Do Palestinian Camps Add to Instability in Lebanon?

Left to right: Sahar Attrache and Nadim Shehade

Sahar Atrache of the Middle East Program of the Beirut-based International Crisis Group and Nadim Shehadi, an associate fellow of the Middle East Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) tackled the challenging question of whether Palestinian refugee camps nurture instability in Lebanon in an open panel discussion held in West Hall on May 6 under the auspices of the Issam Fares Institute’s Program on Policy and Governance in Palestinian Refugee Camps. The discussion, entitled “Nurturing Instability? Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugee Camps,”addressed the multitude of factors that make answering this question so difficult. 

Atrache kicked off the talk by flipping through hot topics like Nahr-el-Bared, jihadism, factional divisions, the vague tawtin (naturalization) argument often used to deprive Palestinians of their rights in Lebanon, and the constructive role the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC) should assume.

“Palestinians feel the lack of leadership fighting for their rights,” Atrache emphasized, highlighting factional divisions inside the camps and the weak Lebanese mandate. “Jihadi groups present themselves as an alternative. . . they fill the vacuum,” she asserted.

Atrache attributed a Lebanese policy that diminishes any prospect of permanent Palestinian settlement to a “fear of tawtin,” which also paralyzes the installation of any basic rights. This makes camps prime breeding grounds for a crisis like Nahr-el-Bared, one that put the Palestinian issue firmly back on the table.

“It’s important that they’re at least admitting this,” Atrache stated, referring to recent recognition by Lebanese policy makers that camp conditions require improvement and that the rights of Palestinians in Lebanon must be addressed.

“The level of peace achieved so far in the camps is not negligible,” Shehadi said, considering regional and local forces that stunted any Lebanese redressing of the situation in the camps from 1990 to 2005. “We are in a period where there is a lot of change, but it is slow,” he explained.

Calling for all stakeholders to act together in a comprehensive manner that balances security, legal issues, human rights, and economic, and social concerns, Shehadi claimed that Nahr-el-Bared is a “test case” for changing the camps’ image and establishing a “new order” that Palestinians will trust.

“There is too much emphasis on Palestinian factions, and not enough on Palestinian civil society,” he added, recommending that stabilization and legislative efforts respect that “rights and security should not be a trade-off.”