.

The Arab nation had developed through out long centuries to reach its present formation and characteristics.

The Arab nation’s homeland had been the target of innumerable invasions by colonialist powers, and several political entities that were established on it’s soil, or parts of it to serve the occupying power’s interests, but with the expulsion of the colonizers the entity in question ceased to exist, but the indigenous people continued to exist and remained the same, Arab. Many a time a part or parts of a homeland were settled on a small or large scale, but they failed to change the character and ethnicity of its indigenous people. The so-called Crusaders colonized a large part of the Arab land but they failed to become its people. The Crusaders’ occupation lasted for two full centuries, but at the end they had to pack up and return home after being defeated and expelled by Arab resistance.

Some remnants of the invading crusaders that settled in our land, for one reason or another were left behind and are still living in it, and were assimilated into its people, but although there are still families of Crusader’s origin still carrying there old imported names, but they now consider themselves as part of the indigenous Arab people whose the Arab homeland is theirs. After thousands of years of movement of tribes and people settling among the indigenous population in other people’s land and getting assimilated in them during in the history of the human race there is nothing called pure blood, but after centuries of development settlers in foreign lands become a part of its people if they chose to become so.

Central Asian tribes swept our part of the world and the Ottoman Empire was established on most of the land that formed the Byzantine Empire, namely the Arab homeland and beyond in Eastern Europe, but failed to change the ethnic characteristic of the land and its people. Eastern European peoples got liberated and mostly their national states were re-established on their national land. This also applies to the Arab homeland that was colonized by Ottoman Turks, who failed to enforce the Turkish nationality (meaning ethnicity) on their colonized subjects although they fell under the yolk Ottoman Turkish colonialism for 500 years of occupation Arabs were still Arabs and not Turks.

Before the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire western colonialism represented by the two victorious colonialist powers in WW II, Franceand Great Britain, were preparing themselves to inherit the Arab territories of the dying empire. They met and divided among themselves the Arab Fertile Crescent, and split it into small political entities that were not large enough to be strong enough to protect themselves, but still the nationality of these created states is still Arab. The Arab Fertile Crescent was divided into six states: Starting from east to west they established what is known now as Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Trans Jordan and Palestine. Non of these as well as other parts of the Arab homeland, the Arabian Peninsula and all through North Africa, Egypt and Sudan up to Morocco had abandoned their Arab nationality in spite of decades of continuous colonialism, settling by colonialists and even as was the case with Algeria which was annexed by France and Libya that Italian colonialism called it the fourth shore of Italy, and still there are some Spanish controlled enclaves on the shores of Morocco, non of these Arab states abandoned their Arab nationality although they form independent political entities whether colonized or free.

Zionist propaganda among many other baseless justifications for colonizing Arab Palestine declared that, there was nothing called “Palestinian Nationalism” or a “Palestinian state”. This is true, but this is a truth that is aimed to create a void. Palestine is not a whole nation, it is a part of the Arab homeland and Palestinians are a part of the Arab nation. Zionism adopted this justification to legalize their colonization of this Arab land, meaning that there are no legal owners of this land even though they exist(!!!); so a land without a people for a people without a land. Zionists tend to forget that there is no land on the surface of the earth without an owner even though very thinly populated. On the other hand and as per colonialist philosophy the white man is superior; so he has the right to invade other’s land, annihilate its people, settle it and colonize it. A Zionist theorist said the “barbarian” peoples of this world are not fit to exist, so they have to give way to establish “democracies”, like his saying “hadn’t Red Indians been annihilated the great American democracy would never had been established”. Does annihilation make democracy?

Colonialism of which is Zionism aimed at applying the theory of divide and rule. Colonialism splintered the Arab homeland into small state-lets that are not self-sufficient, and with the new colonialist/Zionist project to further splinter it as per their new colonialist project of the neo or greater Middle East, to eliminate its Arabic character and thus be the controlling power in it. Even the loose League of Arab States (note it is states and not nations) is not acceptable, simply for its name includes the word “Arab”. The colonialist/Zionist coalition wants to be replaced with a more splintered organization in which they want to include in it the Zionist entity and Turkey, but not Iran as long as it is ant-Zionist and anti-colonialist. But had it been under the Shah it would have been more then welcomed because the Shah was an American puppet, thus against the interests of his people and other peoples of the targeted region. All of this is because they want to eliminate any thing that is called Arab nationalism. Arab nationalism threatens the existence of the Zionist entity. Arab nationalism is the only protection for the Arab nation’s unity and liberty.