Wednesday, August 18, 2010

How Israel's Dep. Foreign Minister helped Lebanese Palestinians

This story is simply amazing.

For over 60 years, Palestinians living in Lebanon had no rights and existed in sub-human conditions. The world of course, blamed Israel.

Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon wrote about this a few weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal.

Surprisingly, just a couple of weeks after Ayalon's op-ed, the Lebanese government changed their status!
The Lebanese parliament voted on Tuesday to grant the country’s 400,000 Palestinian refugees the right to work in the same professions as other foreigners, lifting a decades-old ban that had relegated the refugees to the most menial jobs.

The bill was intended to transform Lebanese policies toward the refugees, although Palestinian leaders in Lebanon and human rights workers say it was only a first step that leaves significant stumbling blocks in place.

The Palestinians living in Lebanon are isolated from the rest of the country in refugee camps to a higher degree than anywhere else in the Arab world.

“I was born in Lebanon and I have never known Palestine,” said Ahmed al- Mehdawi, 45, a taxi driver who lives in the Ein el- Hilweh refugee camp, which is notorious for its lawlessness.

“What we want is to live like Lebanese. We are human beings and we need civil rights.” (JPost)
Why is it that real human rights abuses in the Middle East go on for decades, while the left and anti-Zionists bash Israel?

Why does it take a member of the Israeli government to expose this, while all the "Human Rights" fundamentalists ignore it?

The obvious answer: none of the organizations and countries who routinely bash Israel care about Human Rights...they just care about bashing Israel.


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2 comments:

JoeSettler said...

NYTimes:

While about 4.7 million refugees from the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967 are spread across the region, many of them in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Syria, the estimated 400,000 in Lebanon have endured some of the most wretched conditions.



UNWRA:
One-third of the registered Palestine refugees, nearly 1.4 million, live in 58 recognised refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.


You've got to admit, that's pretty amazing. I'm not talking about 2 or 3 generations of Arabs born in Lebanon still being considered refugees (when 1 or 2 generations before many probably first emigrated from the Lebanon and Syria region).

What's amazing is that 2 or 3 generations of "Palestinian" Arabs born and living in "Palestine" in Gaza, in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, most now under PA control and governance (such that it is) are considered refugees at all.

That this fiction is unquestionably perpetuated is unacceptable (yet expected).

Shira Salamone said...

Assuming that the 2009 decision by the government of Jordan to strip its Palestinian residents of Jordanian citizenship (about which you posted) still stands, do you suppose Mr. Ayalon could do something about that, too?

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