Dateline ACT

Beirut 01/02

A sense of despair - 54 years of being refugees

Beirut, April 3, 2002
By Rainer Lang

"We were given 48 hours to leave our houses in 1948," says Sylvia Haddad, Executive Secretary of the Joint Christian Committee (JCC), a body that supports Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. JCC is a partner of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) - a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.

"These people have suffered a lot", Sylvia says of the Palestinian people living in Lebanon. "They have been refugees for 54 years with no nationality and no passport. And the suffering continues."

"All my political memory is related to war in this region", Marie Mikhael says. The president of The Near East School of Theology (NEST) in the Lebanese capital Beirut is shocked at the escalating violence in the Middle East. Mikhael, who is Syrian, was "born in 1948 - the same year as Israel." She says she is struggling to understand the "logic behind the latest Israeli offensives against the Palestinian people".

Rami Al Khodor shrugs and shakes his head. "No, he cannot think of a solution to the conflict." Rami is a teacher at an electronic school in Beirut, run by JCC. "Palestinians living in Lebanon feel helpless and hopeless", he says, adding that he would immediately return to the Palestinian Territories if he could. "To support my people."

The 23-year old Palestinian was born in Bourj al Shamli camp in southern Lebanon. He says he was lucky to get a Lebanese passport that allows him to work in most professions in the country. It is difficult for Palestinians to find work in Lebanon, as they are barred from employment in 70 professions.

"It's true. There are very few jobs", says Sylvia Haddad.

Many young men simply loiter on the streets and they are the ones Sylvia Haddad wants to involve in vocational training. But she says that it is extremely difficult to convince them to go to school, as they have no sense of a future and see no way for things to improve.

"Everything is rundown here", 40-year old Mahmud Hassan says pointing at the potholes in the street and the ruins left over from the devastating civil war in Lebanon that lasted from 1975 to 1990. Mahmud shares two rooms with his wife and six children.

Thousands of Palestinians live in camps in Lebanon.

The character of the camps has changed over the years. Where tents used to stand, there are now multi-storey buildings, like the ones in Shatilla Camp in Beirut. But the quarter is a warren, with narrow paths separating the poorly constructed buildings. There is no running water. The power supply is sporadic. Garbage rots as it piles up in front of the houses, as there is no regular removal service. For 17,000 people, this is home.

75-year old Kamel Costandi, a retired journalist, remembers when his family fled from Palestine in 1948. He recalls the conditions they were forced to live in when they got to Lebanon. "I remember my old mother sitting in a house in the mountains with no windows. My father and uncle walked all the way to the Lebanon, because they had no money for transport."

For Kamel, the loss of hope and vision in the Palestinian Territories is a tragedy. "Why should I hate Jews? We have been living together. I had Jewish friends in Jaffa."

He believes that Israeli policy serves only to nurture a culture of "hatred and radical movements". He is afraid of the cycle of violence. "Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists will never make peace." And then he adds, "If moderates on both sides get together, maybe then there can be a solution."

Marie Mikhael, who cannot understand why "the world keeps so inactive and silent," welcomes the meeting of ACT members at NEST, aimed at strengthening their response to the emergency. "Palestinians deserve to live in peace", she says.