Palestinian refugees from Syria
lost, betrayed By Ramzy Baroud
The official position of Arab nations is
unambiguous: solidarity with Palestine is
paramount. Facts on the ground point to a
disturbingly different reality, one in which
Palestinians are mistreated in various Arab
countries beyond any rational justification.
The worst-off are stateless refugees who
have for decades been granted only precarious
legal status. In times of crisis, these refugees
have repeatedly found themselves in a state of
legal and political limbo.
At the recent
Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, Arab
leaders spoke with the same ardent passion about
justice for the
Palestinians. One Arab
emir warned that "preoccupation with issues of the
Arab Spring ... should not distract us from the
Arab central cause of Palestine". He labored to
count all the Israeli violations of Palestinian
rights, as heads of states nodded in agreement.
Absent from the speech, however, was any reference
to the ongoing suffering of Palestinian refugees
in Arab countries, where, arguably, Israel has no
sway.
While there is no question that
Syrian refugees are going through a truly horrific
experience during the civil war, the fate of
Palestinian refugees is markedly worse. This is
because Palestinians do not have the basic rights
that passport-holding Syrian citizens do. "Stuck",
"stranded" and "imprisoned" are only some of the
terms used to describe the state of Palestinian
refugees, ill-treated and subjugated by none other
than their "Arab brethren".
Because of
geographic necessity, thousands of Palestinian
refugees are escaping the Syrian war to nearby
borders in both Jordan and Lebanon. The United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has registered
nearly 5,000 fleeing that conflict. But the number
is likely much higher and will continue to grow as
fighting escalates. There are nearly half a
million Palestinian refugees in Syria. Despite all
attempts at sparing them the bloody outcomes of
the conflict, they have still become embroiled in
the fight. Regional powers desperate to gain
ground in Syria have used their media to exploit
the Palestinian issue, knowing well the
sentimental value of the Palestinian narrative
within the larger Arab discourse. The outcome has
been devastating, and many Palestinians have been
on the run for nearly a year and a half. Areas
with a concentration of Palestinian refugees are
no longer neutral territories. Despite pleas and
assurances, Palestinian refugees in Syria remain
most vulnerable.
In Jordan, hundreds of
Palestinians refugees who fled Syria have been
crammed into a poorly equipped facility known as
Cyber City, about 90 kilometers north of the
capital, Amman. Human Rights Watch and other
organizations have decried the mistreatment of
refugees in Cyber City, reporting forced
deportations back to Syria, and the prisoner-like
status of those who have remained in Jordan.
In a July 4 report, "Jordan: Bias at the
Syrian Border", Human Rights Watch claimed that
those fortunate enough not to be deported are
still threatened with deportation. "Since April
2012, the authorities have also arbitrarily
detained Palestinians fleeing Syria in a refugee
holding center without any options for release
other than return to Syria," the report stated.
One Cyber City resident, Samir, told UN
humanitarian news network IRIN (Integrated
Regional Information Networks): "It has been quite
bad living like a prisoner, especially when you
see other people come and go but you are trapped."
According to the report, "Palestinian refugees
from Syria feel abandoned" and those in Cyber City
cannot move more than 30 meters from the main
building.
Some of the stories imparted by
Human Rights Watch are very disturbing to say the
least. The organization acknowledges that Jordan
has not signed or ratified the 1951 Refugee
Convention; it is still required under
international human-rights law to respect the
principle of non-refoulement, which, notes HRW,
"prohibits countries from sending anyone back to a
country where their life or freedom would be
threatened". However, the phenomenon is reportedly
recurring in the case of Palestinian refugees.
The situation is Lebanon is equally
distressing. Voice of American correspondent
Margaret Besheer wrote from Beirut on the double
misery of Palestinian refugees fleeing to Lebanon,
mostly seeking shelter in the slums of the
Shatilla refugee camp. There are 455,000
registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who are
mostly distributed among 12 refugee camps
throughout the country and subsisting in terrible
conditions.
Since Lebanon's Palestinian
refugees are already victims of a host of
discriminatory laws, one can only imagine the
dilemma of newly arriving refugees. Ibtisam’s
family shares one room with eight other people in
the Shatilla camp. "We are three families staying
in one room. What can we do? We escaped from the
killing and shelling and now we are living like
this."
Ibtisam can be considered lucky for
being allowed entry in the first place. However,
unlike other refugees from Syria, Palestinians who
are permitted to enter are expected to renew their
permit on a monthly basis - at a cost of 50,000
Lebanese pounds (US$33), an unaffordable feat for
families lacking access to proper food or health
care.
Many are not even fortunate enough
to be able to leave Syria in the first place.
According to non-governmental-organization worker
Rawan Nassar, families are forced to deposit large
sums of money to obtain permission from
authorities. The poor are naturally denied an exit
permit, and some families risk their entire life
savings to escape. Once at the Lebanon border,
even more bribery is necessary. "I saw a
Palestinian woman at the border who did not know
anyone in Lebanon, and she was forced to pay $300
in bribes, $40 for each child," a Syrian witness
told IRIN.
While hostility toward
Palestinian refugees is rooted in histories laden
with civil wars and conflicts, it is hard to
justify the attitude of Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which
manifestly differentiates between refugees of
other countries and Palestinian refugees. The
latter are supposedly the sole responsibility of
UNRWA, which has only a tiny relief budget that is
unable to keep up with even the most basic demands
of those who bother to register.
The
crisis ensuing from Palestinian refugees escaping
regional conflict is not a new phenomenon, as wars
in Iraq, Kuwait and Lebanon have demonstrated in
the past. The tragedy is multiplied, however,
because no real, long-term solution has been put
in place despite this recurring humanitarian
catastrophe.
Meanwhile, official speech
decrying Israeli crimes continues unabated, with
little attention paid to crimes committed
elsewhere. This results only in the same
disheartening outcome.
One refugee was
quoted in UN news as saying: "People come and take
pictures and speak with us, but they all leave at
the end." Such is the plight of the Palestinian
refugees, 64 years after the Nakba.
Ramzy Baroud(www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally
syndicated columnist and the editor of
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My
Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story
(Pluto Press, London.)
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