...so says Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian-Jordanian at the University of Bedfordshire, in today's Jerusalem Post.
The demonization of Israel by the global media has greatly harmed the Palestinians’ interests for decades and covered up Arab atrocities against them. Furthermore, demonizing Israel has been well-exploited by several Arab dictatorships to direct citizens’ rage against Israel instead of their regimes and also to justify any atrocities they commit in the name of protecting their nations from "the evil Zionists."
Zahran details the plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon.
Lebanon, a country with some of the most hostile forces to Israel, has been holing up Palestinians inside camps for almost 30 years. Those camps do not have any foundations of livelihood or even sanitation and the Palestinians living there are not allowed access to basics such as buying cement to enlarge or repair homes for their growing families. Furthermore, it is difficult for them to work legally, and are even restricted from going out of their camps at certain hours. Compare this to the fact that Palestinian laborers were still able to go to work every day in Israel while Hamas was carrying out an average of one suicide bombing per week a few years ago, and until recently launching missiles daily on southern Israel. Not to mention the fact that Israel allows food items and medications into Gaza if handled through the Palestinian Authority.
The Lebanese atrocities toward the Palestinians have been tolerated by the international community, not only by the media. Today, while some Israeli military commanders have to think twice, in fear of legal consequences, before they visit London or Brussels, well-known Lebanese leaders who had directly participated in mass killings of Palestinian civilians, during and after the Lebanese civil war, are becoming world-respected political figures – Nabih Berri, for example, the leader of Amal Shi’ite militia who enforced a multi-year siege on Palestinian camps, cutting water access and food supplies to them. The Palestinians underBerri’s siege were reported to be consuming rats and dogs to survive. Nonetheless, he has been the undisputed speaker of the Lebanese parliament for a long time. He travels frequently to Europe and criticizes Israel for its "crimes against the Palestinians" on every occasion.
Mudar Zahran's depiction of the Palestinians in Lebanon is consistent with this report from Amnesty International. More than 300,000 Palestinians reside in Lebanon, nearly 1/10th of the nations population. All of them, even those who were born and raised in Lebanon, live under heavy restrictions, as "second class citizens," enjoying fewer rights than other foreign residents residing in Lebanon. Fifty-three percent of the Palestinian population lives in refugee camps that AI described as "war-torn, decaying and poverty-stricken."
Most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have had little choice but to live in overcrowded and deteriorating camps and informal gatherings that lack basic infrastructure. The amount of land allocated to official refugee camps has barely changed since 1948, despite a fourfold increase in the registered refugee population. The residents have been forbidden by law from bringing building materials into some camps, preventing the repair, expansion or improvement of homes. Those who have defied the law have faced fines and imprisonment as well as demolition of the new structures. In camps where additional rooms or floors have been added to existing buildings, the alleyways have become even narrower and darker, the majority of homes receive no direct sunlight and, despite the best efforts of the inhabitants, the pervasive smells of rubbish and sewage are at times overwhelming.
The Amnesty International Report goes on to criticize the Lebanese government for laws that limit access to jobs, health care, and education and for refusing to provide ID papers for some Palestinians.
Although this report is nearly three years old, according to a recent article in the Daily Star (a Lebanese newspaper), little seems to have changed for Palestinians. Unemployment and discrimination in the labor market remain pervasive. The article notes that work visas were issued to 37654 Ethiopians, but only 218 Palestinians, in 2009. And although the Lebanese government lifted some of the restrictions on Palestinian labor in 2005, the unemployment is estimated at 60%. This is higher than the CIA's 2009 estimate of the unemployment rate in Gaza, 40%. It's also higher than more recent estimates in both Gaza (33.9%) and the West Bank (16.5%)--according to an English translation of this document.
I don't think there is a single Kossack who does not have empathy for the plight of the Palestinian people. Finding a permanent solution to the conflict in the Middle East is in the best interest of Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and their neighbors. But as Mudar Zahran noted in his editorial, demonizing Israel and ignoring the plight of Palestinians who do not reside in Gaza and the West Bank is not only unfair to Israel, it is harmful to the Palestinians themselves. "Blame Israel" might be a powerful, if simplistic, theme, but it obscures a much more complex, and troubling, reality.