(Left: Bashir Gemayel)
Ending the Hypocrisy of Lebanon's "Voice for Palestine"
By FRANKLIN LAMB
CounterPunch
Beirut
"This year, the Merry Month of May in Lebanon includes Labor day, the May 15 anniversary of the Nakba, the month-long Lebanese municipal elections and the May 5 elevation of Lebanon to the presidency of the United Nations Security Council.
Yet, for most Palestinians whiling away their lives in Lebanon’s 12 fetid refugee camps and 27 gatherings, May will pass anything but Merry. The festive Labor day and month long elections, held in the 26 municipalities in Lebanon, with the participation of more than 650 glad-handing -vote seeking candidates extolling the Lebanese virtue of working to provide for one’s family, constitute a cruel joke for Palestinian refugees denied the right to work......
The Lebanese Forces has the clearest political party position on the subject of granting the right to work to Palestinian refugees and it has never wavered over the years. During my first ever visit to Lebanon in July of 1981, following the Israeli massacre that killed more than 170 and wounded more than 800, in the Palestinian neighborhood adjacent to Shatila camp called Fakhani, I had lunch with the Lebanese Forces leader Bashir Gemayel. A gracious host and the son of Pierre Gemayel, who along with Camille Chamoun founded the Lebanese Forces in 1976 with the primary objective of killing Palestinians, Bashir invited a couple of his friendly and charming aides, Elie Hobeika ( leader of the LF 1985-86) and Fadi Frem ( leader of the LF 1982-84)-both of whom would participate in the massacre the following fall at Sabra Shatila. The slaughter, which has been planned weeks in advance in Israel according to LF participants, was ordered executed the day after Bashir’s September 14, 1982 assassination.
What Bachir said privately about Palestinians over lunch 29 years ago is virtually identical to what representatives of the Lebanese Forces, which fought Palestinians during the 1975-90 Civil War, are saying today. In public, their language is more restrained and less profane, but equally bigoted. As LF representative Fadi Zarifeh informed a working group on civil rights for Palestinian refugees on February 10, 2010, the Lebanese Forces remain “quite hostile to the whole idea. The Lebanese state should first take care of its own citizens and not others.” Zarifeh added that his party was “the one farthest away from approving greater rights for Palestinian refugees”......"
By FRANKLIN LAMB
CounterPunch
Beirut
"This year, the Merry Month of May in Lebanon includes Labor day, the May 15 anniversary of the Nakba, the month-long Lebanese municipal elections and the May 5 elevation of Lebanon to the presidency of the United Nations Security Council.
Yet, for most Palestinians whiling away their lives in Lebanon’s 12 fetid refugee camps and 27 gatherings, May will pass anything but Merry. The festive Labor day and month long elections, held in the 26 municipalities in Lebanon, with the participation of more than 650 glad-handing -vote seeking candidates extolling the Lebanese virtue of working to provide for one’s family, constitute a cruel joke for Palestinian refugees denied the right to work......
The Lebanese Forces has the clearest political party position on the subject of granting the right to work to Palestinian refugees and it has never wavered over the years. During my first ever visit to Lebanon in July of 1981, following the Israeli massacre that killed more than 170 and wounded more than 800, in the Palestinian neighborhood adjacent to Shatila camp called Fakhani, I had lunch with the Lebanese Forces leader Bashir Gemayel. A gracious host and the son of Pierre Gemayel, who along with Camille Chamoun founded the Lebanese Forces in 1976 with the primary objective of killing Palestinians, Bashir invited a couple of his friendly and charming aides, Elie Hobeika ( leader of the LF 1985-86) and Fadi Frem ( leader of the LF 1982-84)-both of whom would participate in the massacre the following fall at Sabra Shatila. The slaughter, which has been planned weeks in advance in Israel according to LF participants, was ordered executed the day after Bashir’s September 14, 1982 assassination.
What Bachir said privately about Palestinians over lunch 29 years ago is virtually identical to what representatives of the Lebanese Forces, which fought Palestinians during the 1975-90 Civil War, are saying today. In public, their language is more restrained and less profane, but equally bigoted. As LF representative Fadi Zarifeh informed a working group on civil rights for Palestinian refugees on February 10, 2010, the Lebanese Forces remain “quite hostile to the whole idea. The Lebanese state should first take care of its own citizens and not others.” Zarifeh added that his party was “the one farthest away from approving greater rights for Palestinian refugees”......"
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